George Baker (baritone)
George Baker (10 February 1885 – 8 January 1976) was an English singer. He is remembered for singing on thousands of gramophone records in a career that spanned 53 years, beginning in 1909. He is especially associated with the comic baritone roles in recordings of the Gilbert & Sullivan operas. Early life and career George Baker, also known as George Portland (and other recording pseudonyms), was born in Birkenhead, the son of Walter Baker and his wife, Elizabeth, ''née'' Sanders.Gaye, p. 334 He studied violin, flute and piano as a child. At the age of 16, he served as organist and choirmaster at the Woodford Parish Church in Cheshire. He did the same at two churches in Birkenhead between 1903 and 1906. Baker studied singing with John Acton and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. There he studied with Gustave Garcia and was awarded a Patron Funds Grant to continue his vocal studies in Milan in 1914. He was married three times: first to pianist/conductor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Baker (baritone), 1922
George Baker may refer to: Arts *George Baker (British actor) (1931–2011), British film and television actor *George Baker (art historian) (born 1970), American art historian *George Baker (Indian actor) (born 1946), Indian actor and politician * George Baker (baritone) (1885–1976), British singer *George Baker (cartoonist) (1915–1975), ''Sad Sack'' comic strip *George Baker (Dutch singer) (born 1944), Dutch singer and songwriter **George Baker Selection, Dutch pop music group * George Baker (organist) (1773–1847), English musician * George C. Baker (born 1951), composer and organist *George D. Baker (1868–1933), American film director * George Herbert Baker (1878–1943), American Impressionist artist * George Melville Baker (1832–1890), American playwright and publisher *George Pierce Baker (1866–1935), American drama professor *George Philip Baker (1879–1951), British author * George Augustus Baker (1821–1880), American portrait painter Politics *George Baker ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ludwig Van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to grow increasingly deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Beethoven was born in Bonn. His musical talent was obvious at an early age. He was initially harshly and intensively tau ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. The company was revived for short seasons and tours from 1988 to 2003, and since 2013 it has co-produced four of the operas with Scottish Opera. In 1875 Richard D'Oyly Carte asked the dramatist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan to collaborate on a short comic opera to round out an evening's entertainment. When that work, ''Trial by Jury'', became a success, Carte put together a syndicate to produce a full-length Gilbert and Sullivan work, ''The Sorcerer'' (1877), followed by ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' (1878). After ''Pinafore'' became an international sensation, Carte jettisoned his difficult investors and formed a new partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan that became the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. The company produced the succeeding ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Trial By Jury
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions. Jury trials are used in a significant share of serious criminal cases in many but not all common law judicial systems. The majority of common law jurisdictions in Asia (such as Singapore, India, Pakistan and Malaysia) have abolished jury trials on the grounds that juries are susceptible to bias. Juries or lay judges have also been incorporated into the legal systems of many civil law countries for criminal cases. Only the United States makes routine use of jury trials in a wide variety of non-criminal cases. Other common law legal jurisdictions use jury trials only in a very select class of cases that make up a tiny share of the overall civil docket (like malicious prosecution and false imprisonment suits in England and Wales), but true civil jury trials are almost entirely ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I listed building, the first post-war building to become so protected (in 1981). The London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the London Sinfonietta, Chineke! and Aurora are resident orchestras at Southbank Centre. The hall was built as part of the Festival of Britain for London County Council, and was officially opened on 3 May 1951. When the LCC's successor, the Greater London Council, was abolished in 1986, the Festival Hall was taken over by the Arts Council, and managed together with the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room (opened 1967) and the Hayward Gallery (1968), eventually becoming an independent arts organisation, now known as the Southbank Centre, in April 1998. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gilbert And Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''The Pirates of Penzance'' and ''The Mikado'' are among the best known.Davis, Peter G''Smooth Sailing'' ''New York'' magazine, 21 January 2002, accessed 6 November 2007 Gilbert, who wrote the libretti for these operas, created fanciful "topsy-turvy" worlds where each absurdity is taken to its logical conclusion; fairies rub elbows with British lords, flirting is a capital offence, gondoliers ascend to the monarchy, and pirates emerge as noblemen who have gone astray.Mike Leigh, Leigh, Mike"True anarchists" ''The Guardian'', 4 November 2007, accessed 6 November 2007 Sullivan, six years Gilbert's junior, composed the music, contributing memorable melodies that could convey both humour and pathos. Their operas have enj ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Beggar's Opera
''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. ''The Beggar's Opera'' premiered at the Lisle's Tennis Court, Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the second-longest run in theatre history up to that time (after 146 performances of Robert Cambert's ''Pomone (opera), Pomone'' in Paris in 1671). The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century". In 1920, ''The Beggar's Opera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aeolian Company
The Aeolian Company was a musical-instrument making firm whose products included player organs, pianos, sheet music, records and phonographs. Founded in 1887, it was at one point the world's largest such firm. During the mid 20th century, it surpassed Kimball to become the largest supplier of pianos in the United States, having contracts with Steinway & Sons due to its Duo-Art system of player pianos. It went out of business in 1985. History The Aeolian Company was founded by New York City piano maker William B. Tremaine as the ''Aeolian Organ & Music Co.'' (1887) to make automatic organs and, after 1895, as the ''Aeolian Co.'' automatic pianos as well. The factory was initially located in Meriden, Connecticut. Tremaine had previously founded the Mechanical Orguinette Co. in 1878 to manufacture automated reed organs. The manufacture of residence or "chamber" organs to provide entertainment in the mansions of millionaires was an extremely profitable undertaking, and Aeolian virtu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sally (musical)
''Sally'' is a musical comedy with music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Clifford Grey and book by Guy Bolton (inspired by the 19th century show, ''Sally in our Alley''), with additional lyrics by Buddy De Sylva, Anne Caldwell and P. G. Wodehouse. The plot hinges on a mistaken identity: Sally, a waif, is a dishwasher at the Alley Inn. She poses as a famous foreign ballerina and rises to fame (and finds love) through joining the Ziegfeld Follies. There is a rags to riches story, a ballet as a centrepiece, and a wedding as a finale. " Look for the Silver Lining" continues to be one of Kern's most familiar songs. The song is lampooned by another song, "Look for a Sky of Blue," in Rick Besoyan's satirical 1959 musical ''Little Mary Sunshine''. The piece was first produced in 1920 on Broadway by Florenz Ziegfeld, and ran for 570 performances, one of the longest runs on Broadway up to that time. The show was designed as a debut star vehicle for Marilyn Miller. It had a successful London ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Lilac Domino
''Der lila Domino'' (''The Lilac Domino'') is an operetta in three acts composed by Charles Cuvillier. The original German libretto is by Emmerich von Gatti and Bela Jenbach, about a gambling count who falls in love at a masquerade ball with a noblewoman wearing a lilac domino mask. The operetta achieved far greater popularity in Britain and America than it did in Germany or France. Although ''The Lilac Domino'' became Cuvillier's greatest international hit, he won success in his native Paris with the operetta ''La reine s'amuse'' (1912; ''The Naughty Princess'' in London, 1920). He was popular in Germany before the First World War, and ''Der lila Domino'' was the first of two operettas that he wrote for German theatres. Performance history ''Der lila Domino'' was first performed in Leipzig, Germany, on February 3, 1912, where it was a failure.Andrew Lamb (writer), Lamb, Andrew''150 Years of Popular Musical Theatre'' p. 196, Yale University Press, 2000 Although produced with su ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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British National Opera Company
The British National Opera Company presented opera in English in London and on tour in the British provinces between 1922 and 1929. It was founded in December 1921 by singers and instrumentalists from Thomas Beecham, Sir Thomas Beecham's Beecham Opera Company (1915–1920), which was disbanded when financial problems over buying Thomas Beecham#Covent Garden estate, The Bedford Estate forced Beecham to withdraw from the music scene for a short period. The new venture was financed by the issue of 40,000 preference shares at £1 each. Among the musicians who met at the inaugural meeting of the new enterprise at the Queen's Hall were Alexander Mackenzie (composer), Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir Charles Stanford, Harry Plunket Greene, Walter Hyde, Aylmer Buesst and William Henry Hadow, Sir Henry Hadow. The new company bought the entire assets of the Beecham company, comprising the scenery, costumes, scores, instruments and performing rights for 48 operas. The c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carl Rosa Opera Company
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, and his wife, British operatic soprano Euphrosyne Parepa-Rosa to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company premiered many operas in the UK, employing a mix of established opera stars and young singers, reaching new opera audiences with popularly priced tickets. It survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was obliged to close for lack of funds. The company was revived in 1997, presenting mostly lighter operatic works including those by Gilbert and Sullivan. The company "was arguably the most influential opera company ever in the UK". Background Carl Rosa was born Karl August Nikolaus Rose in Hamburg, Germany, the son of a local businessman. A child violin prodigy, Rosa studied at the Conservatorium at Leipzig and in Paris. In 1863 he was appointed Konzertmeister at Hamburg, where he had oc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |