|
The Sapphire Necklace
''The Sapphire Necklace, or the False Heiress'' (completed by 1867, and at least mostly completed by 1864), was the first opera composed by Arthur Sullivan. It was never performed, and most of the music and libretto are now lost. Background After his incidental music to '' The Tempest'' brought Arthur Sullivan early fame in 1862, he began to experiment with a wide variety of musical compositions. By 1864, the young Sullivan had written a ballet ('' L'Île Enchantée''), orchestral pieces including ''The Masque at Kenilworth'', several hymns, a few piano solos, and some part songs and parlour ballads. He had also set to work on ''The Sapphire Necklace''. As with some of his other compositions in the 1860s, the libretto was provided by his friend Henry F. Chorley. However, this libretto proved particularly difficult to set. Later in life Sullivan would say that no other libretto had given him more difficulty, and an 1879 article suggests that he later decided to suppress the op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sapphire Necklace Overture
Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sapphirus" from the Greek "sappheiros", which referred to lapis lazuli. It is typically blue, but natural "fancy" sapphires also occur in yellow, purple, orange, and green colors; "parti sapphires" show two or more colors. Red corundum stones also occur, but are called rubies rather than sapphires. Pink-colored corundum may be classified either as ruby or sapphire depending on locale. Commonly, natural sapphires are cut and polished into gemstones and worn in jewelry. They also may be created synthetically in laboratories for industrial or decorative purposes in large crystal boules. Because of the remarkable hardness of sapphires 9 on the Mohs scale (the third hardest mineral, after diamond at 10 and moissanite at 9.5) sapphires are also used i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victorian Era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the '' Belle Époque'' era of Continental Europe. There was a strong religious drive for higher moral standards led by the nonconformist churches, such as the Methodists and the evangelical wing of the established Church of England. Ideologically, the Victorian era witnessed resistance to the rationalism that defined the Georgian period, and an increasing turn towards romanticism and even mysticism in religion, social values, and arts. This era saw a staggering amount of technological innovations that proved key to Britain's power and prosperity. Doctors started moving away from tradition and mysticism towards a science-based approach; medicine advanced thanks to the adoption ... [...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] |
Operas By Arthur Sullivan
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] |
Dutton Vocalion
Dutton Vocalion specialises in re-issuing on CD music recorded between the 1920s and 1970s, and in issuing albums of modern digital recordings. It was established by British recording and re-mastering engineer Michael J. Dutton. Dutton Laboratories ''and'' Dutton Epoch The company is divided into two sections. The Dutton Laboratories label came first in 1993. It initially gained recognition for its highly acclaimed series of CDs of historic classical music performances that originally appeared on 78-rpm shellac discs. The Dutton Epoch series was established in 1999 and champions the unrecorded music of twentieth century British classical composers such as Arnold Bax, York Bowen, Arthur Butterworth, William Hurlstone and Granville Bantock in modern digital recordings. Vocalion Vocalion was established in 1997 and is for CDs of light music, big bands/dance bands, jazz, easy listening, vocalists and 1950s/60s pop. Vocalion first made its name with a celebrated and ongoing series ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Concert Orchestra
The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British concert orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five BBC orchestras which is not a full-scale symphony orchestra. The BBC Concert Orchestra is the BBC's most populist ensemble, playing a mixture of classical music, light music and popular numbers. Its primary role is to produce music for radio broadcast, and it is the resident orchestra of the world's longest running live music programme, '' Friday Night is Music Night'' on BBC Radio 2. History The parent ensemble of the orchestra was the BBC Theatre Orchestra, which was formed in 1931 and based in Bedford. The orchestra also did opera work and was occasionally billed as the BBC Opera Orchestra. Stanford Robinson was the principal conductor from 1931 until 1946, but others included Walter Goehr, Spike Hughes, Harold Lowe, Mark Lubbock and Lionel Salter. In August 1949, the ensemble w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael William Balfe
Michael William Balfe (15 May 1808 – 20 October 1870) was an Irish composer, best remembered for his operas, especially ''The Bohemian Girl''. After a short career as a violinist, Balfe pursued an operatic singing career, while he began to compose. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he composed at least 29 operas, almost 250 songs, several cantatas and other works. He was also a noted conductor, directing Italian Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre for seven years, among other conducting posts. Biography Early life and career Balfe was born in Dublin, where his musical gifts became apparent at an early age. He received instruction from his father, a dancing master and violinist, and the composer William Rooke. His family moved to Wexford when he was a child. Between 1814 and 1815, Balfe played the violin for his father's dancing-classes, and at the age of seven composed a polacca. In 1817, he appeared as a violinist in public, and in this year composed a ballad, first cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregg Smith Singers
The Gregg Smith Singers is a mixed chorus from the United States, directed by Gregg Smith (August 21, 1931 – July 12, 2016). The group, which comprises 16 singers, was founded at an all-Japanese Methodist church in West Los Angeles, California in 1955, while Smith was studying for his master's degree in music at the University of California, Los Angeles. The group moved to New York in 1970. The group's repertoire ranges from the colonial-era American compositions of William Billings to contemporary works by Morton Feldman as well as many works by Smith himself. They have also performed works by William Duckworth, Arnold Schoenberg, Elliott Carter, Charles Ives, Earle Brown, Edwin London, Blas Galindo, Jorge Córdoba, Harold Blumenfeld, Irving Fine, Morton Gould, William Schuman, Louise Talma, Arthur Sullivan, and Ned Rorem, as well as early music by composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli and Heinrich Schütz. They have also made a well received yuletide album entitled "Christmas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RTÉ Concert Orchestra
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra is one of the two full-time professional radio orchestras in Ireland that are part of RTÉ, the national broadcasting station. Since its formation as the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra in 1948, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, has grown from a small studio-based recording group to become an active 45-strong orchestra performing over eighty concerts annually. It is part of RTÉ Performing Groups. The orchestra performs classical, popular and big band evening and lunchtime concerts, covering a range of music from baroque to contemporary. Classical The period from 2003 to 2006 saw a particular emphasis on the classical repertoire under the orchestra's then principal conductor Laurent Wagner. In this period the orchestra programmed classical-themed concerts compared to the "lighter" side that dominated under its previous principal conductor Proinnsias O'Duinn from 1978 to 2003, leading to collaboration with comperes such as Des Keogh, presenter of the popular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Zoo
''The Zoo'' is a one-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by B. C. Stephenson, writing under the pen name of Bolton Rowe. It premiered on 5 June 1875 at the St. James's Theatre in London (as an afterpiece to W. S. Gilbert's ''Tom Cobb''), concluding its run five weeks later, on 10 July 1875, at the Haymarket Theatre. There were brief revivals in late 1875, and again in 1879, before the opera was shelved. The farcical story concerns two pairs of lovers. First, a nobleman, who goes to the zoo to woo the girl who sells snacks there. He tries to impress her by buying and eating all of the food. The other couple is a young chemist who believes that he has poisoned his beloved by mixing up her father's prescription with peppermint that he had meant for her. The score was not published in Sullivan's lifetime, and it lay dormant until Terence Rees purchased the composer's autograph at auction in 1966 and arranged for publication. The opera is in one act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). The largest city in Illinois outside of the Chicago metropolitan area, Rockford is the fifth-largest city in the state and the 171st most populous in the United States. According to 2020 U.S. Census data, the City of Rockford had a population of 148,655 with an outlying metropolitan area population of 348,360. Settled in the mid-1830s, the position of the city on the Rock River made its location strategic for industrial development. In the second half of the 19th century, Rockford was notable for its output of heavy machinery, hardware and tools; by the twentieth century, it was the second leading center of furniture manufacturing in the nation, and 94th largest city. During the second half of the 20th century, Rockford struggled alongs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria And Merrie England
''Victoria and Merrie England'', billed as a "Grand National Ballet in Eight Tableaux" is an 1897 ballet by the choreographer Carlo Coppi with music by Arthur Sullivan, written to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, commemorating her sixty years on the throne. The ballet became very popular and ran for nearly six months. Background In honour of the Jubilee, Alfred Maul, manager of the Alhambra Theatre, asked Sullivan to compose a patriotic ballet to a scenario by the theatre's resident choreographer, Coppi. As the nation's pre-eminent composer, Sullivan was the natural choice to write the music.Shepherd, Marc"''Victoria and Merrie England'', ballet (1897) Gilbert & Sullivan Discography, 29 October 2001, accessed 2 October 2017 An alternate Jubilee composition, a poem submitted to Sullivan by the Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, was never set. Sullivan composed the piece mostly on the French Riviera, combining the task with visits to the casino. Nevertheless, he took the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
