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The Wandering Scholar
''The Wandering Scholar'', Op. 50 is a chamber opera in one act by the English composer Gustav Holst, composed 1929–30. The libretto, by Clifford Bax, is based on the book '' The Wandering Scholars'' by Helen Waddell. The opera received its premiere at the David Lewis Theatre, Liverpool on 31 January 1934, but Holst did not hear the live performance because he was too ill to attend. The manuscript contains notes in Holst's own hand such as "More harmony" and "Tempo?", which indicated that Holst had thoughts of revising the work. However, Holst did not revise the manuscript before his death in May 1934. Benjamin Britten prepared a chamber-orchestra version of the score for performance, and this version was given at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 1951. In 1968, Britten and Imogen Holst edited the opera for publication. Roles Synopsis :Place: 13th-century farmhouse in France, the home of Louis, a farmer, and his wife Alison. Louis is preparing to go to town to obtain provi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chamber Opera
Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's ''Cardillac'' (1926). Earlier small-scale operas such as Pergolesi's ''La serva padrona'' (1733) are sometimes known as chamber operas. Other 20th-century examples include Gustav Holst's '' Savitri'' (1916). Benjamin Britten wrote works in this category in the 1940s when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small performance spaces. ''The Rape of Lucretia'' (1946) was his first example in the genre, and Britten followed it with ''Albert Herring'' (1947), ''The Turn of the Screw'' (1954) and ''Curlew River'' (1964). Other composers, including Hans Werner Henze, Harrison Birtwistle, Thomas Adès, George Benjamin, William Walton, and Philip Glass have written in this genre. Instrumentation for chamber operas vary: Britten scored ''The Rape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. F2–F4) in choral music, and from the second A below middle C to the A above middle C (A2 to A4) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of baritone include the baryton-Martin baritone (light baritone), lyric baritone, ''Kavalierbariton'', Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, ''baryton-noble'' baritone, and the bass-baritone. History The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as ''baritonans'', late in the 15th century, usually in French sacred polyphonic music. At this early stage it was frequently used as the lowest of the voices (including the bass), but in 17th-century Italy the term was all-encompassing and used to describe the averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Hickox
Richard Sidney Hickox (5 March 1948 – 23 November 2008) was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music. Early life Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family. After attending the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe from 1959 to 1966, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1966 to 1967, then was an organ scholar at Queens' College, Cambridge from 1967 to 1970. Career In 1967, while his father was Vicar of Wooburn, Buckinghamshire, Hickox founded the Wooburn Festival and eventually became its president. The Festival still takes place and features music, drama and the visual arts. Hickox also founded the Wooburn Singers and continued as conductor until succeeded by Stephen Jackson. From 1970 to 1971 Hickox was Director of Music at Maidenhead Grammar School (later Desborough School). He founded the City of London Sinfonia in 1971, remaining music director until his death, and also founded the Richard Hickox Si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Sinfonia
Royal Northern Sinfonia is a British chamber orchestra, founded in Newcastle upon Tyne and currently based in Gateshead. For the first 46 years of its history, the orchestra gave most of its concerts at the Newcastle City Hall. Since 2004, the orchestra has been resident at Sage Gateshead. In June 2013 Queen Elizabeth II bestowed the title 'Royal' on the orchestra, formally naming it the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Description Michael Hall (1932–2012) founded the ensemble in 1958 as the first permanent professional resident chamber orchestra in Britain outside London. The ensemble gave its first concert on 24 September 1958 as the 'Sinfonia Orchestra', at the City Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne, and gave six concerts in its first season, 1958–1959.Griffiths, Bill, ''Northern Sinfonia''. Northumbria University Press, p. 3 (). Hall acted as the organization's single leader, in effect as "general manager, secretary, artistic director, conductor and fund-raiser", though without a for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Maxwell (baritone)
Donald Maxwell (born 12 December 1948) is a Scottish operatic baritone, director and teacher. He has sung with all of the leading British opera companies, as well as La Scala, Milan, Metropolitan Opera, Paris Opéra, Vienna Staatsoper, Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires and Théâtre Musical de Paris, among others. He has also sung on the concert stage, in performances broadcast on radio and television, and on recordings."Donald Maxwell" Music International, accessed 26 February 2014 Biography Maxwell was born in , Scotland, and studied geography at the |
Alan Opie
Alan Opie (born 22 March 1945 in Redruth, Cornwall, England) is an English baritone, primarily known as an opera singer. Education He attended Truro School and went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University as a choral student in 1963. He also studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the London Opera Centre before joining the Sadler's Wells Opera (now the English National Opera, ENO). He became a Principal baritone there while still a student. Opera career Opie has also sung with the other major UK opera companies Scottish Opera, Opera North, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Internationally, he has performed in the opera houses of Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Brussels, Berlin, Chicago and Santa Fe and regularly appears at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. He has also sung at the Bayreuth Festival. In 1996, Opie switched his status at the ENO from company member to regular guest, enabling him to make his début at La ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steuart Bedford
Steuart John Rudolf Bedford (31 July 1939 – 15 February 2021) was an English orchestral and opera conductor and pianist. He was the brother of composer David Bedford and of singer Peter Lehmann Bedford and a grandson of Liza Lehmann and Herbert Bedford; his parents were Leslie Bedford, an inventor, and Lesley Duff, a soprano opera singer. Bedford was particularly associated with the music of Benjamin Britten, and conducted the world premiere of ''Death in Venice'' in 1973. Bedford also conducted Britten's other operas, and made an orchestral suite of music from ''Death in Venice''. Between 1974 and 1998, he was one of the Artistic Directors of the Aldeburgh Festival. In 1989, he became joint artistic director with Oliver Knussen. In the summer of 2013, Bedford conducted a performance of ''Peter Grimes'' which was staged in its natural setting on the beach at Aldeburgh. His book ''Knowing Britten'', compiled through his conversations with the tenor Christopher Gillett, is d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Chamber Orchestra
The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and their ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall. The orchestra regularly tours in the UK and internationally, and holds the distinction of not only having the most extensive discography of any chamber orchestra, but also of being the most well-traveled orchestra in the world; no other orchestra has played concerts (as of 2013, according to its own publicity) in as many countries as the English Chamber Orchestra. The English Chamber Orchestra has its roots in the Goldsbrough Orchestra, founded in 1948 by Lawrence Leonard and Arnold Goldsbrough. The group took its current name in 1960, when it expanded its repertoire beyond the Baroque period for the first time. Its repertoire remained limited by the group's size, which has stayed fairly consistently at around the size of an orchestra of Mozart's time. Shortly afterwards, it became closely assoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Opera Group
The English Opera Group was a small company of British musicians formed in 1947 by the composer Benjamin Britten (along with John Piper, Eric Crozier and Anne Wood) for the purpose of presenting his and other, primarily British, composers' operatic works. The group later expanded to present larger-scale works, and was renamed the English Music Theatre Company. The organisation produced its last opera and ceased to run in 1980. English Opera Group Fleeing internal politics at Sadler's Wells Opera at the end of 1945, Britten and singers Joan Cross, Anne Wood, and Peter Pears joined with designer Piper and producer Crozier to found the English Opera Group. The new company's goal was to première Britten's operas, and to present other, mostly British, small-scale operas. Rosenthal, Harold. ''English Opera Group'' in Sadie, vol. 2, p. 52 The company's first project was to première Britten's chamber opera ''Albert Herring'' and give further performances of his opera ''The Rape of L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Tear
Robert Tear (pronounced to rhyme with "beer"), CBE (8 March 1939 – 29 March 2011) was a Welsh tenor singer, teacher and conductor. He first became known singing in the operas of Benjamin Britten in the mid-1960s. From the 1970s until his retirement in 1999 his main operatic base was the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; he appeared with other opera companies in the UK, mainland Europe, the US and Australia. Generally avoiding the Italian repertoire, which did not suit his voice, Tear became known in leading and character roles in German, British and Russian operas. Tear's concert repertoire was wide, extending from music from the 17th century to contemporary works by Britten, Tippett and others. He conducted for some years from the mid-1980s, but found himself temperamentally unsuited to it. As a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music he was happier, and was well regarded by colleagues and pupils. Life and career Early years Tear was born in Barry, Glamorgan, the son of T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Langdon
Michael Langdon CBE (12 November 192012 March 1991) was a British bass opera singer. Langdon was born in Wolverhampton. He had six half brothers and sisters, the youngest, Maud being 19 years his senior. His father, Harry (birth name Frank Birtles) was sixty when his youngest son was born. He was blind and after he retired from business, his young son spent much time with him, reading to him, sharing walks and conversation and learning to play the piano. Harry died when Frank was ten. Frank promptly failed the 11 plus, to his teacher's amazement. He excelled at the less academic school he attended. He disliked school and was pleased to leave. He was principal bass at the Royal Opera House from 1951 and sang in most of the great opera houses of the world, most often in the role of Baron Ochs in ''Der Rosenkavalier'' during the 1960s and 1970s. His voice has been described as 'basso profundo'. He could reach the lowest noted of that part with ease while going into a falsetto for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norma Burrowes
Norma Burrowes (born 24 April 1944) is an Irish coloratura soprano, particularly associated with Handel and Mozart roles. Life and career Born in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, Burrowes studied at The Queen's University of Belfast and then at Royal Academy of Music with Flora Nielsen and Rupert Bruce-Lockhart. She made her professional debut with the Glyndebourne Touring Opera Company, as Zerlina, in 1970."Burrowes, Norma" in ''Oxford Concise Dictionary of Music'' by Michael & Joyce Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 2007. The same year, she made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London, as Fiakermilli, and at the Glyndebourne Festival, as Papagena. She also sang in various productions with the English Opera Group, including Henry Purcell's ''The Fairy-Queen'', ''King Arthur'', and ''Dido and Aeneas''.Britten, p. 658 Burrowes joined the English National Opera in 1971, and quickly began to appear on the international scene, notably at the Salzburg Festival, the Paris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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