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David Parry (conductor)
David Parry (born 23 March 1949) is an English conductor who is particularly known for his work in opera. Described as "a man of the theatre with whom directors love to work; he is good with singers; he knows the British opera world like the back of his hand. He is a controversial and outspoken defender of the operatic form, and a passionate advocate of opera in English", his work includes a large discography of complete opera recordings of rarely performed works made on the Opera Rara and Chandos record labels, as well as works recorded with well-known British and European orchestras. Parry is also a member of the support staff of the Cardiff International Academy of Voice Early career Parry was educated at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music in London. He explains how he became a conductor by way of wanting to be a singer: "Audrey Langford, who was a very important singing teacher in the 1960s and '70s, ran a rather good choir which she conducted herself, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera Rara
Opera Rara is a London-based opera company and recording label which specialises in recording and performing forgotten operatic repertoire from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Founded in 1970 by bel canto enthusiasts Patric Schmid and Don White, Opera Rara's recordings are internationally distributed by Warner Classics. In September 2019, Italian conductor Carlo Rizzi succeeded Sir Mark Elder as Artistic Director. History Opera Rara launched in the 1970s with a series of concerts of 19th-century operatic arias performed at the Southbank Centre, St John’s Smith Square and Wigmore Hall in London. The company presented its first complete opera - Meyerbeer’s '' Il crociato in Egitto'' - in 1972 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, marking the first performance of the opera for more than 100 years. It subsequently performed at the Bath Festival, Camden Festival (where its first staged production was Donizetti’s '' Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali'') and Sadler’s Well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Moores (businessman)
Sir Peter Moores (9 April 1932 – 23 March 2016) was a British businessman, art collector and philanthropist who was chairman of the Liverpool-based Littlewoods football pools and retailing business in the United Kingdom between 1977 and 1980. His father, Sir John Moores, was the founder of the Littlewoods company, though the family no longer owns it. In the Sunday Times Rich List 2006 the Moores' family wealth was estimated at £1,160m. Peter Moores was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. His elder sister Lady Grantchester (née Betty Moores), who died in 2019, was the widow of Kenneth Bent Suenson-Taylor, 2nd Baron Grantchester (1921–1995). Peter Moores Foundation At the age of 32 in 1964, Moores set up the charity Peter Moores Foundation supporting music and the visual arts, but also education, health, social and environmental projects. The Foundation continued in existence until 5 April 2014, when its funds were exhausted. During its fifty years, ... [...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] |
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] |
English National Opera
English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in English. The company's origins were in the late 19th century, when the philanthropist Emma Cons, later assisted by her niece Lilian Baylis, presented theatrical and operatic performances at the Old Vic, for the benefit of local people. Baylis subsequently built up both the opera and the theatre companies, and later added a ballet company; these evolved into the ENO, the Royal National Theatre and The Royal Ballet, respectively. Baylis acquired and rebuilt the Sadler's Wells theatre in north London, a larger house, better suited to opera than the Old Vic. The opera company grew there into a permanent ensemble in the 1930s. During the Second World War, the theatre was closed and the company toured British towns and cities. After the war, the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norfolk And Norwich Festival
Norfolk & Norwich Festival is an arts festival held annually in Norwich, England. It is one of the oldest city festivals in England, having been held since 1824 and tracing its roots back further to 1772. It was initially conceived as a fundraiser for the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital. For most of its history was a purely classical musical festival which saw performances by many famous artistes, composers and conductors. In recent years the festival has moved away from this focus, and has diversified to include a variety of circus, performance, contemporary music, dance, visual arts and children's events. Today Norfolk & Norwich Festival is an arts organisation based in Norwich, England which is primarily responsible for the eponymous international arts festival held annually each May, with events also held throughout the wider county of Norfolk. The Festival organisation works on creative learning schemes across Norfolk with support from Arts Council England and Norwich and Norfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Almeida Opera Festival
The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325-seat producing house with an international reputation, which takes its name from the street on which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama. Successful plays are often transferred to West End theatres. Early history The theatre was built in 1837 for the newly formed Islington Literary and Scientific Society and included a library, reading room, museum, laboratory, and a lecture theatre seating 500. The architects were the fashionable partnership of Robert Lewis Roumieu and Alexander Dick Gough. The library was sold off in 1872 and the building disposed of in 1874 to the Wellington Club (Almeida Street then being called Wellington Street) which occupied it until 1886. In 1885 the hall was used for concerts, balls, and public meetings. The Salvation Army bought the building in 1890, renaming it the Wellington Castle Barracks (Wellington Castle Citadel from 190 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ricciardo E Zoraide
''Ricciardo e Zoraide'' (''Ricciardo and Zoraide'') is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Berio di Salsa. The text is based on cantos XIV and XV of '' Il Ricciardetto'', an epic poem by Niccolò Forteguerri. Performance history ''Ricciardo e Zoraide'' was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, on 3 December 1818. It continued to be performed until 1846 but fell out of favor afterwards and was not performed in public again until its revival at the Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival in 1990. The Rossini Opera Festival featured a new production of the opera in 2018. Among other performances, the opera received a production at the Rossini in Wildbad festival in 2013. Roles Synopsis :Place: the city of Dongola in ancient Nubia. :Time: The time of the Crusades The Nubian King Agorante, who is infatuated with Zoraide, has defeated her father, Ircano and captured her. Ricciardo, a Christian knight and Zoraide's lover, accompanies a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saverio Mercadante
Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (baptised 17 September 179517 December 1870) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as prolific a number of works as either; and his development of operatic structures, melodic styles and orchestration contributed significantly to the foundations upon which Giuseppe Verdi built his dramatic technique. Biography Early years Mercadante was born illegitimate in Altamura, near Bari in Apulia; his precise date of birth has not been recorded, but he was baptised on 17 September 1795. Mercadante studied flute, violin and composition at the conservatory in Naples, and organized concerts among his compatriots.Michael Rose, "Mercadante: Flute Concertos", booklet accompanying the 2004 RCA CD recording with James Galway and I Solisti Veneti under Claudio Scimone. The opera composer Gioachino Rossini sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Mayr
Johann(es) Simon Mayr (also spelled Majer, Mayer, Maier), also known in Italian as Giovanni Simone Mayr or Simone Mayr (14 June 1763 – 2 December 1845), was a German composer. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era. He was an early inspiration to Rossini and taught and advocated for Donizetti. Life He was born in Mendorf near Altmannstein, Landkreis Eichstätt, Bavaria, and studied theology at the University of Ingolstadt, continuing his studies in Italy from 1787. He was closely associated with the Illuminati of Adam Weishaupt while a student in Ingolstadt, and the ideals of the French Enlightenment were a strong influence on his philosophy as a musician as corroborated by his famed ''Zibaldone'' or "Notebooks" compiled toward the end of his career. Shortly thereafter, he took music lessons with Carlo Lenzi, and later with Ferdinando Bertoni. He moved to Bergamo in 1802 and was appointed ''maestro di cappella'' at the Cath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Pacini
Giovanni Pacini (11 February 17966 December 1867) was an Italian composer, best known for his operas. Pacini was born in Catania, Sicily, the son of the buffo Luigi Pacini, who was to appear in the premieres of many of Giovanni's operas. The family was of Tuscan origin, living in Catania when the composer was born. His first 25 or so operas were written when Gioachino Rossini dominated the Italian operatic stage. But Pacini's operas were "rather superficial", a fact which, later, he candidly admitted in his ''Memoirs''.Rose 2001, in Holden, p. 650 For some years he held the post of "director of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples." Later, retiring to Viareggio to found a school of music, Pacini took time to assess the state of opera in Italy and, during a five-year period during which he stopped composing, laid out his ideas in his Memoirs. Like Saverio Mercadante, who also reassessed the strength and weaknesses of this period in opera, Pacini's style did change, but he quickly becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
