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Sands Of Time (opera)
''Sands of Time'' is a short opera composed by the Welsh composer Peter Reynolds to a libretto by Simon Rees. Its world premiere, at an outdoor shopping centre in Cardiff on 27 March 1993, was accompanied by a nine-piece band conducted by Carlo Rizzi, director of Welsh National Opera. The performance, sung by soprano Rhian Owen and baritone Dominic Burns, was timed at 4 minutes 9 seconds, and was certified by adjudicators from the Guinness Book of Records as the world's shortest opera, beating the previous record held by Darius Milhaud's '' Deliverance of Theseus'' (1928), which lasts just over 7 minutes. A later performance for the BBC reduced the overall time to 3 minutes 34 seconds. In 2019, ''Sands of Time'' was performed in a triple bill (with Samuel Barber's ''A Hand of Bridge'' and Jacques Offenbach's '' Le 66'') at the Grimeborn Festival, Dalston, London. Scenario The opera's two protagonists are Stan and Flo, a married couple who quarrel during breakfast. They are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Reynolds (composer)
Peter Reynolds (January 12, 1958 – October 11, 2016) was a Welsh composer known for founding PM Music Ensemble. In addition, he was recognised by Guinness World Records as having written with writer Simon Rees the shortest opera on Earth, '' Sands of Time''; a three-minute and thirty-four second long piece. He died on 11 October 2016 at his home in Cardiff. Biography Peter was born to Dorothy and John Reynolds in 1958. Peter studied in Cardiff, Wales, and lived in South Wales, and was the artistic director of the Lower Machen Festival in Monmouthshire from 1998 to 2009. He received bursaries to study at the Dartington International Summer School with Peter Maxwell Davies in 1984, Morton Feldman in 1986, and Gordon Cross in 1987. Peter gave many composition workshops ranging from schools’ Year 9 through to teaching composition at both undergraduate and post-graduate level at Cardiff's Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama , image_name = Royal Welsh College of Music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grimeborn
Grimeborn is an annual East London musical theatre and opera festival which coincides with the world famous East Sussex Glyndebourne Opera Festival. Founded by Arcola Theatre’s artistic director Mehmet Ergen in 2007, the festival is held at Arcola Theatre in Dalston, East London. It takes place in and around August, and tends to showcase new and experimental works alongside radical productions of classic opera, using both the Arcola's performing stages. History The festival's name is a punning reference to Glyndebourne. The "grime" element refers to the "dirtier" backdrop of the Arcola Theatre, a converted textile factory in the congested bustle of Hackney as opposed to the scenic gardens of East Sussex. Originally, Grimeborn was devised as a contemporary contribution to the Battersea Arts Centre's (BAC) Opera Festival. The BAC Opera Festival's Artistic Director at the time, Tom Morris, asked Ergen, who was working at the BAC as an Associate Producer, to create something di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operas
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 singing: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English-language Operas
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Patter Song
The patter song is characterised by a moderately fast to very fast tempo with a rapid succession of rhythmic patterns in which each syllable of text corresponds to one note. It is a staple of comic opera, especially Gilbert and Sullivan, but it has also been used in musical theatre, musicals and elsewhere."Patter song" ''OnMusic Dictionary'', Connect For Education, Inc, accessed 2 May 2014 The lyric of a patter song generally features tongue-twister, tongue-twisting rhyming text, with alliterative words and other consonant or vowel sounds that are intended to be entertaining to listen to at rapid speed. The musical accompaniment is lightly orchestrated and fairly simple, to emphasise the text.Fiss, Chapter 7 The song is often intended as a showpiece for a comic character, usually a bass ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident." The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world," a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of ''Il trovatore''. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Football Pools
In the United Kingdom, the football pools, often referred to as "the pools", is a betting pool based on predicting the outcome of association football matches taking place in the coming week. The pools are typically cheap to enter, and may encourage gamblers to enter several bets. The traditional and most popular game was the Treble Chance, now branded the Classic Pools game. Players pick 10, 11 or 12 football games from the offered fixtures to finish as a draw, in which each team scores at least one goal. The player with the most accurate predictions wins the top prize, or a share of it if more than one player has these predictions. In addition, there is a special £3,000,000 prize or share of it for correctly predicting the nine score draws (draws of 1-1 or higher) when these are the only score draws on the coupon. Players can win large cash prizes in a variety of other ways, under a points-based scoring system. Entries were traditionally submitted through the post or via agen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le 66
''Le 66'' is an opérette in one act of 1856 with music by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was by Auguste Pittaud de Forges and Laurencin ( Paul Aimé Chapelle). Lamb A., "Jacques Offenbach (List of stage works)" in: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera''. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. Kurt Gänzl describes the work as "in the rustic vein of ''Le violoneux'' and '' Le mariage aux lanternes''". Gänzl K., "''Le 66''" in: ''The Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre.'' Blackwell, Oxford, 1994. Performance history The premiere was at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens (Salle Lacaze) Paris, on 31 July 1856, one of nine one-acters produced by the Bouffes Parisiens that year. ''Le 66'' remained in the Bouffes Parisiens répertoire, and was played by them in Vienna in 1862. It had already been seen at the Carltheater in that city in 1859, was produced in Budapest in 1860, and mounted in London in 1865 and 1876. It was revived in Paris in 1984 at the Studio Bertrand alongsid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingdom. Located in the south-east of Wales and in the Cardiff Capital Region, Cardiff is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan and in 1974–1996 of South Glamorgan. It belongs to the Eurocities network of the largest European cities. A small town until the early 19th century, its prominence as a port for coal when mining began in the region helped its expansion. In 1905, it was ranked as a city and in 1955 proclaimed capital of Wales. Cardiff Built-up Area covers a larger area outside the county boundary, including the towns of Dinas Powys and Penarth. Cardiff is the main commercial centre of Wales as well as the base for the Senedd. At the 2021 census, the unitary authority area population was put at 362,400. The popula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera ''The Tales of Hoffmann''. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' remains part of the standard opera repertory. Born in Cologne, the son of a synagogue cantor, Offenbach showed early musical talent. At the age of 14, he was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire but found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year. From 1835 to 1855 he earned his living as a cellist, achieving international fame, and as a conductor. His ambition, however, was to compose comic pieces for the musical the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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