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Eric Crozier
Eric Crozier OBE (14 November 19147 September 1994) was a British theatrical director, opera librettist and producer, long associated with Benjamin Britten. Early life and career Crozier was born in London and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and at the British Institute in Paris, working as a translator and giving English lessons. In Paris he joined Jacques Copeau's La Compagnie des Quinze, known for championing experimental drama. Returning to England, he became one of the first drama producers for BBC Television, a position that his friendship with the actor Stephen Haggard helped him to obtain. Productions during that time included ''Turn Round'' (1937) and ''Telecrime'' (1938). Crozier joined the Old Vic theatre, working with Tyrone Guthrie, then moved during the war to the Sadlers Wells Opera Company where he directed Smetana's ''The Bartered Bride'' in 1943 with Peter Pears in the lead role. Association with Britten The association with Benjamin Britten began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Director
A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. The director's function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. The director thereby collaborates with a team of creative individuals and other staff to coordinate research and work on all the aspects of the production which includes the Technical and the Performance aspects. The technical aspects include: stagecraft, costume design, theatrical properties (props), lighting design, set design, and sound design for the production. The performance aspects include: acting, dance, orchestra, chants, and stage combat. If the production is a new piece of writing or a (new) translation of a play, the director ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall. History of the Aldeburgh Festival The Festival was founded in 1948 by the composer Benjamin Britten, the singer Peter Pears and the librettist/producer Eric Crozier.Aldeburgh Town Council Retrieved 7 March 2019.Archives Hub Retrieved 7 March 2019. Their work with the English Opera Group (which they had founded with designer [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Cross
Joan Cross (7 September 1900 – 12 December 1993) was an English soprano, closely associated with the operas of Benjamin Britten. She also sang in the Italian and German operatic repertoires. She later became a musical administrator, taking on the direction of the Sadler's Wells Opera Company. Career Cross was born in London. She attended St Paul's Girls' School, where her music teacher was the composer Gustav Holst, and studied singing at the Trinity College of Music. In 1923, she joined the chorus of the Vic-Wells opera company at the Old Vic, later taking on a wide range of solo soprano roles for the Sadler's Wells company and a few at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Her Covent Garden performances included Mimi in ''La Bohème'' and Desdemona (to Lauritz Melchior's Otello) in 1934. During this period she also became a noted Marschallin, Sieglinde and Brünnhilde, Elisabeth, Elsa, Madame Butterfly, Aida, Donna Anna and Tatiana. Cross undertook the direction ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor. Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he quickly became known as an unconventional and modernist composer, but within the decade he began to display a more traditional and romantic side in his music. In the 1920s and 1930s he composed extensively not only for the concert hall, but also for films and ballet. In the Second World War, Bliss returned to England from the US to work for the BBC and became its director of music. After the war he resumed his work as a composer, and was appointed Master of the Queen's Music. In Bliss's later years, his work was respected but was thought old-fashioned, and it was eclipsed by the music of younger colleagues such as William Walton and Benjamin Britten. Since his death, his compositions have been well represented in recordings, and many of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Ruth
The Book of Ruth ( he, מגילת רות, ''Megilath Ruth'', "the Scroll of Ruth", one of the Five Megillot) is included in the third division, or the Writings (Ketuvim), of the Hebrew Bible. In most Old Testament, Christian canons it is treated as one of the historical books and placed between Book of Judges, Judges and 1 Samuel. The book, written in Biblical Hebrew, Hebrew in the 6th–4th centuries BCE, tells of the Moabites, Moabite woman Ruth (biblical figure), Ruth, who accepts Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, as her God and accepts the Israelite people as her own. In Ruth 1:16–17, Ruth tells Naomi (biblical figure), Naomi, her Israelite Parent-in-law#Mothers-in-law, mother-in-law, "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me." The book is held in esteem by Jews who fal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lennox Berkeley
Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley (12 May 190326 December 1989) was an English composer. Biography Berkeley was born on 12 May 1903 in Oxford, England, the younger child and only son of Aline Carla (1863–1935), daughter of Sir James Charles Harris, former British consul in Monaco, and Royal Navy Captain Hastings George FitzHardinge Berkeley (1855–1934), the illegitimate and eldest son of George Lennox Rawdon Berkeley, the 7th Earl of Berkeley (1827–1888). He attended the Dragon School in Oxford, going on to Gresham's School, in Holt, Norfolk and St George's School in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. He studied French at Merton College, Oxford, graduating with a fourth class degree in 1926. While at university he coxed the college rowing eight. He became an honorary fellow of Merton College in 1974. In 1927, he went to Paris to study music with Nadia Boulanger, and there became acquainted with Francis Poulenc, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger and Albert Rouss ... [...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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Budd (opera)
''Billy Budd'', Op. 50, is an opera by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by the English novelist E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, based on the short novel '' Billy Budd'' by Herman Melville. Originally in four acts, the opera received its premiere at the Royal Opera House (ROH), London, on 1 December 1951. Britten later revised the work into a two-act opera, with a prologue and an epilogue. The revised version received its first performance at the ROH, Covent Garden, London, on 9 January 1964. Composition history E. M. Forster had an interest in the novella, which he discussed in his Clark lectures at Cambridge University. Forster had admired Britten's music since 1937 when he attended a performance of the play '' The Ascent of F6'' (for which Britten wrote incidental music). Forster met Britten in October 1942, when he heard Peter Pears and Britten perform Britten's ''Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo'' at the National Gallery. In 1948, Britten and Forster discussed whether Fors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Little Sweep
''The Little Sweep'', Op. 45, is an opera for children in three scenes by the English composer Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Eric Crozier. ''Let's Make an Opera!'' ''The Little Sweep'' is the second part of a stage production entitled ''Let's Make an Opera!''. The first part takes the form of a play in which the cast portray contemporary amateur performers conceiving, creating and rehearsing the opera. Intended as an introduction to and demystification of the operatic genre, the play also provides an opportunity to rehearse the audience in the four "Audience Songs" they will sing after the interval. The format of the play altered radically in the early months of its existence, passing through at least three versions (including one specially written for radio) utilising different approaches to the exposition. An initial version set "on the stage of any village hall" during an open dress-rehearsal for an already-written work morphs into one where the "Little Sweep" narra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Nicolas (Britten)
''Saint Nicolas'', Op. 42, is a cantata with music by Benjamin Britten on a text by Eric Crozier, completed in 1948. It covers the legendary life of Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, Lycia, in a dramatic sequence of events. The composer wrote the work for the centenary of Lancing College in Sussex, with the resources of the institution in mind. It is scored for mixed choir, tenor soloist, four boys singers, strings, piano duet, organ and percussion. The only professionals required are the tenor soloist, a string quintet to lead the other strings, and the percussionists. ''Saint Nicolas'' is Britten's first work for amateur musicians, and it includes congregational hymns. The premiere was the opening concert of the first Aldeburgh Festival in June 1948, with Peter Pears as the soloist. History Benjamin Britten wrote the cantata ''Saint Nicolas'', Op. 42, from December 1947 to May 1948 for the centennial celebrations of Lancing College in Sussex. Writing specifically for the ... [...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 ope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. ''Libretto'' (; plural ''libretti'' ), from Italian, is the diminutive of the word ''libro'' ("book"). Sometimes other-language equivalents are used for libretti in that language, ''livret'' for French works, ''Textbuch'' for German and ''libreto'' for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word ''libretto'' to refer to the 15 to 40 page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained a very detailed description of the ballet's story, scene by sce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
