Ben Davies (tenor)
Ben Davies (6 January 1858 – 28 March 1943) was a Welsh tenor singer, who appeared in opera with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, in operetta and light opera, and on the concert and oratorio platform. He was spoken of as a successor of Edward Lloyd, as a leading British tenor, and retained something of his style and repertoire in concert performance. Training and operatic career, 1881–1891 Ben Davies was born in Pontardawe, Wales. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Alberto Randegger and Signor Fiori. He made his debut in 1881 in Michael Balfe's ''The Bohemian Girl'', and in the following ten years devoted himself principally to the operatic stage. In 1883 he created the role of Gringoire in Arthur Goring Thomas's '' Esmeralda'', in the first Carl Rosa season at Drury Lane Theatre: his future wife Clara Perry was in the cast as Fleur-de-lys. In that time he began to assume the mantle of Edward Lloyd, as the leading British operatic tenor. In 1887 he p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ben Davies As Geoffrey Wilder (Dorothy)
Ben is frequently used as a shortened version of the given names Benjamin, Benedict, Bennett or Benson, and is also a given name in its own right. Ben (in he, בֶּן, ''son of'') forms part of Hebrew surnames, e.g. Abraham ben Abraham ( he, אברהם בן אברהם). Bar-, "son of" in Aramaic, is also seen, e.g. Simon bar Kokhba ( he, שמעון בר כוכבא). Ben meaning "son of" is also found in Arabic as ''Ben'' (dialectal Arabic) or ''bin'' (بن), ''Ibn''/''ebn'' (ابن). People with the given name * Ben Adams (born 1981), member of the British boy band A1 * Ben Affleck (born 1972), American Academy Award-winning actor and screenwriter * Ben Ashkenazy (born 1968/69), American billionaire real estate developer * Ben Askren (born 1984), American sport wrestler and mixed martial artist * Ben Banogu (born 1996), American football player * Ben Barba (born 1989), Australian rugby player * Ben Barnes (other), multiple people * Ben Bartch (born 1998), American ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marie Tempest
Dame Mary Susan Etherington, (15 July 1864 – 15 October 1942), known professionally as Marie Tempest, was an English singer and actress. Tempest became a famous soprano in late Victorian light opera and Edwardian musical comedies. Later, she became a leading comic actress and toured widely in North America and elsewhere. She was, at times, her own theatre manager during a career spanning 55 years. She was also instrumental in the founding of the actors' union Equity in Britain. Life and career Tempest was born in London. Her parents were Edwin Etherington (1838–1880), a stationer, and his wife, Sarah Mary (''née'' Castle). She had a sister, Florence Etherington, who married the theatre manager Michael Levenston. Tempest was educated at Midhurst School and an Ursuline convent in Tildonk, Belgium. Later, she studied music in Paris and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, as a singing pupil of Manuel García, the tutor of Jenny Lind, Mathilde Marchesi and Charles San ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Faust (opera)
''Faust'' is an opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play ''Faust et Marguerite'', in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ''Faust, Part One''. It debuted at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris on 19 March 1859, with influential sets designed by Charles-Antoine Cambon and Joseph Thierry, Jean Émile Daran, Édouard Desplechin, and Philippe Chaperon. Performance history The original version of Faust employed spoken dialogue, and it was in this form that the work was first performed. The manager of the Théâtre Lyrique, Léon Carvalho cast his wife Caroline Miolan-Carvalho as Marguerite and there were various changes during production, including the removal and contraction of several numbers. The tenor Hector Gruyer was originally cast as Faust but was found to be inadequate during rehearsals, being eventually replaced by a principal of the Opéra-Comique, Joseph-Théodore ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (1867) also remains in the international repertory. He composed a large amount of church music, many songs, and popular short pieces including his Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod), Ave Maria (an elaboration of a Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach piece), and ''Funeral March of a Marionette''. Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family Gounod was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France's most prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where he met Felix Mendelssohn, whose advocacy of the music of Bach was an early influence on him. He was deeply religious, and after his return to Paris, he briefly considered becoming a priest. He composed prolifically, writing church music, songs ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, mak ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Bispham
David Scull Bispham (January 5, 1857 – October 2, 1921) was an American operatic baritone. Biography Bispham was born on January 5, 1857 in Philadelphia, the only child of William Danforth Bispham and Jane Lippincott Scull.W. Bispham, 274 Both of Bispham's parents were members of the Society of Friends. In 1867, the family relocated to Moorestown Township, New Jersey. In 1872, Bispham entered Haverford College, from which he was graduated in 1876. After graduation, Bispham entered the wool business with his mother's brothers, all the while continuing to develop his musical talents as an amateur. Bispham appeared in numerous musical performances in his childhood despite having no formal musical training. In 1885, Bispham married Caroline Russell, the daughter of General Charles Sawyer Russell. They would go on to have four children: Jeanette, Vida, Leonie, and David. The Bisphams honeymooned in Europe, and when they returned to Philadelphia, Bispham found work with the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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La Basoche
''La Basoche'' is an opéra comique in three acts, with music by André Messager and words by Albert Carré. The opera is set in Paris in 1514 and depicts the complications that arise when the elected "king" of the student guild, the Basoche, is mistaken for King Louis XII of France. The opera was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1890. Productions soon followed in continental Europe, Britain and the US. After that, the piece was revived repeatedly in France and elsewhere well into the 20th century. Background and first production During the 1880s Messager had met with mixed fortunes. His opérette '' La fauvette du temple'' (1885) and opéra comique '' La Béarnaise'' (1885) ran well, and his ballet '' Les deux pigeons'' (1886) was a box-office triumph. But in the late 1880s success eluded him, and he had three failures in a row: '' Le bourgeois de Calais'' (1888), '' Isoline'' (1888), and '' Le mari de la reine'' (1889).Wagstaff, John, and Andrew Lamb"Message ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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André Messager
André Charles Prosper Messager (; 30 December 1853 – 24 February 1929) was a French composer, organist, pianist and conductor. His compositions include eight ballets and thirty opéra comique, opéras comiques, opérettes and other stage works, among which his ballet ''Les Deux Pigeons (ballet), Les Deux Pigeons'' (1886) and opéra comique ''Véronique (operetta), Véronique'' (1898) have had lasting success; ''Les p'tites Michu, Les P'tites Michu'' (1897) and ''Monsieur Beaucaire (opera), Monsieur Beaucaire'' (1919) were also popular internationally. Messager took up the piano as a small child and later studied composition with, among others, Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré. He became a major figure in the musical life of Paris and later London, both as a conductor and a composer. Many of his Parisian works were also produced in the West End theatre, West End and some on Broadway theatre, Broadway; the most successful had long runs and numerous international revival ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Palace Theatre, London
The Palace Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster in London. Its red-brick facade dominates the west side of Cambridge Circus behind a small plaza near the intersection of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road. The Palace Theatre seats 1,400. Richard D'Oyly Carte, producer of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, commissioned the theatre in the late 1880s. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and intended to be a home of English grand opera. The theatre opened as the Royal English Opera House in January 1891 with a lavish production of Arthur Sullivan's opera ''Ivanhoe''. Although this ran for 160 performances, followed briefly by André Messager's ''La Basoche'', Carte had no other works ready to fill the theatre. He leased it to Sarah Bernhardt for a season and sold the opera house within a year at a loss. It was then converted into a grand music hall and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties, managed successfully first by Sir Augustus Harris and the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ivanhoe (opera)
''Ivanhoe'' is a romantic opera in three acts based on the 1819 novel by Sir Walter Scott, with music by Sir Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by Julian Sturgis. It premiered at the Royal English Opera House on 31 January 1891 for a consecutive run of 155 performances, a record for a grand opera.''Ivanhoe'' at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. This has been surpassed only by 's 2003 production of ''''. Later that year it was performed six more times, making a total of 161 performances.Dailey, Chapter 7 It was toured by [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'' and ''The Mikado''. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord". The son of a military bandmaster, Sullivan composed his first anthem at the age of eight and was later a soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal. In 1856, at 14, he was awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship by the Royal Academy of Music, which allowed him to study at the academy and then at the Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre, Leipzig Conservatoire in Germany. His graduation piece, inc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Red Hussar
''The Red Hussar'' is a comedy opera in three acts by Edward Solomon, with a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens, concerning a young ballad singer who disguises herself as a Hussar to follow her penniless beloved to France. By a feat of gallantry, she saves his life and is promoted to the rank of sergeant. It turns out that she is a rich heiress, and all ends happily. The piece opened at the Lyric Theatre in London on 23 November 1889, running for 175 performances. It was the revised version of an opera written several years earlier called ''The White Sergeant''. It starred Marie Tempest, Hayden Coffin, Arthur Williams and later John Le Hay. The show also had a New York run, opening on 3 August 1890 at Palmer's Theatre until 11 October, with Tempest making her American debut, and then moving to the Grand Opera House. ''The Red Hussar'' has enjoyed other revivals. Roles *Ralph Rodney – Ben Davies *Sir Middlesex Mashem – Albert Christian *Corporal Bundy – Arthur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |