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Ian Wallace (bass-baritone)
Ian Bryce Wallace OBE (10 July 191912 October 2009) was an English bass-baritone opera and concert singer, actor and broadcaster of Scottish extraction. His family intended him for a career in the law, but he was attracted to the stage. Originally an actor in non-musical plays, he was persuaded to try opera and made an immediate success. He played a range of buffo parts in operas, at Glyndebourne and internationally. Wallace maintained a simultaneous career in revue, straight theatre, and broadcasting. He appeared in pantomime and at the Royal Variety Performance. As a broadcaster, he was a long-time panellist on the BBC radio panel game '' My Music'', and he presented a television series of introductions to operas in the 1960s, as well as appearing in light entertainment shows singing a range of songs from ballads to comedy numbers. He performed his one-man show for many years. Flanders and Swann wrote several songs for him, and their best-known novelty song, "The Hippopotamus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Officer Of The Order Of The British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V and comprises five classes across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were originally made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire (later Commonwealth) and the Viceroy of India. Nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most Commonwealth countries ceased recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire when they cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tosca
''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, ''La Tosca'', is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's Campaigns of 1800 in the French Revolutionary Wars#Italy, invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder, and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias. Puccini saw Sardou's play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, obtained the rights to turn the work into an opera in 1895. Turning the wordy French play into a succinct Italian opera took four years, during which the composer repeatedly argued with his librettists and publisher. ''Tosca'' premiered at a time of unrest in Rome, and its first performance was delayed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margherita Grandi
Margherita Grandi (10 October 1892Some sources give her birthdate as 4 October 1894.29 January 1972) was an Australian-born Italian soprano. Life and career Margherita Grandi was born Margaret Gard in Harwood Island, Clarence River, near Maclean, in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales, Australia. When she was ten, her family moved to Tasmania and she went to school in Hobart. She left Australia in 1911 to study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in London. She also studied with Mathilde Marchesi and Jean de Reszke; and later in Paris with Emma Calvé. She made her professional debut in Paris, as a mezzo-soprano under the stage name of Djéma Vécla (Vecla being an anagram of Calvé)Not to be confused with the French singer Emma Vecla who adopted that stage name for the same reason (student of Calvé) and whose biography has many parallels. singing Charlotte in Massenet's ''Werther''. In 1922, she created Massenet's '' Amadis'' in Monte Carlo. Kutsch, Karl-Josef; Riemens ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mariano Stabile
Mariano Stabile (12 May 1888 in Palermo, Italy – 11 January 1968 in Milan, Italy) was an Italian baritone, particularly associated with the Italian repertory, especially the role of Falstaff. Career Stabile's vocal studies took place at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome with Antonio Cotogni during the 1907–08 and 1908-09 academic years. He made his professional debut in Palermo, as Marcello in ''La bohème'', in 1909. After singing throughout Italy, he appeared in Saint Petersburg in 1911, Buenos Aires in 1913, Barcelona in 1914, and made his debut at the Paris Opera in 1917, as Amonasro in ''Aida''. The turning point of his career came when Arturo Toscanini chose him for the title-role in ''Falstaff'' for the reopening of La Scala in 1921, a role that he would eventually sing an estimated 1200 times during his long career. He sang at La Scala until 1955, and among his other roles there were: Gérard, Scarpia, Iago, Malatesta, Dulcamara, Beckmesser, Schicchi. Also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Bohème
''La bohème'' (; ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions ''quadri'', ''tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on ''Scènes de la vie de bohème'' (1851) by Henri Murger. The story is set in Paris around 1830 and shows the Bohemian lifestyle (known in French as "") of a poor seamstress and her artist friends. The world premiere of ''La bohème'' was in Turin on 1 February 1896 at the Teatro Regio, conducted by the 28-year-old Arturo Toscanini. Since then, ''La bohème'' has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas worldwide. In 1946, fifty years after the opera's premiere, Toscanini conducted a commemorative performance of it on radio with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. A recording of the performance was later released by RCA Victor on vinyl record, tape and compact disc. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge Theatre
The Cambridge Theatre is a West End theatre, on a corner site in Earlham Street facing Seven Dials, in the London Borough of Camden, built in 1929–30 for Bertie Meyer on an "irregular triangular site". Design and construction It was designed by Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie; interior partly by Serge Chermayeff, with interior bronze friezes by sculptor Anthony Gibbons Grinling.English Heritage listing details Retrieved 28 April 2007 The theatre is built in steel and concrete and is known for its elegant and clean lines of design. The theatre was refurbished in 1950—the original gold and silver décor was painted over in red, and candelabras and chandeliers were added. In 1987, to restore the original décor, the theatre was once again refurbished, this time by |
Alberto Erede
Alberto Erede (8 November 190912 April 2001) was an Italian conductor, particularly associated with operatic work. Born in Genoa, Erede studied there before studying at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, then with Felix Weingartner at Basle, and after this with Fritz Busch at Dresden.Alberto Erede. ''Opera'', Vol.14 No.9 September 1963, p600-601. He made his debut in Turin in 1935, conducting ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. He also conducted at the Salzburg Festival. Fritz Busch invited him to Glyndebourne in England in 1934, where he conducted several performances before the war. In 1937 at the Schlosstheater Schönbrunn, he led a private performance of Mozart's ''Cosi fan tutte'' where among the audience were Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, Franz Werfel, Weingartner and Oskar Kokoschka. He toured the United States in 1937 and 1938 with the Salzburg International Opera Guild, conducting ''Cosi fan tutte'', ''L'incoronazione di Poppea'' and ''La Cambiale di Matrimonio''. While in Ame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alastair Sim
Alastair George Bell Sim, CBE (9 October 1900 – 19 August 1976) was a Scottish character actor who began his theatrical career at the age of thirty and quickly became established as a popular West End performer, remaining so until his death in 1976. Starting in 1935, he also appeared in more than fifty British films, including an iconic adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella '' A Christmas Carol'', released in 1951 as ''Scrooge'' in Great Britain and as ''A Christmas Carol'' in the United States. Though an accomplished dramatic actor, he is often remembered for his comically sinister performances. After a series of false starts, including a spell as a jobbing labourer and another as a clerk in a local government office, Sim's love of and talent for poetry reading won him several prizes and led to his appointment as a lecturer in elocution at the University of Edinburgh in 1925. He also ran his own private elocution and drama school, from which, with the help of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Bridie
James Bridie (3 January 1888 in Glasgow – 29 January 1951 in Edinburgh) was the pseudonym of a Scottish playwright, screenwriter and physician whose real name was Osborne Henry Mavor.Daniel Leary (1982) ''Dictionary of Literary Biography: Modern British Dramatists 1900-1945'', Stanley Weintraub Ed., Gale, Detroit Ronald Mavor (1988) ''Dr. Mavor and Mr. Bridie: Memories of James Bridie'', Canongate and The National Library of Scotland He took his pen-name from his paternal grandfather's first name and his grandmother's maiden name. Life He was the son of Henry Alexander Mavor (1858–1915), an electrical engineer and industrialist, and his wife Janet Osborne. He went to school at Glasgow Academy and then studied medicine at the University of Glasgow graduating in 1913, later becoming a general practitioner, then consultant physician and professor after serving as a military physician during World War I, seeing service in France and Mesopotamia. He came to prominence with h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sadler's Wells
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive rehearsal rooms and technical facilities also housed within the site. Sadler's Wells is renowned as one of the world's leading dance venues. As well as a stage for visiting companies, the theatre is also a producing house, with a number of associated artists and companies that produce original works for the theatre. Sadler's Wells is also responsible for the management of the Peacock Theatre in the West End, during times not used by the London School of Economics. History First theatre and pleasure gardens Richard Sadler opened a "Musick House" in 1683, the second public theatre newly opened in London after the Restoration, the first being the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ashley Dukes
Ashley Dukes (29 May 1885 – 4 May 1959) was an English playwright/dramatist, critic, theatre manager. Biography Personal life Ashley Dukes was born one of five children in 1885. He was the son of the Congregationalist clergyman, Rev. Edwin Joshua Dukes (1847-1930), of Kingsland, London, and his wife, the former Edith Mary Pope (1863-1898), of Sandford, Devon. He met Marie Rambert, a ballet dancer, at a dinner party in 1917. In Rambert's autobiography she says "after four days of personal meetings, and seven months of correspondence we were married on 3 March 1918." Career He initially taught science at university and became a drama critic in 1909. He wrote for several publications until 1925. Dukes wrote ''The World to Play With'' concerning the theatre and the play was published by Oxford University Press in 1928. In 1933, he founded the Mercury Theatre in London and wrote plays that appeared in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York. The Ashley Dukes Company w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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