"Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera ""Peter Grimes"" (1945), the ""War Requiem"" (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ""The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra"" (1945). Born in Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer"
"(Brilliant 93782/50-51)]. In 1980 the opera was given its United States premiere at the Caramoor Summer Music Festival with Kathryn Day as Rosina. Since 1980 the opera has revived on stage in Lyons (1980), Assisi (1982) Vienna (1982) Amsterdam (1990) and more recently, Reggio (2010) and London (2012). Bampton Classical Opera gave performances in 2004, in English. The opera is scored for one (or two) flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, timpani, strings, continuo. Act One ""A village by the sea"" A small boat has been driven ashore in a storm, and inhabitants of the fishing village help the"
"of Seidsfjord. Tual is excited and asks if it is easy to get there. Jörgen says that if the ""Hrafuaga"" swamp is still frozen, it can be crossed in time to catch them. Tual tries to put the thought out of his mind, but as he sleeps with Kaethe he has a dream of Brittany. In his vision he sees the rolling Breton landscape and the white sails of the Paimpol fishing fleet. He leaves and tries to cross the ""Hrafuaga"". Kaethe watches as the swamp cracks and swallows him. Le Pays Le Pays (""The Land"") is a three-act opera"
"performed with full orchestra and chorus a number of times at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in the 1920s. Smyth's music subsequently went out of fashion and no productions had been recorded for more than 50 years until a chamber version of the opera was arranged by the Primavera Productions theatre company at the Finborough Theatre in London in June 2007. Mrs Waters is a widow running a lonely country inn called ""The Beehive"". She has no wish to remarry. Among her customers is a retired boatswain, Harry Benn. After rejecting his latest offers of marriage, she goes off"
"at the King's Theatre in 1753 and the Drury Lane Theatre in 1754 and is the version performed by Bampton Classical Opera in 1998. The setting is the Isle of Athelney in the year 878. Following a defeat by the Vikings, Alfred has taken refuge in the hut of the shepherd Corin and his wife Emma who wonder about the mysterious stranger. Alfred expresses his anguish at the state of affairs of his kingdom and prays to the Genius of Britannia. Alfred's wife Eltruda and his son Edward arrive and rejoice at finding him alive. Corin and Emma still have"
"it. Britten, being a native of Suffolk, strongly identified with the tragic story of the Aldeburgh fisherman Peter Grimes. This opera was first conceived while Britten was in California. Happening to read E. M. Forster's article on the 18th-century Suffolk poet George Crabbe in the BBC's magazine ""The Listener"", he was straight away filled with nostalgic feelings about Suffolk. Pears found a copy of Crabbe's works in a second-hand bookshop and Britten read the poem ""The Borough"", which contained the tragic story of the Aldeburgh fisherman Peter Grimes. He said later: in a flash I realised two things: that I"
"performed by Bampton Classical Opera in English translation in July of that year, followed by performances in London's Wigmore Hall in September. The opera received its US premiere in New Brunswick, New Jersey at the Rutgers University Nicholas Music Center on 30 October 2009. The story is set in Taranto and concerns the Prince of Sorrento's search for Prince Casimiro's rightful heir who had been taken to Taranto as a baby after her father's murder. Two young fisherwomen in the village, Lesbina and Nerina, each believe they might be the missing princess. Although they are engaged to each other's brother"
"orchestra. The story relates the last few days of the life of Alban, a doctor in Verulamium (modern day St Albans) and family man who was martyred around 210 AD for sheltering a Christian priest and offering himself up to save the priest's life. The opera was described in ""Opera Now"" as ""a cogent chamber opera worthy of Britten's Church Parables,"" which ""betokens great expectations of composer and producers alike."" A Christian priest has been arrested as his preaching is not allowed under Roman law. Somehow he manages to escape. A lively market scene presents the community with its traders"
"made possible - among other beneficial outcomes - the combination of Norwegian stockfish and Italian cooking The lyric opera based on the dramatic story about Pietro Querini was shown for the first time on Røst in 2012, and then again in 2014. It was very well received by critics, including by Financial Times. The music is composed by Henning Sommerro the author of the libretto is Ragnar Olsen. Pietro Querini Pietro Querini was a 15th-century sailing captain from the Republic of Venice. He is known for being shipwrecked in Røst, in northern Norway, in the winter of 1432, and subsequently"
"Michael's has been adapted for the large cast and orchestra, there is room for only about 120 in the audience each night. In April 2009 there was a new production of Benjamin Britten's ""Noye's Fludde"". In 2012 or so it was planned to revive the first of Blewbury's commissioned operas ""Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"" by the composer Richard Blackford, who now lives in the village. Blewbury Blewbury is a village and civil parish at the foot of the Berkshire Downs section of the North Wessex Downs about south of Didcot, south of Oxford and west of London. It"
"Rolling Stones, and Fleetingwood Mac. Numerous musical works are set in the city. ""Portsmouth Point"" is an overture for orchestra by the English composer William Walton in 1925. The work was inspired by Thomas Rowlandson's etching depicting Portsmouth Point, otherwise known as ""Spice Island"" in Old Portsmouth. The overture was used for the BBC Proms Concert in 2007. ""H.M.S. Pinafore"" is a comic opera in two acts set in Portsmouth Harbour, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W.S. Gilbert. John Cranko's 1951 ballet ""Pineapple Poll"", which features the operetta music of ""The Bumboat Woman's Story"" by Gilbert and"
"Curlew River Curlew River – A Parable for Church Performance (Op. 71) is an English music drama with music by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by William Plomer. The first of Britten's three 'Parables for Church Performance', the work is based on the Japanese ""noh"" play ""Sumidagawa"" (Sumida River) of Juro Motomasa] (1395–1431), which Britten saw during a visit to Japan and the Far East in early 1956. Beyond the ""noh"" source dramatic material, Britten incorporated elements of ""noh"" treatment of theatrical time into this composition. ""Curlew River"" marked a departure in style for the remainder of the composer's creative"
"is set in Hackney during the oppressive reign of Oliver Cromwell. Hannah leads the people of Hackney on to London Fields where, in a series of increasingly vivid prophecies, she sings of a new proto-Marxist Kingdom of Heaven. Among her followers are an idealistic young couple called Deborah and Abel. Eventually the meeting is brutally suppressed by a group of Puritan soldiers led by Sir Bawnagayne Surly. Abel tries to oppose the soldiers and is killed. The opera ends with his young widow singing a poignant lullaby to the couple's unborn child. For the original production Matthew King composed for"
"and Crozier had been thinking about a children's opera for some years, but only began to put the concept into practice in the autumn of 1948 when planning the programme for the second Aldeburgh Festival. One afternoon Britten suggested two ""Songs of Innocence and of Experience"" by William Blake, entitled ""The Chimney Sweeper"", and as Crozier relates, ""by that evening we had planned the structure, action and characters of a short opera in three scenes."" As with ""Albert Herring"", the opera which had opened the first Aldeburgh Festival, the action was to be set locally in Suffolk, this time in"
"production added a 10-minute prelude set in a radio studio which reenacted the pre-broadcast preparation for the original premiere. The opera is set on Blennerhassett Island, named for Harman Blennerhassett, a figure in the Aaron Burr conspiracy. The plot centers on Stephen, a young follower of Aaron Burr, and his fiancee, Madeleine. Stephen gathers a band of men on the island and plans to join Burr's forces. When Madeleine unwittingly reveals the secret plan to General Wilkinson, he sets the militia on Stephen and his men. In the ensuing battle, Stephen is mortally wounded. He survives long enough to return"
"Chapel. The church contains an impressive selection of memorials and monuments, including one to Benjamin Britten, a green slate slab set in the floor of the nave. St Bartholomew's Church, Orford The Church of St Bartholomew is the parish church of the town of Orford, England. A medieval church, dating from the fourteenth century, with reconstructions in the nineteenth and twentieth century, it is a Grade I listed building. In addition to its listing, the church is notable as the location for the first performances of four of the works of the composer Benjamin Britten: ""Noye's Fludde"", ""Curlew River"", ""The"
"Sweep"" (1949) and ""The Turn of the Screw"" (1954) were written for small opera companies. ""Noye's Fludde"" (1958), ""Curlew River"" (1964), ""The Burning Fiery Furnace"" (1966) and ""The Prodigal Son"" (1968) were for church performance, and had their premieres at St Bartholomew's Church, Orford. The secular ""The Golden Vanity"" was intended to be performed in schools. ""Owen Wingrave"", written for television, was first presented live by the Royal Opera at Covent Garden in 1973, two years after its broadcast premiere. Music critics have frequently commented on the recurring theme in Britten's operas from ""Peter Grimes"" onward of the isolated individual"
"performances of the opera in 2004 and 2005, in English. In 2014, it was performed by New Chamber Opera at New College, Oxford. The opera is set in the Tuscan countryside. Act 1 Filippo, brother and sister Nanni and Vespina, and rich farmer Nencio admire the beauty of the summer evening. Filippo is concluding a deal with Nencio. Sandrina, Filippo's daughter enters, the others leave her alone with her father, who tells here that he has found her a husband. She protests that she loves only Nanni but Filippo dismisses the thought of her marrying a poor man. When Nanni"
"with four-square cadences and wide intervals. Only in the choruses of the bards are more interesting protractions noticeable, as in the 'Symphonie douce et majestueuse' in E flat major in Act II, which is tinged with the priestly and masonic solemnity that was to re-echo in Mozart's ""Die Zauberflőte"" two years later."" Scene: the opera is set on the isle of Mona (Anglesey). ""Scene: moonlight, a grove of oak trees through which a troubled sea can be seen in the distance; rocks on either side"" The Roman general Messala and his troops have come to track down the British king"
"with much assurance and charm, and Mr Graham Payn is fully equal to the demands made on her 'opposite number'."" ""The Manchester Guardian"" thought the first act fell ""entirely flat"" and judged the whole show old-fashioned, but praised the cast and the production. ""The Observer"" was still less favourable: ""This operetta is an orgy of good taste, and people who are nervous of that quality may be comforted by knowing that there is plenty of honest dullness in the very conventional plot."" A large family of British plantation owners on the Pacific island of Samolo, the Stirlings, are hosting a"
"finest work. The play opens in a fisherman's hut near a lake in the forest. Outside a storm rages. Here live the old fisherman Auguste and his wife Eugenie. And here lives Ondine whom the old couple found as a baby at the edge of the lake, and brought up in place of their own daughter who was mysteriously snatched away as an infant. Auguste is upset because Ondine is out somewhere in the storm. As Auguste rages, naiads, the wind, and even the King of the Ondines himself (throughout the play referred to as the Old One) peer in"
"""The Fisherman and His Wife"" as part of the Gunther Schuller Memorial Concert the following November. Odyssey Opera Odyssey Opera is an opera company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 2013 by Gil Rose, it quickly earned an ""enthusiastic following"" in New England for its programming which features ""performances of works that are well off the beaten path for most companies."" It typically begins its season with a concert performance of a large, rarely heard opera in the fall, continuing the season with fully staged renditions of early, classical, and contemporary opera. The company is known for performing ""offbeat, neglected"
"the 1950s. Francesco Lanzillotta conducted the Teatro San Carlo orchestra and chorus. The opera was performed again in July 2015 at the Festival della Valle d'Itria. The performance there (with a new cast) was recorded live and released in 2016 on the Dynamic label. Setting: A village near Naples in the early 19th century Act 1 The opera opens inside Bartolaccio's inn. The road to Naples with hills in the distance can be seen through the inn's entrance. Bartolaccio's daughter Fiorina is at her spinning wheel in the dining room, while Bartolaccio and his head waiter Carletto scurry about serving"
"the greedy organ grinder, Brundibar (""bumblebee"" in Czech), drowns out their song. When three animals help rally the town's children to help Pepicek and Aninka, the nasty Brundibar is vanquished. Just before its premiere in 1942 at the Jewish boys' orphanage in Prague, its composer, Hans Krasa, was sent to Terezin. Rudolph Freudenfeld, who was to conduct the premiere performances, took the score with him when he and the orphan boys were also sent to Terezin. The opera was performed 55 times at the camp The Nazis used its production as an example of the rich cultural life of the"
"musically dramatizes the last five days of the men’s lives. The protagonist is Father Jean Cheverus, a French immigrant priest who travels from Boston to Northampton to comfort the meneven though he believes them guilty. Cheverus’ journey of transformation is the heart of the opera. The world premieres of the fully staged opera occurred on September 20 and September 22 of 2013 in Northampton, Massachusetts. The venue was the Academy of Music Theatre, an 800-seat opera house built in 1892. Both performances were sold-out. The performances featured the Springfield Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kevin Rhodes. Principal performers included William Hite"
"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 opera for the same instrumental forces he had used in his first chamber opera ""The Rape of Lucretia"", intending it like the earlier opera for performance by the English Opera Group. The opera premiered on 20 June 1947 at Glyndebourne, conducted by the composer. According to one writer, the owner and founder of Glyndebourne, John Christie, ""disliked it intensely and is"
"The opera is set in 15th-century Venice, at the house of Simone Trovai, military commander of the Venetian republic. On the night of the great Carnival, Simone in vain searches his house for his wife Violanta. Ever since her sister Nerina committed suicide (after having been seduced by Alfonso, the Prince of Naples), she has been bent on vengeance. Simone is about to leave for the Carnival with the painter Giovanni Bracca, when Violanta appears. After dismissing Bracca, she reveals to Simone that she has (anonymously) arranged a meeting with Alfonso in their house, where she wants her husband to"
"an old fisherman. The story concerns a two-year-old girl who drifts in a boat onto a beach in Glamorganshire in the calm before a storm. The little girl calls herself Bardie. Llewellyn is tempted to keep the girl, but decides to give her up and keeps the boat for himself. He quarters the pretty child in a simple, but well-to-do, household in his neighbourhood. As she grows up he dotes upon her so far as he can. He watches anxiously over her fortunes, partly or principally because he thinks his own may be bound up with them. It is clear"
"and Jonathan Summers. In 1967, the Metropolitan Opera mounted a ""landmark"" production directed by Tyrone Guthrie and starring Jon Vickers in the role of Grimes. In the summer of 2013, the Aldeburgh Festival staged a performance of ""Peter Grimes"" in its natural setting on the beach at Aldeburgh with tenor Alan Oke in the title role. A Suffolk coastal village, mid-19th century (The date is not specified, but the foghorn in Act III places it later than the date of Crabbe's poem) Peter Grimes is questioned at an inquest over the death at sea of his apprentice. The townsfolk, all"
"Rossini and Verdi. A concert performance of the opera was given by the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in 2014, which was recorded. ""In the Breton village of Ploërmel"" During the annual pilgrimage to the chapel of the Virgin, Dinorah has gone mad because her bridegroom Hoël disappeared following a storm that interrupted their wedding on the same day the previous year. Hoël returns to the village, having discovered the whereabouts of a treasure. He enlists Corentin to help him recover the riches, but not without sinister intent, since according to the legend, the first to touch them will perish. ""A mysterious"
"Bruneau and Zola, of which ""Messidor"" is the most notable, were considered an attempt at a French alternative to the Italian verismo movement in opera. Set in Ariège, a region in the south-west of France, the opera tells the story of a greedy peasant, Gaspard, who has appropriated for himself a gold-bearing stream, which had previously provided income for the entire community. His daughter, Hélène, and Guillaume, a young and virtuous man, fall in love, but Guillaume's mother, Véronique, has accused Gaspard of murdering her husband. Ultimately Gaspard's mining operation fails, and his cousin Mathias is found to be the"
"A Bayou Legend A Bayou Legend is an American opera composed by William Grant Still, with a libretto by his wife and frequent collaborator, Verna Arvey. Set in a 19th-century Creole village in the Mississippi Delta, the opera focuses on the deadly revenge that the beautiful Clothilde enacts on Bazile, a handsome young man who does not return her expressions of love. When Clothilde discovers that Bazile has been in communication with Aurore, a spirit who identifies herself as Bazile's lover from a distant era, Clothilde threatens to have Bazile arrested for violating local religious customs. When Bazile continues to"
"Les cloches de Corneville Les cloches de Corneville (The Bells of Corneville, sometimes known in English as The Chimes of Normandy) is an opéra-comique in three acts, composed by Robert Planquette to a libretto by Louis Clairville and Charles Gabet. The story, set at the turn of the 18th century, depicts the return of an exiled aristocrat to his ancestral castle, the machinations of the miserly steward to secure the family's fortune for himself, and the changing amorous pairings of the four juvenile leads. Aspects of the plot were criticised by contemporary critics as derivative of earlier operas. The opera"