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Anne-Marie Owens
Anne-Marie Owens (born 1955) is an English mezzo-soprano. Born in South Shields, Owens graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she studied with Laura Sarti, and also performed with the National Opera Studio. Her professional debut came as Mistress Quickly with Glyndebourne Touring Opera. In 1985 Owens became a member of the company at English National Opera. Roles which she performed during her time there included Anežka in ''The Two Widows''; Marfa in '' Khovanshchina''; Jezibaba in Rusalka; and Berthe in ''Blond Eckbert''. She has also appeared with the Welsh National Opera; La Monnaie; the Komische Oper Berlin; Scottish Opera; Garsington Opera; Opera Australia; Wexford Festival Opera; and Opera North during her career. In 1996 she created the role of Aunt Hannah Watkins in the world premiere of Tobias Picker's '' Emmeline'' for Santa Fe Opera; the following year she repeated the role at New York City Opera. Owens has appeared in operas ranging ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garsington Opera
Garsington Opera is an annual summer opera festival founded in 1989 by Leonard Ingrams. The Philharmonia Orchestra and The English Concert are its two resident orchestras. For 21 years it was held in the gardens of Ingrams's home at Garsington Manor in Oxfordshire. Since 2011 the festival is held in Wormsley Park, the home of the Getty family near Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire, England. After Ingrams's death in 2005 Anthony Whitworth-Jones became its General Director until 2013 when Douglas Boyd became artistic director. Opera at Garsington A characteristic feature of Garsington Opera's programming has been the combination of well known operas with discoveries of little known works. These have included the British premieres of Richard Strauss' ''Die ägyptische Helena'', Rossini's '' La gazzetta'' and ''L'equivoco stravagante'', and Vivaldi's '' L'incoronazione di Dario''. The festival also gave the first British professional productions of Haydn's ''La vera costanza'', Str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'enfant Et Les Sortilèges
''L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties'' (''The Child and the Spells: A Lyric Fantasy in Two Parts'') is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being ''L'heure espagnole''. Written from 1917 to 1925, ''L'enfant et les sortilèges'' was first performed in Monte Carlo in 1925 conducted by Victor de Sabata. After being offered the opportunity to write a musical work, Colette wrote the text in eight days. Several composers had proposed to Colette that she write to music, but she was only excited by the prospect of Ravel. Composition history During World War I, the Opéra de Paris director Jacques Rouché asked Colette to provide the text for a fairy ballet. Colette originally wrote the story under the title ''Divertissements pour ma fille''. After Colette chose Ravel to set the text to music, a copy was sent to him in 1916 while he was still serving in the war; however, the mailed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Pilgrim's Progress (opera)
''The Pilgrim's Progress'' is an opera by Ralph Vaughan Williams, based on John Bunyan's 1678 allegory ''The Pilgrim's Progress''. The composer himself described the work as a 'Morality' rather than an opera. Nonetheless, he intended the work to be performed on stage, rather than in a church or cathedral. Vaughan Williams himself prepared the libretto, with interpolations from the Bible and also text from his second wife, Ursula Wood. His changes to the story included altering the name of the central character from 'Christian' to 'Pilgrim', so as to universalise the spiritual message. The musical gestation of this opera was protracted, and was reflected in a number of musical projects in Vaughan Williams' life. For example, his earlier one-act opera ''The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains'' from 1921 was incorporated into Act 4, Scene 2 of the later opera. His Symphony No. 5 also made use of themes originally conceived for his John Bunyan project. In 1940 he wrote a motet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir John In Love
''Sir John in Love'' is an opera in four acts by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The libretto, by the composer himself, is based on Shakespeare's ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' and supplemented with texts by Philip Sidney, Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher. The music deploys English folk tunes, including "Greensleeves". Originally titled ''The Fat Knight'', Kennedy, Michael, ''The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams''. Oxford University Press (1964), p. 218. the opera premiered at the Parry Opera Theatre, Royal College of Music, London, on 21 March 1929. Its first professional performance was on 9 April 1946 at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Performance history Performances of the opera have remained rare, including 1978 and 1988 productions by the Bronx Opera (New York City) and a 1997 Barbican concert performance. After 1958, the opera remained unstaged in the UK until the 2006 production at English National Opera (ENO), which was ENO's first production ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mask Of Orpheus
''The Mask of Orpheus'' is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle, electronic music realised by Barry Anderson (composer), Barry Anderson and a libretto by Peter Zinovieff. It was premiered in London at the English National Opera on 21 May 1986 to great critical acclaim. The work has only been fully staged twice, both at the English National Opera. A recorded version conducted by Andrew Davis (conductor), Andrew Davis and Martyn Brabbins has also received good reviews. The work is around three hours long. Synopsis The structure of the opera's plot is complex. Rather than telling a story by starting at A and going through B to C, ''The Mask of Orpheus'' explores the Orpheus myth in a number of directions at once, examining the various contradictions which are in the various versions of the myth. This is done by a very elaborate stage design, whereby the stage is divided into a number of different areas, each containing its own part of the action. In addition, each of the majo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Turn Of The Screw (opera)
''The Turn of the Screw'' is a 20th-century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, "wife of the artist John Piper, who had been a friend of the composer since 1935 and had provided designs for several of the operas". Kennedy, Michael, "Benjamin Britten", in The libretto is based on the 1898 novella ''The Turn of the Screw'' by Henry James. The opera was commissioned by the Venice Biennale and given its world premiere on 14 September 1954, at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice. The original recording was made during January of the next year, with the composer conducting. Described as one of the most dramatically appealing English operas, the opera in two acts has a prologue and sixteen scenes, each preceded by a variation on the twelve-note 'Screw' theme. Typically of Britten, the music mixes tonality and dissonance, with Britten's recurrent use of a twelve-tone figure being perhaps a nod to the approach of Arnold Schoenberg. Thematical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristan Und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "" (literally ''a drama'', ''a plot'', or ''an action''). Wagner's composition of ''Tristan und Isolde'' was inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (particularly ''The World as Will and Representation''), as well as by Wagner's affair with Mathilde Wesendonck. Widely acknowledged as a pinnacle of the operatic repertoire, ''Tristan'' was notable for Wagner's unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour, and harmonic suspension. The opera was enormously influential among Western classical com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013 (when it filed for bankruptcy), and again since 2016 when it was revived. The opera company, dubbed "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943. The company's stated purpose was to make opera accessible to a wide audience at a reasonable ticket price. It also sought to produce an innovative choice of repertory, and provide a home for American singers and composers. The company was originally housed at the New York City Center theater on West 55th Street in Manhattan. It later became part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at the New York State Theater from 1966 to 2010. During this time it produced autumn and spring seasons of opera in repertory, and maintained extensive education and outreach programs, offering arts-in-education programs to 4,000 students in over 30 schools. In 2011, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the ''Opera Association of New Mexico'' in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby (conductor), John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newly acquired former guest ranch of . The company has presented operas each summer festival season since July 1957, and is internationally known for introducing new operas as well as for its productions of the List of important operas, standard operatic repertoire. Since its inception, Santa Fe Opera has staged 43 American premieres and 15 world premieres, as of 2017. General history John Crosby, who was a New York-based conductor, founded the company in 1956, initially with the financial support of his parents, who helped in the acquisition of the land and the building of the first opera house. One goal was to give American singers the opportunity to learn and perform new roles while having ample time for rehearsa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emmeline (opera)
''Emmeline'' is an opera in two acts composed by American Tobias Picker with a libretto by J. D. McClatchy. Picker's first opera, it was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera company and premiered in 1996. Based on Judith Rossner's Emmeline (Rossner novel), novel of the same name, Emmeline is an American retelling of the Oedipus myth from the mother’s viewpoint. In 2009, a chamber version of ''Emmeline'' was created for the Dicapo Opera. In 2015, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis mounted a major new production of Emmeline that won universal acclaim. Roles Synopsis In Act I, the Mosher family in Maine has just finished burying another child. Emmeline's Aunt Hannah convinces her father to send 14-year-old Emmeline to work in a Lowell, Massachusetts textile mill so that she can send money back to the family to help them survive. Many of the mill girls live in a boarding house directed by Mrs. Bass, who leads them in prayers and tries to promote their good behavior. Emmeline is seduced by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tobias Picker
Tobias Picker (born July 18, 1954) is an American composer, artistic director, and pianist, noted for his orchestral works ''Old and Lost Rivers'', ''Keys To The City'', and ''The Encantadas'', as well as his operas ''Emmeline'', ''Fantastic Mr. Fox'', ''An American Tragedy'' and ''Awakenings,'' among many other works. Biography 1954–1975: Early years, influences, and education Picker was born in New York City on July 18, 1954, the son of painter and fashion designer Henriette Simon Picker and news-writer Julian Picker, and the cousin of film executive David V. Picker, businessman Harvey Picker, former CEO of The American Film Institute Jean Picker Firstenberg, art-patron Stanley Picker, producer Jimmy Picker, and economist Kenneth Rogoff. At the age of eight, he began composing and studying the piano: Picker started composing in 1962, and, that same year, began corresponding with composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who encouraged his studies. Three years later, Picker was taken ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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