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Edward James
Edward Frank Willis James (16 August 1907 – 2 December 1984) was a British poet known for his patronage of the surrealist art movement. Early life and marriage James was born on 16 August 1907, the only son of William James (who had inherited a fortune from his father, merchant Daniel James) and Evelyn Forbes, a Scots socialite. He was reputedly fathered by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and in his anecdotal reminiscences, recorded in ''Swans Reflecting Elephants – My Early Years'', Edward James also puts forward this hypothesis. In his memoirs he wrote "I was not, I was, in fact, his grandson" saying that it was his grandmother that had an affair with the Prince of Wales. However, there was also popular belief that Forbes was one of the Prince of Wales's mistresses and there was a much-quoted ballad by Hilaire Belloc intimating this at the time. Edward James had four older sisters: Audrey, Millicent, Xandra, and Silvia. He was educated at Lockers Park School, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and nicknamed "Bertie", Edward was related to royalty throughout Europe. He was Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the British throne for almost 60 years. During the long reign of his mother, he was largely excluded from political influence and came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite. He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and of the Indian subcontinent in 1875 proved popular successes, but despite public approval, his reputation as a playboy prince soured his relationship with his mother. As king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorgani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Kochno
Boris Evgenievich Kochno or Kokhno (russian: Бори́с Евге́ньевич Кохно́; 3 January 1904 – 8 December 1990) was a Russian poet, dancer and librettist. Early life Kochno was born in Moscow, Russia, on 3 January 1904. His father served as a colonel in the hussars. He studied at the Imperial Lyceum in Moscow before emigrating to Paris in 1920. Career He was close with Karol Szymanowski, who gave him as a gift a Russian translation of the chapter ''The Symposium'' from his unpublished novel ''Efebos''.Stephen Downes, "Eros and Paneuropeanism", in Harry White and Michael Murphy, eds., ''Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History and Ideology of European Musical Cultute, 1800-1945'' (Cork University Press, 2001), 51-71, esp. 52, 66-7 Szymanowski also dedicated four poems to him. In 1920 he became Sergei Diaghilev's secretary, librettist, and eventually main collaborator. They were also briefly lovers. Kochno wrote the libretto of Stravinsky ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Balanchine
George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze; ka, გიორგი მელიტონის ძე ბალანჩივაძე; January 22, 1904 (O. S. January 9) – April 30, 1983) was an ethnic Georgian American ballet choreographer who was one of the most influential 20th-century choreographers. Styled as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its artistic director for more than 35 years.Joseph Horowitz (2008)''Artists in Exile: How Refugees from 20th-century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts.''HarperCollins. His choreography is characterized by plotless ballets with minimal costume and décor, performed to classical and neoclassical music. Born in St. Petersburg, Balanchine took the standards and technique from his time at the Imperial Ballet School and fused it with other schools of movement that he had adopted during his tenure on Broadway and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lotte Lenya
Lotte Lenya (born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer; 18 October 1898 – 27 November 1981) was an Austrian-American singer, diseuse, and actress, long based in the United States. In the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her first husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language cinema, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a jaded aristocrat in '' The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone'' (1961). She also played the murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie '' From Russia with Love'' (1963). Early career In 1922, Lenya was seen by her future husband, German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill, during an audition for his first stage score ''Zaubernacht'', but because of his position behind the piano, she did not see him. She was cast, but owing to her loyalty to her voice coach, she declined the role. She accepted the part of Jenny in the first performance of ''The Threepenny Opera'' (''Die Dreigrosch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work, '' The Threepenny Opera'', which included the ballad " Mack the Knife". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose,Kurt Weill Cjschuler.net. Retrieved on August 22, 2011. ''''. He also wrote several works for the concert hall and a number of works on Jewish themes. He became a United States citizen on August 27, 1943. |
Les Ballets 1933
Les Ballets 1933 was a ballet company started by Boris Kochno and George Balanchine, which Balanchine used to create new works that were completely his own, set to music that no one had yet choreographed. The company ran for less than four weeks in 1933 and tailored itself to small, wealthy audiences in Paris (the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées) and London (Savoy Theatre), but despite its scale, it came out with works that Balanchine later used to instruct at his School of American Ballet, and in the programs of his later companies. Outside a theatre for Les Ballets, Balanchine first met Lincoln Kirstein.Reynolds, Nancy. "Ballets 1933." ''The International Encyclopedia of Dance''. Ed. Selma J. Cohen. Oxford University Press, 2005. Wollman Library, Barnard College. Web. 11 July 2013. History Kochno and Balanchine came directly out of the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo, owned by René Blum and Colonel W. de Basil, for which Kochno had been the librettist and Balanchine the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Howard (poet)
Brian Christian de Claiborne Howard (13 March 1905 – 15 January 1958) was an English poet and later a writer for the ''New Statesman''. Biography Howard was born to American parents in Hascombe, Surrey, of Protestant descent, a descendant of Benjamin Franklin, and brought up in London; his father, Francis Gassaway Howard, was the son of the writer Frank Gassaway, and was an associate of James Whistler. He was educated at Eton College, where he was one of the ''Eton Arts Society'' group including Robert Byron, Harold Acton, Oliver Messel, Anthony Powell and Henry Yorke. He entered Christ Church, Oxford in 1923, not without difficulty. He was prominent in the group later known as the Oxford Wits. He was part of the Hypocrites' Club that included Harold Acton, Lord David Cecil, L. P. Hartley and Evelyn Waugh. At Oxford, Howard was part of the Railway Club, which included: Henry Yorke, Roy Harrod, Henry Thynne, 6th Marquess of Bath, David Plunket Greene, Edwar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television. Life Early life and education Betjeman was born John Betjemann. He was the son of a prosperous silverware maker of Dutch descent. His parents, Mabel (''née'' Dawson) and Ernest Betjemann, had a family firm at 34–42 Pentonville Road which manufactured the kind of ornamental household furniture and gadgets distinctive to Victorians. During the First World War the family name was changed to the less German-looking Betjeman. His father's forebears had actually come from the present day Netherlands more than a century earlier, setting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Arthur James
John Arthur James, MVO DL (1853–1917) was the son of a wealthy Liverpool merchant who became a friend of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), sharing his interest in horse racing. In 1885 he married Mary Venetia Cavendish-Bentinck (1861–1948), godmother to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Early years James’s parents were Daniel and Sophia James, Americans living in Liverpool, England. He was educated privately at Woodbridge in Suffolk and admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on 24 February 1870 graduating BA in 1874. After his father died in 1876, James joined the family business, but left in 1879. He enjoyed a period of bachelorhood with his two brothers, Frank and William, living in London, shooting in Scotland and big game hunting in Africa. Together they explored uncharted areas of Africa, and Frank, who was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, published details on their return. Horseracing In 1885 James married Mary Venetia Cavendish-Bent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Acton
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton (5 July 1904 – 27 February 1994) was a British writer, scholar, and aesthete who was a prominent member of the Bright Young Things. He wrote fiction, biography, history and autobiography. During his stay in China, he studied the Chinese language, traditional drama, and poetry, some of which he translated. He was born near Florence, Italy, to a prominent Anglo-Italian family. At Eton College, he was a founding member of the Eton Arts Society before going up to Oxford to read Modern Greats at Christ Church. He co-founded the avant garde magazine ''The Oxford Broom'' and mixed with many intellectual and literary figures of the age, including Evelyn Waugh, who based the character of Anthony Blanche in '' Brideshead Revisited'' partly on him. Between the wars, Acton lived in Paris, London, and Florence, proving most successful as an historian, his '' magnum opus'' being a 3-volume study of the Medicis and the Bourbons. After serving as an RAF ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decline and Fall'' (1928) and '' A Handful of Dust'' (1934), the novel '' Brideshead Revisited'' (1945), and the Second World War trilogy '' Sword of Honour'' (1952–1961). He is recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the English language in the 20th century. Waugh was the son of a publisher, educated at Lancing College and then at Hertford College, Oxford. He worked briefly as a schoolmaster before he became a full-time writer. As a young man, he acquired many fashionable and aristocratic friends and developed a taste for country house society. He travelled extensively in the 1930s, often as a special newspaper correspondent; he reported from Abyssinia at the time of the 1935 Italian invasion. He served in the British armed forces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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