Download or read book Who s who in British Opera written by Nicky Adam and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This reference concentrates solely on individuals currently active in British opera. The text covers singers, conductors, composers, directors, designers, administrators, editors, librettists, teachers, translators, critics and writers. Each entry contains both personal and professional data.
Download or read book A Dictionary of Opera Characters written by Joyce Bourne Kennedy and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique reference work containing over 2,500 A-Z entries on operatic characters. Includes synopses for over 200 operas and operettas, as well as feature articles written by well-known personalities from the world of opera, including Plácido Domingo and Dame Janet Baker. It is an essential book for anyone with an interest in opera.
Download or read book Operas in English written by Margaret Ross Griffel and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012-12-21 with total page 1015 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many opera dictionaries and encyclopedias are available, very few are devoted exclusively to operas in a single language. In this revised and expanded edition of Operas in English: A Dictionary, Margaret Ross Griffel brings up to date her original work on operas written specifically to an English text (including works both originally prepared in English, as well as English translations). Since its original publication in 1999, Griffel has added nearly 800 entries to the 4,300 from the original volume, covering the world of opera in the English language from 1634 through 2011. Listed alphabetically by letter, each opera entry includes alternative titles, if any; a full, descriptive title; the number of acts; the composer’s name; the librettist’s name, the original language of the libretto, and the original source of the text, with the source title; the date, place, and cast of the first performance; the date of composition, if it occurred substantially earlier than the premiere date; similar information for the first U.S. (including colonial) and British (i.e., in England, Scotland, or Wales) performances, where applicable; a brief plot summary; the main characters (names and vocal ranges, where known); some of the especially noteworthy numbers cited by name; comments on special musical problems, techniques, or other significant aspects; and other settings of the text, including non-English ones, and/or other operas involving the same story or characters (cross references are indicated by asterisks). Entries also include such information as first and critical editions of the score and libretto; a bibliography, ranging from scholarly studies to more informal journal articles and reviews; a discography; and information on video recordings. Griffel also includes four appendixes, a selective bibliography, and two indexes. The first appendix lists composers, their places and years of birth and death, and their operas included in the text as entries; the second does the same for librettists; the third records authors whose works inspired or were adapted for the librettos; and the fourth comprises a chronological listing of the A–Z entries, including as well as the date of first performance, the city of the premiere, the short title of the opera, and the composer. Griffel also include a main character index and an index of singers, conductors, producers, and other key figures.
Download or read book Twentieth Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain written by Irene Morra and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-17 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first to examine in depth the contributions of major British authors such as W. H. Auden and E. M. Forster, as critics and librettists, to the rise of British opera in the twentieth century. The perceived literary values of British authors, as much as the musical innovations of British composers, informed the aesthetic development of British opera. Indeed, British opera emerged as a simultaneously literary and musical project. Too often, operatic adaptations are compared superficially to their original sources. This is a particular problem for British opera, which has become increasingly defined artistically by the literary sophistication of its narrative sources. The resulting collaborations between literary figures and composers have crucial implications for the development of both opera and literature. Twentieth-Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain reveals the importance of this literary involvement in operatic adaptation to literature and literary studies, to music and musicology, and to cultural and theoretical studies.
Download or read book The Operas of Sergei Prokofiev written by Christina Guillaumier and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The operas of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) mark a significant contribution to twentieth-century music and theatre. Opera was Prokofiev's preferred genre; not counting juvenile and unfinished works, he wrote a total of eight. Yet, to date, little has been published about the context, rationale or musical and compositional processes behind this output. While systematic studies of Prokofiev's symphonies and his ballets exist, the operas have come under no such scrutiny. This book is the first in the English language to engage with the composer's operatic output in its entirety and provides a contextual, critical and musico-analytical account of all of Prokofiev's operas, including those juvenile works that are unpublished as well as the incomplete works composed towards the end of his life. It also includes synopses of the operas. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and other sources, the book provides the compelling untold story of Prokofiev the opera composer. CHRISTINA GUILLAUMIER is a music historian, pianist and writer on music. She is currently Head of Undergraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music in London.
Download or read book London Opera Observed 1711 1844 Volume I written by Michael Burden and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrust of these five volumes is contained in their title, London Opera Observ’d. It takes its cue from the numerous texts and volumes which — during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — used the concept of ‘spying’ or ‘observing’ by a narrator, or rambler, as a means of establishing a discourse on aspects of London life. The material in this five-volume reset edition examines opera not simply as a genre of performance, but as a wider topic of comment and debate. The stories that surrounded the Italian opera singers illuminate contemporary British attitudes towards performance, sexuality and national identity. The collection includes only complete, published material organised chronologically so as to accurately retain the contexts in which the original readers encountered them — placing an emphasis on rare texts that have not been reproduced in modern editions. The aim of this collection is not to provide a history of opera in England but to facilitate the writing of them or to assist those wishing to study topics within the field. Headnotes and footnotes establish the publication information and provide an introduction to the piece, its author, and the events surrounding it or which caused its publication. The notes concentrate on attempting to identify those figures mentioned within the texts. The approach is one of presentation, not interpretation, ensuring that the collection occupies a position that is neutral rather than polemical.
Download or read book London Opera Observed 1711 1844 written by Michael Burden and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-31 with total page 1819 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrust of these five volumes is contained in their title, London Opera Observ’d. It takes its cue from the numerous texts and volumes which — during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — used the concept of ‘spying’ or ‘observing’ by a narrator, or rambler, as a means of establishing a discourse on aspects of London life. The material in this five-volume reset edition examines opera not simply as a genre of performance, but as a wider topic of comment and debate. The stories that surrounded the Italian opera singers illuminate contemporary British attitudes towards performance, sexuality and national identity. The collection includes only complete, published material organised chronologically so as to accurately retain the contexts in which the original readers encountered them — placing an emphasis on rare texts that have not been reproduced in modern editions. The aim of this collection is not to provide a history of opera in England but to facilitate the writing of them or to assist those wishing to study topics within the field. Headnotes and footnotes establish the publication information and provide an introduction to the piece, its author, and the events surrounding it or which caused its publication. The notes concentrate on attempting to identify those figures mentioned within the texts. The approach is one of presentation, not interpretation, ensuring that the collection occupies a position that is neutral rather than polemical.
Download or read book Opera in London written by Theodore Fenner and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 830 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theodore Fenner’s Opera in London offers a vivid portrait of the operatic and cultural life of a London under the influence of Romanticism as perceived by the English press and the public who viewed the performances. In part 1, Fenner discusses the rise of the periodical press in early nineteenth-century London and the critics of these publications who reviewed opera performances, such as Leigh Hunt and William Hazlitt. Fenner lists in the appendixes for part 1 the leading periodicals—including the Althenaeum, Examiner, and Spectator,— the critics, and reviews by leading critics. Fenner, in part 2, examines the productions of Italian opera in London at the King’s Theatre, including the problems in theatre management and financing; the varied nature of the audience; the operas and performances— those that were popular and those that failed in the words of the critics and the responses of the audience; the singers; and themes and attitudes of the period as expressed by the critics. In part 3, Fenner explores the same topics for the English operas presented at Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and other playhouses. Parts 2 and 3 also contain extensive appendixes listing seasonal and annual performances and reviews, productions by composers and by librettists, comic and serious productions, operas by known playwrights, and minor singers. Forty-eight illustrations of singers, critics, performances, composers, and theatres add to the richness of this study.
Download or read book Masque and Opera in England 1656 1688 written by Andrew R. Walkling and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masque and Opera in England, 1656–1688 presents a comprehensive study of the development of court masque and through-composed opera in England from the mid-1650s to the Revolution of 1688–89. In seeking to address the problem of generic categorization within a highly fragmentary corpus for which a limited amount of documentation survives, Walkling argues that our understanding of the distinctions between masque and opera must be premised upon a thorough knowledge of theatrical context and performance circumstances. Using extensive archival and literary evidence, detailed textual readings, rigorous tabular analysis, and meticulous collation of bibliographical and musical sources, this interdisciplinary study offers a host of new insights into a body of work that has long been of interest to musicologists, theatre historians, literary scholars and historians of Restoration court and political culture, but which has hitherto been imperfectly understood. A companion volume will explore the phenomenon of "dramatick opera" and its precursors on London’s public stages between the early 1660s and the first decade of the eighteenth century.
Download or read book The British Librarian Or Handbook for Students in Divinity Etc written by William Thomas LOWNDES and published by . This book was released on 1844 with total page 756 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book British Librarian Or Book collectors Guide to the Formation of a Library in All Branches of Literature etc written by William Thomas Lowndes and published by . This book was released on 1842 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Illustrated London News written by and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book British Musical Biography written by James Duff Brown and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book T P s Weekly written by Thomas Power O'Connor and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tonic to the Nation Making English Music in the Festival of Britain written by Nathaniel G. Lew and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long remembered chiefly for its modernist exhibitions on the South Bank in London, the 1951 Festival of Britain also showcased British artistic creativity in all its forms. In Tonic to the Nation, Nathaniel G. Lew tells the story of the English classical music and opera composed and revived for the Festival, and explores how these long-overlooked components of the Festival helped define English music in the post-war period. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, Lew looks closely at the work of the newly chartered Arts Council of Great Britain, for whom the Festival of Britain provided the first chance to assert its authority over British culture. The Arts Council devised many musical programs for the Festival, including commissions of new concert works, a vast London Season of almost 200 concerts highlighting seven centuries of English musical creativity, and several schemes to commission and perform new operas. These projects were not merely directed at bringing audiences to hear new and old national music, but to share broader goals of framing the national repertory, negotiating between the conflicting demands of conservative and progressive tastes, and using music to forge new national definitions in a changed post-war world.
Download or read book English Dramatick Opera 1661 1706 written by Andrew R. Walkling and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English Dramatick Opera, 1661–1706 is the first comprehensive examination of the distinctively English form known as "dramatick opera", which appeared on the London stage in the mid-1670s and lasted until its displacement by Italian through-composed opera in the first decade of the eighteenth century. Andrew Walkling argues that, while the musical elements of this form are crucial to its definition and history, the origins of the genre lie principally in a tradition of spectacular stagecraft that first manifested itself in England in the mid-1660s as part of a hitherto unidentified dramatic sub-genre, to which Walkling gives the name "spectacle-tragedy". Armed with this new understanding, the book explores a number of historical and interpretive issues, including the physical and rhetorical configurations of performative spectacle, the administrative maneuverings of the two "patent" theatre companies, the construction and deployment of the technologically advanced Dorset Garden Theatre in 1670–71, the critical response to generic, technical, and ideological developments in Restoration drama, and the shifting balance between machine spectacle and song-and-dance entertainment throughout the later decades of the seventeenth century, including in the dramatick operas of Henry Purcell. This study combines the materials and methodologies of music history, theatre history, literary studies, and bibliography to fashion an entirely new approach to the history of spectacular and musical drama on the English Restoration stage. This book serves as a companion to the Routledge publication Masque and Opera in England, 1656–1688 (2017).
Download or read book Opera in the British Isles 1875 1918 written by Paul Rodmell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the musical culture of the British Isles in the 'long nineteenth century' has been reclaimed from obscurity by musicologists in the last thirty years, appraisal of operatic culture in the latter part of this period has remained largely elusive. Paul Rodmell argues that there were far more opportunities for composers, performers and audiences than one might expect, an assertion demonstrated by the fact that over one hundred serious operas by British composers were premiered between 1875 and 1918. Rodmell examines the nature of operatic culture in the British Isles during this period, looking at the way in which opera was produced and 'consumed' by companies and audiences, the repertory performed, social attitudes to opera, the dominance of London's West End and the activities of touring companies in the provinces, and the position of British composers within this realm of activity. In doing so, he uncovers the undoubted challenges faced by opera in Britain in this period, and delves further into why it was especially difficult to make a breakthrough in this particular genre when other fields of compositional endeavour were enjoying a period of sustained growth. Whilst contemporaneous composers and commentators and later advocates of British music may have felt that the country's operatic life did not measure up to their aspirations or ambitions, there was still a great deal of activity and, even if this was not necessarily that which was always desired, it had a significant and lasting impact on musical culture in Britain.
