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Nicky Spence
Nicky Spence (born 1983) is a Scottish operatic tenor who performs in opera, oratorio and recital in both the UK and internationally. Life and career Spence was born and raised in Dumfries. He was educated at Wallace Hall Academy in Thornhill where he had his first lessons with Margaret Davies aged 15 and attended Scottish Youth Theatre and the National Youth Music Theatre. He was accepted to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and graduated with a Bachelor of Music in 2005. After his first year, he won the Kathleen Ferrier Society Young Singers Bursary. In 2004, during his final year at Guildhall, Spence received a five-record contract with Universal Classics on the Decca label who promoted him as "The Scottish Tenor". His debut album ''My First Love'', recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, was released in 2007. That same year he was nominated for the "Young British Classical Performer of the Year" Classical Brit Award. During this time, he sang regularly o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish People
The Scots ( sco, Scots Fowk; gd, Albannaich) are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic-speaking peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded the Kingdom of Scotland (or ''Alba'') in the 9th century. In the following two centuries, the Celtic-speaking Cumbrians of Strathclyde and the Germanic-speaking Angles of north Northumbria became part of Scotland. In the High Middle Ages, during the 12th-century Davidian Revolution, small numbers of Norman nobles migrated to the Lowlands. In the 13th century, the Norse-Gaels of the Western Isles became part of Scotland, followed by the Norse of the Northern Isles in the 15th century. In modern usage, "Scottish people" or "Scots" refers to anyone whose linguistic, cultural, family ancestral or genetic origins are from Scotland. The Latin word ''Scoti'' originally referred to the Gaels, but came to describe all inhabitants of Scotland. Cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Opera Studio
The National Opera Studio in London, England was established in 1977 by the Arts Council as a link between the music colleges and the six main UK opera companies. It was resident at Morley College in Lambeth until 2003, when it gained use for the first time of its own dedicated premises in Chapel Yard, Wandsworth. Former directors are Kathryn Harries, Donald Maxwell, Richard Van Allan, and Michael Langdon, and its Head of Music is Mark Shanahan. It is responsible for the training of approximately twelve singers each academic year, as well as four piano répétiteurs. Its funding comes in part from the six main UK opera companies Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Opera North and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, and it is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (2018–2022). Representatives from each company sit on the final audition panel for selection of each year's intake. The nine-month course usually includes res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Opera Awards
The International Opera Awards is an annual awards ceremony honouring excellence in opera around the world. Origins The International Opera Awards was founded in 2013 by Harry Hyman, a UK businessman, philanthropist and supporter of opera, and John Allison, Editor of ''Opera (British magazine), Opera'' Magazine. The aim of the event is to celebrate excellence in opera and to raise the profile of opera as an artform internationally. Award categories Awards are given in approximately 20 categories each year. Nominations for all categories are open to the general public, who submit their choices via an online form. Long lists generated by this process are subsequently considered by a jury of opera critics and administrators, who announce shortlists ahead of the ceremony. Winners are determined by secret ballot, with the exception of the ''Opera'' Magazine Readers' Award, which is decided by public vote. Ceremony The inaugural international Opera Awards were held in London at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance Gilliam (; born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, comedian, animator, actor and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has directed 13 feature films, including ''Time Bandits'' (1981), ''Brazil'' (1985), ''The Adventures of Baron Munchausen'' (1988), ''The Fisher King'' (1991), '' 12 Monkeys'' (1995), ''Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'' (1998), ''The Brothers Grimm'' (2005), '' Tideland'' (2005), and ''The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'' (2009). Being the only Monty Python member not born in Britain, he became a naturalised British subject in 1968 and formally renounced his American citizenship in 2006. Gilliam was born in Minnesota, but spent his high school and college years in Los Angeles. He started his career as an animator and strip cartoonist. He joined Monty Python as the animator of their works, but eventually became a full member and was given acting roles. He became a feature film director in the 1970s. Most of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benvenuto Cellini (opera)
''Benvenuto Cellini '' is an opera semiseria in four ''tableaux'' (spread across two or three acts) by Hector Berlioz, his first full-length work for the stage. Premiered at the Académie Royale de Musique (Salle Le Peletier) on 10 September 1838, it is a setting of a libretto by Léon de Wailly and Henri Auguste Barbier who were inspired by the memoirs of the titular Florentine sculptor but who invented most of the plot. The opera is technically challenging and was until the 21st century rarely performed. But its overture sometimes features in orchestral concerts, as does the concert overture '' Le carnaval romain'' which Berlioz composed from material in the opera. Composition history Berlioz wrote this in his ''Mémoires'' about the background to the opera: I had been greatly struck by certain episodes in the life of ''Benvenuto Cellini''. I had the misfortune to believe they would make an interesting and dramatic subject for an opera, and I asked Léon de Wailly and Augus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Kentridge
William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films, especially noted for a sequence of hand-drawn animated films he produced during the 1990s. The latter are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two seconds' screen time. A single drawing will be altered and filmed this way until the end of a scene. These palimpsest-like drawings are later displayed along with the films as finished pieces of art. Kentridge has created art work as part of design of theatrical productions, both plays and operas. He has served as art director and overall director of numerous productions, collaborating with other artists, puppeteers and others in creating productions that combine drawings and multi-media combinations. Early life and career Kentridge was born in Johannesburg in 1955 to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lulu (opera)
''Lulu'' (composed from 1929 to 1935, premièred incomplete in 1937 and complete in 1979) is an opera in three acts by Alban Berg. Berg adapted the libretto from Frank Wedekind's two ''Lulu'' plays, ''Erdgeist'' ('' Earth Spirit'', 1895) and ''Die Büchse der Pandora'' (''Pandora's Box'', 1904). The opera tells the story of a mysterious young woman known as Lulu, who follows a downward spiral from a well-kept mistress in Vienna to a street prostitute in London, while being both a victim and a purveyor of destruction. It explores the idea of the '' femme fatale'' and the duality between her feminine and masculine qualities. Berg died before completing the third and final act, and in the following decades the opera was typically performed incomplete. Since the 1979 publication of the version including Friedrich Cerha's orchestration of the act 3 sketches, it has become standard. ''Lulu'' is especially notable for using serialism at a time that was particularly inhospitable to it. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jenůfa
''Její pastorkyňa'' (''Her Stepdaughter''; commonly known as ''Jenůfa'' ) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play ''Její pastorkyňa'' by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the National Theatre, Brno on 21 January 1904. Composed between 1896 and 1902, it is among the first operas written in prose. The first of Janáček's operas in which his distinctive voice can clearly be heard, it is a grim story of infanticide and redemption. Like the playwright's original work, it is known for its unsentimental realism. While today it is heard in the composer's original version, ''Jenůfas early popularity was due to a revised version by Karel Kovařovic, altering what was considered its eccentric style and orchestration. Thus altered, it was well-received, first in Prague, and particularly after its Vienna première also worldwide. More than 70 years passed before audiences again heard it in Janáček's original ve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Jones (director)
Richard Jones CBE (born 7 June 1953) is a British theatre and opera director. He was born in London, and studied at the University of Hull and University of London. After working as a jazz musician, he spent 1982–83 on a bursary working with Scottish Opera and the Citizens Theatre. His work has become controversial and has provoked considerable reactions from the UK press. However, he is also seen as a major figure in the worlds of theatre and opera, as has been noted in a 2002 interview which appeared in London's ''The Guardian'': : isgift for the thrilling, the gaudy and the wayward is one of the characteristics that marks Jones out. "He is the best British director around at the moment," says director David Pountney, part of the "powerhouse" triumvirate that presided over English National Opera in the 1980s. "He is extremely imaginative, he has a very individual, quirky response to the material, and a very sharp eye for humour." Professional career Opera Jones's earlie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg
(; "The Master-Singers of Nuremberg"), WWV 96, is a music drama, or opera, in three acts, by Richard Wagner. It is the longest opera commonly performed, taking nearly four and a half hours, not counting two breaks between acts, and is traditionally not cut. With Hans von Bülow conducting, it was first performed on 21 June 1868 at the National Theatre Munich, National Theater in Munich, today home of Bavarian State Opera. The story is set in Nuremberg in the mid-16th century. At the time, Nuremberg was a free imperial city and one of the centers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. The story revolves around the city's guild of ''Meistersinger'' (Master Singers), an association of amateur poets and musicians who were primarily Master craftsman, master craftsmen of various trades. The master singers had developed a craftsmanlike approach to music-making, with an intricate system of rules for composing and performing songs. The work draws much of its atmosphere from its depictio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Alden
David Alden (born 1949 in New York City) is a prolific theater and film director known for his post-modernist settings of opera. He is the twin brother of Christopher Alden, also an opera director in the revisionist mold. The two brothers have covered much of the same repertoire in their long careers, but whereas Christopher's operatic settings place greater emphasis on his characters' emotional range, David's protagonists are more broadly caricatured and his productions far more politically charged. Another distinguishing feature between them is that David has been more active in Europe throughout his career, having enjoyed a particularly close creative partnership with Sir Peter Jonas for more than two decades, at both the English National Opera and the Bavarian State Opera. Early life David Alden and his identical twin Christopher were born into a show business family closely tied to Broadway. Their father was the playwright Jerome Alden, and their mother was the ballerina Bar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Budd (opera)
''Billy Budd'', Op. 50, is an opera by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by the English novelist E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, based on the short novel '' Billy Budd'' by Herman Melville. Originally in four acts, the opera received its premiere at the Royal Opera House (ROH), London, on 1 December 1951. Britten later revised the work into a two-act opera, with a prologue and an epilogue. The revised version received its first performance at the ROH, Covent Garden, London, on 9 January 1964. Composition history E. M. Forster had an interest in the novella, which he discussed in his Clark lectures at Cambridge University. Forster had admired Britten's music since 1937 when he attended a performance of the play ''The Ascent of F6'' (for which Britten wrote incidental music). Forster met Britten in October 1942, when he heard Peter Pears and Britten perform Britten's '' Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo'' at the National Gallery. In 1948, Britten and Forster discussed whether Forster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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