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English Language Opera
The history of opera in the English language commences in the 17th century. Earliest examples In England, one of opera's antecedents in the 16th century was an afterpiece which came at the end of a play; often scandalous and consisting in the main of dialogue set to music arranged from popular tunes. In this respect such afterpieces anticipate the ballad operas of the 18th century. At the same time, the French masque was gaining a firm hold at the English Court, with lavish splendour and highly realistic scenery. Inigo Jones became the leading designer of these productions, and this style was to dominate the English stage for three centuries. These masques contained songs and dances. In Ben Jonson's ''Lovers Made Men'' (1617), "the whole masque was sung after the Italian manner, stilo recitativo". Purcell and his contemporaries The approach of the English Commonwealth closed theatres and halted any developments that may have led to the establishment of English opera. However, in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psyché (opera)
''Psyché'' is an opera (''tragédie lyrique'') in a prologue and five acts composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully to a libretto by Thomas Corneille (adapted from Molière's original play for which Lully had composed the intermèdes). Based on the love story of Cupid and Psyche, ''Psyché'' was premiered on April 19, 1678 by the Académie Royale de Musique at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris. Background According to the '' Mercure Galant'', the opera ''Psyché'' was composed in three weeks; libretto, score and all. Although it is impossible to verify the truth of this statement, there is every reason to believe that Lully was in a hurry when writing this opera. In effect, the opera reuses the ''intermèdes'' from Molière's play. Since these ''intermèdes'' had met with such spectacular success seven years earlier, Lully must have felt that given his lack of time, he could at the very least attract a crowd with the promise of reviving the ''plainte italienne'' and the final ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Arne
Thomas Augustine Arne (; 12 March 17105 March 1778) was an English composer. He is best known for his patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!" and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go", the latter composed for a 1777 production of ''The Beggar's Opera'', which has since become popular as a folk song and a nursery rhyme. Arne was a leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at the West End's Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He wrote many operatic entertainments for the London theatres and pleasure gardens, as well as concertos, sinfonias, and sonatas. Early life Arne was born on March 12th, 1710 in Covent Garden and baptised at St Paul's, Covent Garden. Arne's father and grandfather were both upholsterers and both held office in the Worshipful Company of Upholders of the City of London. His grandfather fell on hard times and died in the debtors' prison of Marshalsea. His father earned enough money not only to rent 31 King Street, a large house in Covent Garden, but also t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Augustine Arne
Thomas Augustine Arne (; 12 March 17105 March 1778) was an English composer. He is best known for his patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!" and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go", the latter composed for a 1777 production of ''The Beggar's Opera'', which has since become popular as a folk song and a nursery rhyme. Arne was a leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at the West End's Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He wrote many operatic entertainments for the London theatres and pleasure gardens, as well as concertos, sinfonias, and sonatas. Early life Arne was born on March 12th, 1710 in Covent Garden and baptised at St Paul's, Covent Garden. Arne's father and grandfather were both upholsterers and both held office in the Worshipful Company of Upholders of the City of London. His grandfather fell on hard times and died in the debtors' prison of Marshalsea. His father earned enough money not only to rent 31 King Street, a large house in Covent Garden, but also to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dryden
'' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Romanticist writer Sir Walter Scott called him "Glorious John". Early life Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was the rector of All Saints. He was the eldest of fourteen children born to Erasmus Dryden and wife Mary Pickering, paternal grandson of Sir Erasmus Dryden, 1st Barone t (1553–1632), and wife Frances Wilkes, Puritan landowning gentry who supported the Puritan cause and Parliament. He was a second cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift. As a boy, Dryden lived in the nearby village of Titchmarsh, where it is likely that he received his first education. In 1644 he was sent to Westminst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beaumont And Fletcher
Beaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–25). They became known as a team early in their association, so much so that their joined names were applied to the total canon of Fletcher, including his solo works and the plays he composed with various other collaborators including Philip Massinger and Nathan Field. The first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 contained 35 plays; 53 plays were included in the second folio in 1679. Other works bring the total plays in the canon to about 55. While scholars and critics will probably never render a unanimous verdict on the authorship of all these plays—especially given the difficulties of some of the individual cases—contemporary scholarship has arrived at a corpus of about 12 to 15 plays that are the work of both men. (See the individual pages on Beaumont and Fletcher for more details.) Works The plays generally r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fairy-Queen
''The Fairy-Queen'' (1692; Purcell catalogue number Z.629) is a semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy '' A Midsummer Night's Dream''. First performed in 1692, ''The Fairy-Queen'' was composed three years before Purcell's death at the age of 35. Following his death, the score was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth century. Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's text to music; instead he composed music for short masques in every act but the first. The play itself was also slightly modernised in keeping with seventeenth-century dramatic conventions, but in the main the spoken text is as Shakespeare wrote it. The masques are related to the play metaphorically, rather than literally. Many critics have stated that they bear no relationship to the play. Recent scholarship has shown that the opera, which ends with a masque featuring Hymen, the God of Marriage, was composed for ... [...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] |
Dido And Aeneas
''Dido and Aeneas'' (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was composed no later than July 1688, and had been performed at Josias Priest's girls' school in London by the end of 1689.White, Bryan, 'Letter from Aleppo: dating the Chelsea School performance of Dido and Aeneas', 417 Some scholars argue for a date of composition as early as 1683.Pinnock, Andrew, 'Which Genial Day? More on the court origin of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, with a shortlist of dates for its possible performance before King Charles II’, Early Music 43 (2015), 199–212Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock, Unscared by turning times'? The dating of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas," The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's ''Aeneid''. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venus And Adonis (opera)
''Venus and Adonis'' is an opera in three act (theater), acts and a prologue by the English Baroque music, Baroque composer John Blow, composed in about 1683 in music, 1683. It was written for the Noble court, court of Charles II of England, King Charles II at either London or Windsor Castle, Windsor. It is considered by some to be either a semi-opera or a masque, but ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove'' names it as the earliest known English opera. The author of the libretto was surmised to have been Aphra Behn due to the Feminism, feminist nature of the text, and that she later worked with Blow on the play ''The Lucky Chance''.Price, ''Grove Dictionary'', op. cit. However, according to the musicologist Bruce Wood, in his 2008 Critical edition (opera), critical edition of the work for the Purcell Society, the librettist "has been identified by James Winn as Anne Kingsmill, subsequently married as Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, Anne Finch". The story is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Blow
John Blow (baptised 23 February 1649 – 1 October 1708) was an English composer and organist of the Baroque music, Baroque period. Appointed organist of Westminster Abbey in late 1668,John Blow Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 30 December 2019. his pupils included William Croft, Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Purcell. In 1685 he was named a private musician to James II of England, James II. His only stage composition, ''Venus and Adonis (opera), Venus and Adonis'' (ca. 1680–1687), is thought to have influenced Henry Purcell's later opera ''Dido and Aeneas''. In 1687, he became choirmaster at St Paul's Cathedral, where many of his pieces were performed. In 1699 he was appointed to the newly created post of Composer to the Chapel Royal. Early life and education Blow was probably born in the village of Collingham, ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Blow 1687
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * Pope John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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