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The Royal Opera House in the Twentieth Century

Author : Frances Donaldson

Publisher : A&C Black

Page : 423 pages

File Size : 41,17 MB

Release : 2011-09-28

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 1448205522

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Book Description

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden is home of two of the most famous opera and ballet companies in the world. In this official history, Frances Donaldson discusses Covent Garden's many legendary achievements - Der Rosenkavalier with Lotte Lehmann, the unparalleled partnership of Fonteyn and Nureyev, the recent Otello with Domingo. She follows the attitude of the English to opera and their Opera House, and the crusade for opera to be sung in English. She looks at the internal politics and at the often charismatic personalities who have worked at the Opera House: Thomas Beecham, George Solti, Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi, Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton. Underlying the story, despite the many successful seasons, are the ever-present problems of financial support and uncertainty of the future. The history is superbly well-documented from the Royal Opera House archives. Comments from journalists of the time -whose critical reviews sometimes led to singers of international acclaim refusing to return to Covent Garden - lend spice to this fine analysis of administrative and artistic management at the Garden.



Royal Opera House

Author : Harry Cory Wright

Publisher : Thames & Hudson

Page : 0 pages

File Size : 14,84 MB

Release : 2020

Category : Architecture

ISBN : 9780500295793

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Book Description

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, presents some of the most accomplished ballet and opera artists in productions of world-renowned quality and remarkable scale. There have been three theatres on the site. The original theatre opened in December 1732 and served initially as a playhouse. The first ballet was performed there in 1734, and the first opera (by Handel, who wrote many operas and oratorios for Covent Garden) later in the same year. The present building - the third on the Covent Garden site following two disastrous fires - opened in 1858 and has been known as the Royal Opera House since 1892. The Covent Garden complex was extensively transformed in several phases during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Harry Cory Wright's photographs explore every aspect of the Royal Opera House, from the red-and-gold auditorium and the rehearsal spaces of The Royal Ballet to the behind-the-scenes workshops where props, wigs, costumes, weapons and sets are created on site with extraordinary skill.



Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre

Author : Colin Chambers

Publisher : A&C Black

Page : 892 pages

File Size : 35,23 MB

Release : 2006-05-14

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1847140017

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Book Description

International in scope, this book is designed to be the pre-eminent reference work on the English-speaking theatre in the twentieth century. Arranged alphabetically, it consists of some 2500 entries written by 280 contributors from 20 countries which include not only top-level experts, but, uniquely, leading professionals from the world of theatre. A fascinating resource for anyone interested in theatre, it includes: - Overviews of major concepts, topics and issues; - Surveys of theatre institutions, countries, and genres; - Biographical entries on key performers, playwrights, directors, designers, choreographers and composers; - Articles by leading professionals on crafts, skills and disciplines including acting, design, directing, lighting, sound and voice.



A Twentieth-Century Life

Author : Frances Donaldson

Publisher : A&C Black

Page : 387 pages

File Size : 25,32 MB

Release : 2011-09-28

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 1448204496

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Book Description

First published in 1992, this is the story of Frances Donaldson and a wonderfully multi-faceted life. As the daughter of the playwright Frederick Lonsdale, she grew up in the frivolous world of 1920s cafe society, yet she became a committed socialist. As the wife of Lord Donaldson, who was on the board of both London opera houses and was subsequently Minister for the Arts, she was at the centre of cultural life in Britain. Yet for many years she had been a farmer, since, during the Second World War, alone and with no experience, she was determined to make a go of it. Her first two books, both highly successful, were about farming; they were followed by a portrait of Evelyn Waugh, a biography of her father, and biographies of Edward VIII and P.O. Wodehouse, whom she knew as a child. Populated by characters as diverse as Waugh and Frederick Ashton, Tony Crosland and Ann Fleming, this delightful, highly personal memoir reflects the dramatically changing times which have shaped Frances Donaldson's fascinating life.



The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera

Author : Mervyn Cooke

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 430 pages

File Size : 27,92 MB

Release : 2005-12-08

Category : Music

ISBN : 1139826344

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Book Description

This Companion celebrates the extraordinary riches of the twentieth-century operatic repertoire in a collection of specially commissioned essays written by a distinguished team of academics, critics and practitioners. Beginning with a discussion of the century's vital inheritance from late-romantic operatic traditions in Germany and Italy, the text embraces fresh investigations into various aspects of the genre in the modern age, with a comprehensive coverage of the work of individual composers from Debussy and Schoenberg to John Adams and Harrison Birtwistle. Traditional stylistic categorizations (including symbolism, expressionism, neo-classicism and minimalism) are reassessed from new critical perspectives, and the distinctive operatic traditions of Continental and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and United States are subjected to fresh scrutiny. The volume includes essays devoted to avant-garde music theatre, operettas and musicals, filmed opera, and ends with a discussion of the position of the genre in today's cultural marketplace.



Twentieth-Century British Authors and the Rise of Opera in Britain

Author : Irene Morra

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 146 pages

File Size : 32,74 MB

Release : 2016-02-17

Category : Literary Criticism

ISBN : 1317005856

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Book Description

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.



Twentieth Century Actor Training

Author : Alison Hodge

Publisher : Psychology Press

Page : 271 pages

File Size : 19,56 MB

Release : 2000

Category : Art

ISBN : 0415194512

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Book Description

THE SECOND EDITION OF THIS TITLE, ENTITLED ACTOR TRAINING, IS NOW AVAILABLE. Actor training is arguably the central phenomenon of twentieth century theatre making. Here for the first time, the theories, training exercises and productions of fourteen directors are analysed in a single volume, each one written by a leading expert. The practitioners included are: * Stella Adler * Bertolt Brecht * Joseph Chaikin * Jacques Copeau * Joan Littlewood * Vsevelod Meyerhold * Konstantin Stanislavsky * Eugenio Barba * Peter Brook * Michael Chekhov * Jerzy Grotowski * Sanford Meisner * Wlodimierz Staniewski * Lee Strasbourg Each chapter provides a unique account of specific training exercises and an analysis of their relationship to the practitioners theoretical and aesthetic concerns. The collection examines the relationship between actor training and production and considers how directly the actor training relates to performance. With detailed accounts of the principles, exercises and their application to many of the landmark productions of the past hundred years, this book will be invaluable to students, teachers, practitioners, and academics alike.



Digital Scenography in Opera in the Twenty-First Century

Author : Caitlin Vincent

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 207 pages

File Size : 42,19 MB

Release : 2021-09-15

Category : Music

ISBN : 1000440737

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Book Description

Digital Scenography in Opera in the Twenty-First Century is the first definitive study of the use of digital scenography in Western opera production. The book begins by exploring digital scenography’s dramaturgical possibilities and establishes a critical framework for identifying and comparing the use of digital scenography across different digitally enhanced opera productions. The book then investigates the impacts and potential disruptions of digital scenography on opera’s longstanding production conventions, both on and off the stage. Drawing on interviews with major industry practitioners, including Paul Barritt, Mark Grimmer, Donald Holder, Elaine J. McCarthy, Luke Halls, Wendall K. Harrington, Finn Ross, S. Katy Tucker, and Victoria ‘Vita’ Tzykun, author Caitlin Vincent identifies key correlations between the use of digital scenography in practice and subsequent impacts on creative hierarchies, production design processes, and organisational management. The book features detailed case studies of digitally enhanced productions premiered by Dutch National Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Opéra de Lyon, The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, The Metropolitan Opera, Victorian Opera, and Washington National Opera.