Winifred Lawson
Winifred Lawson (15 November 1892 – 30 November 1961) was an English opera and concert singer in the first half of the 20th century. She is particularly remembered for her performances in the soprano roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas as a member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company between 1922 and 1932. She started her career as a concert singer. In 1920, she made her operatic debut as Countess Almaviva in ''The Marriage of Figaro'', appeared in the first performances of Purcell's ''The Fairy-Queen'' in more than 200 years, and created the role of Guinevere in ''The Round Table''. Lawson was soon playing a range of roles, from as Marguerite in ''Faust'' to Bessie Throckmorton in '' Merrie England''. She was a D'Oyly Carte principal soprano for nearly a decade, playing 10 of the leading Savoy opera roles. The only other role she played during this time was Lili in '' Lilac Time'', although she also began a broadcast career in 1929 on BBC radio. In the mid-1930s, Lawson app ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vevey
Vevey (; frp, Vevê; german: label=former German, Vivis) is a town in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne. The German name Vivis is no longer commonly used. It was the seat of the district of the same name until 2006, and is now part of the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut District. It is part of the French-speaking area of Switzerland. Vevey is home to the world headquarters of the international food and beverage company Nestlé, founded here in 1867. Milk chocolate was invented in Vevey by Daniel Peter in 1875, with the aid of Henri Nestlé. The English actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin resided in Vevey from 1952 until his death in 1977. History A piloti settlement existed here as early as the 2nd millennium BC. Under Rome, it was known as Viviscus or ''Vibiscum''. It was mentioned for the first time by the ancient Greek astronomer and philosopher Ptolemy, who gave it the name Ouikos. In the Middle Ages it was a station on the Via ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sylvia Cecil
Sylvia Cecil (c. 1898 – c. 1983) was an English singer and actress. She began her career in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, with whom she performed, off and on, from 1918 until 1937. She also performed in musical theatre, concerts, music hall and variety from 1921, and broadcast on radio. In the 1940s and 1950s she starred in several musicals by Ivor Novello and Noël Coward. Biography Cecil was born in London. She was educated at St Clement Danes Grammar School, Holborn, and then studied for the stage with Clive Currie and at the Guildhall School of Music. She made her stage debut in 1914 playing Titania in a youth production of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''.Stone, David"Syliva Cecil" ''Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company'', 23 August 2004 During the following year she played Silvius in ''As You Like It'' and Helena in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. Early career In 1918, Cecil was engaged by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prince's Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden. Opened in 1911 as the New Prince's Theatre, it was the last theatre to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue. History The theatre was designed for the Melville Brothers by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of ''The Three Musketeers''. It was originally named the New Prince's Theatre, becoming the Prince's Theatre in 1914. The original capacity of the auditorium is unknown, but with standing room in the Stalls it is possible that over 3000 people were able to attend performances. The current capacity is between 1300 and 1400. The Prince's was the last theatre to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue, and is located on the junction between Shaftesbury Avenue and High Holborn. During the First World War, the Prince's advertised itself as ‘The Laughter House where you can forget the War.’ In September 1919, the theatre had considerable success with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edward German
Sir Edward German (17 February 1862 – 11 November 1936) was an English musician and composer of Welsh descent, best remembered for his extensive output of incidental music for the stage and as a successor to Arthur Sullivan in the field of English comic opera. Some of his light operas, especially '' Merrie England'', are still performed. As a youth, German played the violin and led the town orchestra of Whitchurch, Shropshire. He also began to compose music. While performing and teaching violin at the Royal Academy of Music, German began to build a career as a composer in the mid-1880s, writing serious music as well as light opera. In 1888, he became music director of the Globe Theatre in London. He provided popular incidental music for many productions at the Globe and other London theatres, including ''Richard III'' (1889), ''Henry VIII'' (1892) and ''Nell Gwynn'' (1900). He also wrote symphonies, orchestral suites, symphonic poems and other works. He also wrote a consi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nicholas Gatty
Nicholas Comyn Gatty (13 September 1874 – 10 November 1946) was an English composer and music critic. As a composer his major output was opera, which was generally musically undistinguished but well-presented theatrically. As a critic he worked for the Pall Mall Gazette and The Times, and served as assistant editor for the second and third editions of Grove. He was born in Bradfield, Yorkshire, the second son of the Revd Reginald Gatty, and the nephew of composer Alfred Scott-Gatty. He was educated at Downing College, Cambridge (BA 1896, Mus B 1898, Mus D 1927) and at the Royal College of Music where he studied under Charles Villiers Stanford. From the beginning of the 20th century he was assistant conductor at Covent Garden, and at some time organist to the Duke of York's Royal Military School in Chelsea. At Grove's Dictionary of Music he wrote many anonymous contributions under the editors Fuller Maitland and H C Colles. His compositions include the operas ''Princ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Magic Flute
''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a ''Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death. Still a staple of the opera repertory, its popularity was reflected by two immediate sequels, Peter Winter's ''Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil'' (1798) and a fragmentary libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled ''The Magic Flute Part Two''. The allegorical plot was influenced by Schikaneder and Mozart's interest in Freemasonry and concerns the initiation of Prince Tamino. Enlisted by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the high priest Sarastro, Tamino comes to a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Glastonbury Festival (1914–25)
Glastonbury Festival (formally Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England. In addition to contemporary music, the festival hosts dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret, and other arts. Leading pop and rock artists have headlined, alongside thousands of others appearing on smaller stages and performance areas. Films and albums have been recorded at the festival, and it receives extensive television and newspaper coverage. Glastonbury is attended by around 200,000 people, thus requiring extensive security, transport, water, and electricity-supply infrastructure. While the number of attendees is sometimes swollen by gatecrashers, a record of 300,000 people was set at the 1994 festival, headlined by the Levellers who performed on The Pyramid Stage. Most festival staff are volunteers, helping the festival to raise millions of pounds for c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rutland Boughton
Rutland Boughton (23 January 187825 January 1960) was an English composer who became well known in the early 20th century as a composer of opera and choral music. He was also an influential communist activist within the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). His oeuvre includes three symphonies, several concertos, part-songs, songs, chamber music and opera (which he called "music drama" after Wagner). His best known work was the opera ''The Immortal Hour''. His ''Bethlehem'' (1915), based on the Coventry Nativity Play and notable for its choral arrangements of traditional Christmas carols, also became very popular with choral societies worldwide. Among his many works, the prolific Boughton composed a complete series of five operas of Arthurian mythos, written over a period of thirty-five years: ''The Birth of Arthur'' (1909), ''The Round Table'' (1915–16), ''The Lily Maid'' (1933–34), ''Galahad'' (1943–44) and ''Avalon'' (1944–45). Other operas by Boughton include ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Astra Desmond
Astra Desmond (10 April 1893 – 16 August 1973) was a British contralto of the early and middle twentieth century. Biography Early years Astra Desmond was born Gwendoline Mary Thomson (she would later modify the spelling of her first name to Gwendolyn), in Torquay, England, the daughter of George Thomson, a Melbourne-born Australian dentist, and Viva Louisa (nee Blain), a London-born British schoolteacher and suffragist. Prior to Desmond's birth the family had lived in Australia, her two older siblings Mabel and Claude being born in Melbourne. During Desmond's childhood the family moved first to Upper Norwood and then to West Kensington, both in what is now the Greater London Area. She was educated at Notting Hill High School and Westfield College, where she was a classical scholar and received a BA.''The Times'', obituary notice, Friday, 17 August 1973, p. 16 She studied singing with Blanche Marchesi (as did her colleague Muriel Brunskill) and Louise Trenton, and in Berli ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no government funding. It can seat 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage. It is the venue for the BBC Proms concerts, which have been held there every summer since 1941. It is host to more than 390 shows in the main auditorium annually, including classical, rock and pop concerts, ballet, opera, film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment, sports, awards ceremonies, school and community events, and charity performances and banquets. A further 400 events are held each year in the non-auditorium spaces. Over its 151 year history the hall has hosted people from various fields, including meetings by Suffragettes, speeches from Winston Churchi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |