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Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British 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).
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years.
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in the county of Suffolk, England. Located to the north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and remains the centre of the international Aldeburgh Festival of arts at nearby Snape Maltings, which was founded by Britten in 1948. It also hosts an annual poetry festival and several food festivals and other events. Aldeburgh, as a port, gained borough status in 1529 under Henry VIII. Its historic buildings include a 16th-century moot hall and a Napoleonic-era Martello Tower. A third of its housing consists of second homes. Visitors are drawn to its Blue Flag beach and fisherman huts, where fresh fish is sold, to Aldeburgh Yacht Club and to its cultural offerings. Two family-run fish and chip shops have been rated among the country's best.
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.
Einstein on the Beach is an opera in four acts composed by Philip Glass and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson, who also collaborated with Glass on the work's libretto. The opera eschews traditional narrative in favor of a formalist approach based on structured spaces laid out by Wilson in a series of storyboards which are framed and connected by five "knee plays" or intermezzos. The music was written "in the spring, summer and fall of 1975." Glass recounts the collaborative process: "I put [Wilson’s notebook of sketches] on the piano and composed each section like a portrait of the drawing before me. The score was begun in the spring of 1975 and completed by the following November, and those drawings were before me all the time." The premiere took place on July 25, 1976, at the Théâtre Municipal in Avignon, France, as part of the Avignon Festival. The opera contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs. It is Glass's first and longest opera score, taking approximately five hours in full performance without intermission; given the length, the audience is permitted to enter and leave as desired.
Peter Grimes, Op. 33, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Montagu Slater based on the section "Peter Grimes", in George Crabbe's long narrative poem The Borough. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional small town that bears some resemblance to Crabbe's – and later Britten's – home of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on England's east coast.
Satyagraha is a 1979 opera in three acts for orchestra, chorus and soloists, composed by Philip Glass, with a libretto by Glass and Constance DeJong.
Robert Tear, CBE was a Welsh tenor singer, teacher and conductor. He first became known singing in the operas of Benjamin Britten in the mid-1960s. From the 1970s until his retirement in 1999 his main operatic base was the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; he appeared with other opera companies in the UK, mainland Europe, the US and Australia. Generally avoiding the Italian repertoire, which did not suit his voice, Tear became known in leading and character roles in German, British and Russian operas.
Anne Pashley was a British track and field sprinter, who represented Great Britain at the 1956 Summer Olympics. Following her track and field career, she made a second career as a soprano singer.
Eric Crozier OBE was a British theatrical director, opera librettist and producer, long associated with Benjamin Britten.
Steuart John Rudolf Bedford was an English orchestral and opera conductor and pianist.
Anthony Dean Griffey is an American opera tenor. He is a regular presence on the stages of opera houses and concert halls around the world. Griffey has also been noted for his acting talent in addition to his voice.
Geoffrey William Chard AM is an Australian opera singer. He was a foundation member of the National Opera of New South Wales.
Arthur William Oldham OBE was an English composer and choirmaster. He founded the Edinburgh Festival Chorus in 1965, the Chorus of the Orchestre de Paris in 1975, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra Chorus in Amsterdam in 1979. He also worked with the Scottish Opera Chorus 1966–74 and directed the London Symphony Chorus 1969–76. For his work with the LSO Chorus, he won three Grammy Awards. He was also a composer, mainly of religious works, but also a ballet and an opera.
Robert Brubaker is an American operatic tenor. Born in Manheim, Pennsylvania, he is an alumnus of the Hartt College of Music. Robert Brubaker began his professional career as a baritone chorister with the New York City Opera. He left there 17 years later as a leading tenor, in La bohè
Helen Grime is a Scottish composer whose work, Virga, was selected as one of the best ten new classical works of the 2000s by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
59 Productions is an award winning design studio and production company that makes imaginative work for audiences of all kinds. The offices of the company are located in London and New York.
Sean Panikkar is an American operatic tenor. He has performed in many leading opera houses both nationally and internationally, including the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Fort Worth Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, and Carnegie Hall.
Phelim McDermott is an English actor and stage director. He has directed plays and operas in Britain, Germany, Spain, the United States, and Australia. McDermott was a co-founder of the Improbable theatre in 1996.
Elizabeth Atherton is a British lyric soprano. Born and brought up in London, she is the daughter of conductor David Atherton. She studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama with Patricia MacMahon. She is a winner of the Maggie Teyte Prize and the Handel Singing Competition.
References
- Aberdeen Press and Journal , World-class opera beams into town, 19 November 2008.
- Seckerson, Edward, Gandhi through the looking glass [ dead link ], The Independent , 10 April 2007.
- Tommasini, Anthony, Longing in England: ‘Death in Venice’ on Two Stages, The New York Times , 11 June 2007.
