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Patricia Kern
Patricia Kern (14 July 192719 October 2015) was a British mezzo-soprano and voice teacher. Early years Patricia Kern was born in Swansea, Wales, the only daughter of a master shipwright, Clifford James Kern, and Doris Hilday (née Boyle). Patricia started her music career as a child star in cabarets and concerts at the age of five, wearing top hats and tails. During the Great Depression, Patricia became the family's chief breadwinner when her father lost his job. Singing career From 1949 to 1952, Kern studied with Gwynn Parry Jones at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. She began her career with Opera for All (1952–1955). In 1959, Kern joined Sadler's Wells, making her début in ''Rusalka'', and remained as a member of the company for ten seasons. She was noted for interpretations of ''La Cenerentola'', Rosina (''The Barber of Seville''), Isolier (''Le comte Ory'') and Isabella (''L'italiana in Algeri''). Her other roles included ''Iolanthe'', Hänsel, Cherubino ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swansea
Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in the United Kingdom. Located along Swansea Bay in southwest Wales, with the principal area covering the Gower Peninsula, it is part of the Swansea Bay region and part of the historic county of Glamorgan; also the ancient Welsh commote of Gŵyr. The principal area is the second most populous local authority area in Wales with an estimated population of 246,563 in 2020. Swansea, along with Neath and Port Talbot, forms the Swansea Urban Area with a population of 300,352 in 2011. It is also part of the Swansea Bay City Region. During the 19th-century industrial heyday, Swansea was the key centre of the copper-smelting industry, earning the nickname ''Copperopolis''. Etymologies The Welsh name, ''Abertawe'', translates as ''"mouth/es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Marriage Of Figaro
''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, '' La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro'' ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"). It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity. Considered one of the greatest operas ever written, it is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas. In 2017, BBC News Magazine asked 172 opera singers to vote for the best operas ever written. ''The Marriage of Figaro'' came in first out of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Blyth
Geoffrey Alan Blyth (27 July 1929 – 14 August 2007) was an English music critic, author, and musicologist who was particularly known for his writings within the field of opera. He was a specialist on singers and singing. Born in London, Blyth's earliest musical experiences were at Rugby School. He attended the music lectures of Professor Jack Westrup. After graduation from Pembroke College, Oxford, where he read history, he returned to London and worked in journalism and publishing. He wrote reviews, interviews and obituaries for ''The Times'' and for '' Gramophone''. He was a long-time contributor to the British magazine ''Opera''.Baker, Janet, and Max Loppert. "Alan Blyth, 1929–2007", ''Opera Magazine'' (2007): 1168–1171. Articles * * References *C. Mackenzie. "Tribute: Alan Blyth", ''The Gramophone ''Gramophone'' is a magazine published monthly in London, devoted to classical music, particularly to reviews of recordings. It was founded in 1923 by the Scot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Herring
''Albert Herring'', Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten. Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera ''The Rape of Lucretia''. The libretto, by Eric Crozier, was based on Guy de Maupassant's novella '' Le Rosier de Madame Husson'', with the action transposed to an English setting. Composition history After having composed and staged ''The Rape of Lucretia'', Britten decided he should attempt a comedy, preferably set in England.Nigel Douglas. "Some personal memories of Benjamin Britten, the English Opera Group and ''Albert Herring''". Booklet note to Nimbus NI 5824/6 (2008). Crozier suggested adapting the Maupassant short story ''Le rosier de Madame Husson'' and transplanting it to the Suffolk landscape already familiar to Britten from his home in Snape. Britten composed ''Albert Herring'' at his home, The Old Mill at Snape, in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947. He scored the oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'incoronazione Di Poppea
''L'incoronazione di Poppea'' ( SV 308, ''The Coronation of Poppaea'') is an Italian opera by Claudio Monteverdi. It was Monteverdi's last opera, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, and was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1643 carnival season. One of the first operas to use historical events and people, it describes how Poppaea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nero, is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. The opera was revived in Naples in 1651, but was then neglected until the rediscovery of the score in 1888, after which it became the subject of scholarly attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s, the opera has been performed and recorded many times. The original manuscript of the score does not exist; two surviving copies from the 1650s show significant differences from each other, and each differs to some extent from the libretto. How much of the music is actually Monteverdi's, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian Opera Company
The Canadian Opera Company (COC) is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and one of the largest producers of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. For forty years until April 2006, the COC had performed at the O'Keefe Centre (now known as Meridian Hall). History Nicholas Goldschmidt and Herman Geiger-Torel founded the organization in 1950 as the Royal Conservatory Opera Company. Geiger-Torel became the COC's artistic director in 1956 and its general director in 1960. The company was renamed the Canadian Opera Association in 1960, and the Canadian Opera Company in 1977. Geiger-Torel retired from the general directorship in 1976. Lotfi Mansouri was the COC's general director from 1976 to 1988. In 1983, the COC introduced surtitles (supertitles) to their productions, the first company to use them in an opera house. Productions included Joan Sutherland's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Wallace (singer)
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 Hippopotamu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin Graham
Colin Graham OBE (22 September 1931 in Hove, England – 6 April 2007 in St. Louis, Missouri) was a stage director of opera, theatre, and television. Graham was educated at Northaw School (Hertfordshire), Stowe School and RADA. Early in his career, he began a long association with Benjamin Britten, for whom he directed all but one of the composer's stage works, including all of the world premieres after 1954. He became associated with the English Opera Group in 1953. In the 1950s, he also worked for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London and later at Glyndebourne and at the English National Opera in the 1970s. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Graham was associated with several recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan operas conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent with the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus and principals including George Baker. He enhanced these recordings with movement for the performers that makes the recordings sound more like a live staged performance. Graham m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington, DC
) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, National Cathedral , image_flag = Flag of the District of Columbia.svg , image_seal = Seal of the District of Columbia.svg , nickname = D.C., The District , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive map of Washington, D.C. , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , established_title = Residence Act , established_date = 1790 , named_for = George Washington, Christopher Columbus , established_title1 = Organized , established_date1 = 1801 , established_title2 = Consolidated , established_date2 = 1871 , established_title3 = Home Rule Ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, mak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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