The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio. A masque involved music, dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design, in which the architectural framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect, to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Masquers who did not speak or sing were often courtiers: the English queen Anne of Denmark frequently danced with her ladies in masques between 1603 and 1611, and Henry VIII and Charles I of England performed in the masques at their courts. In the tradition of masque, Louis XIV of France danced in ballets at Versailles with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully.
Thomas Augustine Arne was an English composer. He is best known for his patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!" and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go", the latter composed for a 1777 production of The Beggar's Opera, which has since become popular as a folk song and a nursery rhyme. Arne was a leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at the West End's Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He wrote many operatic entertainments for the London theatres and pleasure gardens, as well as concertos, sinfonias, and sonatas.
"Rule, Britannia!" is a British patriotic song, originating from the 1740 poem "Rule, Britannia" by James Thomson and set to music by Thomas Arne in the same year. It is most strongly associated with the Royal Navy, but is also used by the British Army.
David Mallet was a Scottish poet and dramatist.
James Thomson was a Scottish poet and playwright, known for his poems The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence, and for the lyrics of "Rule, Britannia!"
La vida breve is an opera in two acts and four scenes by Manuel de Falla to an original Spanish libretto by Carlos Fernández-Shaw. Local (Andalusian) dialect is used. It was written between August 1904 and March 1905, but not produced until 1913. The first performance was given at the Casino Municipal in Nice on 1 April 1913. Paris and Madrid performances followed, later in 1913 and in 1914 respectively. Claude Debussy played a major role in influencing Falla to transform it from the number opera it was at its Nice premiere to an opera with a more continuous musical texture and more mature orchestration. This revision was first heard at the Paris premiere at the Opéra-Comique in December 1913, and is the standard version.
Augusta of Great Britain was a British princess, granddaughter of George II and the only elder sibling of George III. She was Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by marriage to Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick. Her daughter Caroline was the spouse of George IV.
Il pastor fido is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was set to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi based on the famed and widely familiar pastoral poem of the 'Il pastor fido' by Giovanni Battista Guarini. It had its first performance on 22 November 1712 at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket, London.
Le cinesi is an opera in one act, with music composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck. The Italian-language libretto was by Pietro Metastasio, and he described it as a componimento drammatico. This libretto had first been set by Antonio Caldara in 1735. For Gluck's rework, the piece is often considered as an azione teatrale, even though Metastasio and the composer both retained the original designation. The work was first performed for the Austrian royal family at the Schloss Hof on 24 September 1754, on the occasion of the visit of the Empress Maria Theresa to the household of Saxe-Hildburghausen.
Bampton Classical Opera is an opera company based in Bampton, Oxfordshire and founded in 1993. It specialises in the production of lesser known opera from the Classical period. Performances are always sung in English. Opera today called the company 'ambitious, innovative and imaginative'.
Events from the year 1740 in Great Britain.
Orpheus is an opera in three acts by the German composer Georg Philipp Telemann. It was first performed in a concert version at the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg on 9 March 1726. The anonymous libretto is based on the 1690 opera Orphée by Michel Duboullay, originally set by the French composer Louis Lully. Most of the work is in German but it also contains passages in French and Italian drawn from famous operas by Handel and Jean-Baptiste Lully. The music to these words is Telemann's own, however. The manuscript score of Telemann's Orpheus was not rediscovered until the late 20th century.
Thomas Lowe was an English tenor and actor. He appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and at Covent Garden, and frequently performed in London's pleasure gardens. He was particularly associated with the works of Thomas Arne and George Frideric Handel.
Comus is a masque in three acts by English composer Thomas Arne. The work uses a libretto by John Dalton (1709-1763) that is based on John Milton's 1634 masque of the same name. The work was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, on 4 March 1738.
Love in a Village is a ballad opera in three acts that was composed and arranged by Thomas Arne. A pastiche, the work contains 42 musical numbers of which only five were newly composed works by Arne. The other music is made up of 13 pieces borrowed from Arne's earlier stage works, a new overture was by C. F. Abel, and 23 songs by other composers, including Bishop, Boyce, Geminiani, Giordani, and Galuppi, albeit with new texts. The English libretto, by Isaac Bickerstaffe, is based on Charles Johnson’s 1729 play The Village Opera. The opera premiered at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden in London on 8 December 1762. One of its best known songs is the Miller of Dee.
The Fairy Prince is a masque in three acts by composer Thomas Arne. The English libretto, by George Colman the Elder, is based on Ben Jonson’s Oberon, the Faery Prince (1611). The work premiered at the Covent Garden Theatre, London, on 12 November 1771.
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi is a German classical music record label. It was founded by Rudolf Ruby and based in Freiburg, Breisgau. The company was acquired by BMG Music in 1992 and is now part of Sony Music Entertainment. Ruby had Alfred Krings of WDR assemble their own house orchestra Collegium Aureum, founded 1964, to perform early music, selecting as leader Franzjosef Maier.
Artaxerxes is an opera in three acts composed by Thomas Arne set to an English adaptation of Metastasio's 1729 libretto Artaserse. The first English opera seria, Artaxerxes premiered on 2 February 1762 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and continued to be regularly performed until the late 1830s. Its plot is loosely based on the historical figure, Artaxerxes I who succeeded his father Xerxes I after his assassination by Artabanus.
Richmond Royal Hospital, on Kew Foot Road in Richmond, London, England, is a mental health facility operated by South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, which has its headquarters at Springfield Hospital in Tooting. The hospital's original block is Grade II listed.
Carlo re d'Allemagna is a three-act dramma per musica by Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti to a libretto by Giuseppe Papis, after Francesco Silvani, premiered at the Teatro San Bartolomeo of Naples on 26 or 30 January 1716. This is the composer's 79th opera out of 114 composed.
