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Anthony Besch
Anthony John Elwyn Besch (5 February 1924 – 23 December 2002) was an English opera and theatre director. As a young man he worked at Glyndebourne assisting the directors Carl Ebert and Günther Rennert. His first work as an opera director was for Welsh National Opera in 1954. Among other British companies with whom he worked were Opera North, D'Oyly Carte, The Royal Opera, the Aldeburgh Festival and Garsington Opera. He was most closely associated with English National Opera (and its predecessor, Sadler's Wells Opera), Scottish Opera, and the New Opera Company. Besch established an international reputation, and directed operas in continental Europe, North and South America and Australia. He was wary of "concept" productions, preferring to stage operas in a traditional manner, with what the critic Alan Blyth called "his scrupulous eye for what looked good and proved practical on stage." Life and career Early years Besch was born in London and educated at Rossall School, where h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England. History Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1941–45 during World War II and 1993 when the theatre was being rebuilt, for a 1994 reopening. Gus Christie, son of Sir George Christie and grandson of festival founder John Christie, became festival chairman in 2000. Since the company's inception, Glyndebourne has been particularly celebrated for its productions of Mozart operas. Recordings of Glyndebourne's past historic Mozart productions have been reissued. Other notable productions included their 1980s production of George Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'', directed by Trevor Nunn, and later expanded from the Glyndebourne stage and videotaped in 1993 for television, with Nunn again directing. While Mozart operas have continued to be the mainstay of its repertory, the compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Love's Labours Lost
''Love's Labour's Lost'' is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Elizabeth I of England, Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to swear off the company of women for three years in order to focus on study and fasting. Their subsequent infatuation with the Princess of France and her ladies makes them forsworn (break their oath). In an untraditional ending for a comedy, the play closes with the death of the Princess's father, and all weddings are delayed for a year. The play draws on themes of masculine love and desire, reckoning and rationalisation, and reality versus fantasy. Though first published in quarto in 1598, the play's title page suggests a revision of an earlier version of the play. There are no obvious sources for the play's plot. The use of apostrophes in the play's title varies in early editions, though it is most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sicilian Vespers
The Sicilian Vespers ( it, Vespri siciliani; scn, Vespiri siciliani) was a successful rebellion on the island of Sicily that broke out at Easter 1282 against the rule of the French-born king Charles I of Anjou, who had ruled the Kingdom of Sicily since 1266. Within six weeks, approximately 13,000 French men and women were slain by the rebels, and the government of Charles lost control of the island. This began the War of the Sicilian Vespers. Background The papacy versus the House of Hohenstaufen The rising had its origin in the Investiture Controversy, struggle of investiture between the pope and the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Emperors for control of Italy, especially the Church's private demesne known as the Papal States. These lay between Hohenstaufen lands in northern Italy and the Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Sicily in the south; the Hohenstaufens also, at the time, ruled Germany. In 1245 Pope Innocent IV Excommunication, excommunicated Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, Fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics known as the Delegates of the Press, who are appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 500 years, OUP has primarily focused on the publication of pedagogical texts and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moran Caplat
Moran Victor Hingston Caplat, CBE (1 October 1916 - 19 June 2003) was an English opera manager, associated throughout his career with Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Life and career Early years Caplat was born in Herne Bay, Kent, the only child of Armand Charles Victor Roger Caplat, a French-born architect, and his wife, Norah Bessie, ''née'' Hingston. He was educated locally. When he was fifteen he saw a touring production of ''Twelfth Night'' by the Ben Greet company which made him stage-struck, and in 1933 he was accepted as a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. After graduation from the academy, Caplat acted in repertory companies at Margate and Croydon and toured with Matheson Lang. He appeared in a couple of films and acted in Stephen Spender's first play, ''Trial of a Judge'', at the Unity Theatre, London. His last position as an actor was with the local repertory company in Sevenoaks. Caplat was a keen yachtsman, and with war approaching he joined the Roya ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Royal, Windsor
The Theatre Royal is an Edwardian era, Edwardian theatre on Thames Street in Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor in Berkshire. The present building is the second theatre to stand on this site and opened on 13 December 1910. Built for Sir Wiliam Shipley and Captain Reginald Shipley, it was a replacement for their previous theatre which was built in 1815 and had burnt down in 1908. The present theatre was designed by Frank Verity, the son of the theatre architect Thomas Verity. The building is Listed building, Grade II listed and is the only unsubsidised producing theatre to operate all year round in the United Kingdom. History First Theatre Royal (1815-1908) The first Theatre Royal in Windsor was located on the High Street and opened on 12 August 1793. This theatre was described as 'elegant and splendidly ornamented' and opened with a performance of Elizabeth Inchbald's comedy ''Everyone has his Fault'' (1793) and the musical farce ''Rosina'' and was attended by George III of the United Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northanger Abbey
''Northanger Abbey'' () is a coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ... novel and a satire of Gothic novels written by Jane Austen. Austen was also influenced by Charlotte Lennox's ''The Female Quixote'' (1752). ''Northanger Abbey'' was completed in 1803, the first of Austen's novels completed in full, but was published posthumously in 1817 with ''Persuasion (novel), Persuasion''. The story concerns Catherine Morland, the naïve young protagonist, and her journey to a better understanding of herself and of the world around her. How Catherine views the world has been distorted by her fondness for Gothic novels and an active imagination. Plot summary Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland is one of ten children of a country clergyman. Although a tomboy in he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane Austen
Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage in the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of biting irony, along with her realism and social commentary, have earned her acclaim among critics, scholars and readers alike. With the publication of ''Sense and Sensibility'' (1811), '' Pride and Prejudice'' (1813), ''Mansfield Park'' (1814), and '' Emma'' (1816), she achieved modest success but only little fame in her lifetime since the books were published anonymously. She wrote two other novels—''Northanger Abbey'' and '' Persuasion'', both published posthumou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Beggar's Opera
''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. ''The Beggar's Opera'' premiered at the Lisle's Tennis Court, Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the second-longest run in theatre history up to that time (after 146 performances of Robert Cambert's ''Pomone (opera), Pomone'' in Paris in 1671). The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century". In 1920, ''The Beggar's Opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Idomeneo
' (Italian for ''Idomeneus, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante''; usually referred to simply as ''Idomeneo'', K. 366) is an Italian language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, based on a 1705 play by Crébillion père, which had been set to music by André Campra as ''Idoménée'' in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it may have been Mozart. The work premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, Germany. Composition The libretto clearly draws inspiration from Metastasio in its overall layout, the type of character development, and the highly poetic language used in the various numbers and the ''secco'' and ''stromentato'' recitatives. The style of the choruses, marches, and ballets is very French, and the shipwreck scene towards the end of act I is alm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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