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Dioclesian
''Dioclesian'' (''The Prophetess: or, The History of Dioclesian'') is an English tragicomic semi-opera in five acts by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Thomas Betterton based on the play '' The Prophetess'', by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, which in turn was based very loosely on the life of the Emperor Diocletian. It was premiered in late May 1690 at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden. The play was first produced in 1622. Choreography for the various dances was provided by Josias Priest, who worked with Purcell on several other semi-operas. Betterton reworked the play extensively, making room for a great deal of Purcell's music, notably in the 'monster' scene at the end of Act II and the final Masque about the victory of Love, which remained popular until well into the eighteenth century. The premier production had a Prologue written by John Dryden that was suppressed after only one performance; it was far too critical of King William's military campaign in Ireland. Synop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Prophetess (play)
''The Prophetess'' is a late Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. It was initially published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647. Date and performance The play was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 14 May 1622. It was acted by the King's Men; the cast included John Lowin, Joseph Taylor, Robert Benfield, Nicholas Tooley, John Shank, George Birch, Richard Sharpe, and Thomas Holcombe. Authorship Due to Fletcher's distinctive stylistic profile, the division of authorship in the play is largely clear and unambiguous. Cyrus Hoy gave this breakdown of the two writers' relative shares: :Fletcher – Act I; Act III, Act V, scene 3; :Massinger – Act II; Act IV; Act V, scenes 1 and 2. E. H. C. Oliphant provided the same scheme, except for an assignment of V,2 to Fletcher. Massinger may have revised the original play in 1629, for a revival in July of that year. One source of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden
The Dorset Garden Theatre in London, built in 1671, was in its early years also known as the Duke of York's Theatre, or the Duke's Theatre. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned as James II. When the Duke became King, the theatre became the Queen's Theatre in 1685, referring to James' second wife, Mary of Modena. The name remained when William III and Mary II came to the throne in 1689. It was the fourth home of the Duke's Company, one of the two patent theatre companies in Restoration London, and after 1682 continued to be used by the company's successor, the United Company. It was demolished in 1709. Background After years of being banned during the Interregnum, theatre performances were again permitted on the Restoration of Charles II with the grant of Letters Patent to two companies to perform "legitimate drama" in London. The Duke's Company was patronised by the Duke of York (later James II); the other patent theatre comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest English opera composers, Purcell is often linked with John Dunstaple and William Byrd as England's most important early music composers. No later native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin Britten in the 20th century. Life and work Early life Purcell was born in St Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, Westminster – the area of London later known as Devil's Acre, a notorious slum – in 1659. Henry Purcell Senior, whose older brother Thomas Purcell was a musician, was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal and sang at the coronation of King Charles II of England. Henry the elder had three sons: Edward, Henry and Daniel. Daniel Purcell, the youngest of the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diocletian
Diocletian (; la, Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus, grc, Διοκλητιανός, Diokletianós; c. 242/245 – 311/312), nicknamed ''Iovius'', was Roman emperor from 284 until his abdication in 305. He was born Gaius Valerius Diocles to a family of low status in the Roman province of Dalmatia. Diocles rose through the ranks of the military early in his career, eventually becoming a cavalry commander for the army of Emperor Carus. After the deaths of Carus and his son Numerian on a campaign in Persia, Diocles was proclaimed emperor by the troops, taking the name Diocletianus. The title was also claimed by Carus's surviving son, Carinus, but Diocletian defeated him in the Battle of the Margus. Diocletian's reign stabilized the empire and ended the Crisis of the Third Century. He appointed fellow officer Maximian as ''Augustus'', co-emperor, in 286. Diocletian reigned in the Eastern Empire, and Maximian reigned in the Western Empire. Diocletian delegated further on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semi-opera
The terms "semi-opera", "dramatic opera" and "English opera" were all applied to Restoration entertainments that combined spoken plays with masque-like episodes employing singing and dancing characters. They usually included machines in the manner of the restoration spectacular. The first examples were the Shakespeare adaptations produced by Thomas Betterton with music by Matthew Locke. After Locke's death, a second flowering produced the semi-operas of Henry Purcell, notably ''King Arthur'' and ''The Fairy-Queen''. Semi-opera received a deathblow when the Lord Chamberlain separately licensed plays without music and the new Italian opera. Semi-operas were performed with singing, speaking and dancing roles. When music was written, it was usually for moments in the play immediately following either love scenes or those concerning the supernatural. It has been observedCurtis Price and Louise K. Stein: "Semi-opera" in ''New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' that several of Calderón's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semi-opera
The terms "semi-opera", "dramatic opera" and "English opera" were all applied to Restoration entertainments that combined spoken plays with masque-like episodes employing singing and dancing characters. They usually included machines in the manner of the restoration spectacular. The first examples were the Shakespeare adaptations produced by Thomas Betterton with music by Matthew Locke. After Locke's death, a second flowering produced the semi-operas of Henry Purcell, notably ''King Arthur'' and ''The Fairy-Queen''. Semi-opera received a deathblow when the Lord Chamberlain separately licensed plays without music and the new Italian opera. Semi-operas were performed with singing, speaking and dancing roles. When music was written, it was usually for moments in the play immediately following either love scenes or those concerning the supernatural. It has been observedCurtis Price and Louise K. Stein: "Semi-opera" in ''New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' that several of Calderón's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trevor Pinnock
Trevor David Pinnock (born 16 December 1946 in Canterbury, England) is a British harpsichordist and conductor. He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert, which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and classical music. He is a former artistic director of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra and founded The Classical Band in New York. Since his resignation from The English Concert in 2003, Pinnock has continued his career as a conductor, appearing with major orchestras and opera companies around the world. He has also performed and recorded as a harpsichordist in solo and chamber music and conducted and otherwise trained student groups at conservatoires. Trevor Pinnock won a Gramophone Award for his recording of Bach's ''Brandenburg Concertos'' with the European Brandenburg Ensemble, an occasional orchestra formed to mark his 60th birthday. Biography and career Early life Trevor Pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josias Priest
Josias Priest (''c.'' 1645 – 3 January 1735 in Chelsea, London) was an English dancer, dancing-master and choreographer. Biography In 1669, Priest was arrested along with four others for dancing and making music without a license. In 1668, he was a dancing-master in Holborn, and in 1675 he moved to Leicester Fields to run a boarding school for gentlewomen. In 1680 he started a similar school at Gorge's House in Chelsea, London. Here Priest hosted operas, including John Blow's '' Venus and Adonis'' (1684) and Henry Purcell's ''Dido and Aeneas'' (1689). It is widely believed that Priest choreographed dances for these and other semi-operas by Purcell, including ''Dioclesian'', ''The Fairy-Queen'', '' The Indian Queen'', and '' King Arthur'' ; however, the evidence is not entirely conclusive. In 1699 Thomas Bray published a collection of dance music which included music for dances by Josias Priest and his son, Thomas Priest. Only one dance by Priest survives, a 'Minuet by Mr Pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curtis Price
Sir Curtis Alexander Price, KBE (born 1945, in Springfield, Missouri, USA) was the Warden of New College, Oxford, between October 2009 and September 2016. He was previously principal of the Royal Academy of Music from 1995 to 2008 and Professor of Music in the University of London. He retired as the warden of New College at the end of August 2016. Price was raised in Charleston, Illinois, and received his undergraduate musical training at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He attained a Ph.D from Harvard University. He moved to the United Kingdom in 1981 to teach at King's College London, latterly as head of department. Price is a trustee of Musica Britannica, the Handel House Museum and the British Library Sound Archive, a governor of the Purcell School and a Patron of Bampton Classical Opera. During his tenure as principal of Royal Academy of Music, the academy became a full school of University of London, it developed collaborations with Juilliard School (New York) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Burden
Michael Burden, FAHA, (born 14 March 1960) is an Australian musicologist, working in the United Kingdom. He was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2018. Life Born in Adelaide, South Australia, he was educated at Pulteney Grammar School and the University of Adelaide; his took his PhD at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently Fellow in Music, Dean and Chattels Fellow at New College, Oxford; he is also director of New Chamber Opera, and Professor of Opera Studies in the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford. In 2016, he became one of the patrons of the St Peter’s Cathedral Music Foundation, which supports the music of St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide. Academic Service He served as Chair of the Board of the University of Oxford's music faculty from 2015 to 2018. From 2007 until 2015, he was a Visitor to Oxford's Ashmolean Museum; he is also curator of the Music Faculty's collection of portraits. In the academic year 2009-2010, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Deller
Alfred George Deller, CBE (31 May 1912 – 16 July 1979), was an English singer and one of the main figures in popularising the return of the countertenor voice in Renaissance and Baroque music during the 20th century. He is sometimes referred to as the "godfather of the countertenor". His style in singing lute song, with extensive use of rubato and extemporised ornamentation, was seen as radical and controversial in his day but is now considered the norm. Deller was an influential figure in the renaissance of early music: an early proponent of "original instrument performance" and one of the first to bring this form to the popular consciousness through his broadcasts on the BBC. He also founded the Stour Music Festival in 1962, one of the first and most important early music festivals in the world. Life and career Church music Deller was born in Margate, a seaside resort in Kent. As a boy, he sang in his local church choir. When his voice broke, he continued singing in his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Hickox
Richard Sidney Hickox (5 March 1948 – 23 November 2008) was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. Early life Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family. After attending the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe from 1959 to 1966, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1966 to 1967, then was an organ scholar at Queens' College, Cambridge from 1967 to 1970. Career In 1967, while his father was Vicar of Wooburn, Buckinghamshire, Hickox founded the Wooburn Festival and eventually became its president. The Festival still takes place and features music, drama and the visual arts. Hickox also founded the Wooburn Singers and continued as conductor until succeeded by Stephen Jackson. From 1970 to 1971 Hickox was Director of Music at Maidenhead Grammar School (later Desborough School). He founded the City of London Sinfonia in 1971, remaining music director until his death, and also founded the Richard Hickox Si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
