English writer, music historian, lecturer and broadcaster (born 1942)
Andrew Martin Lamb (born 23 September 1942) is an English writer, music historian, lecturer and broadcaster, known for his expertise in light music and musical theatre. In addition to his musical work, Lamb maintained a full-time career as an actuary and investment manager.
Lamb was born in Oldham, Lancashire, the son of Harry Lamb, a schoolmaster, and his wife Winifred, née Emmott.[1] He was educated at Werneth Council School, Oldham, Manchester Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He graduated in mathematics in 1963,[1] gaining a master's degree in 1967 and a Doctorate of Letters in 2006. In addition to his musical work, he maintained a full-time career as an actuary and investment manager with major financial institutions in the UK, having qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 1972. He married in 1970 and has two daughters and a son.[1] He has been a member of Lancashire County Cricket Club since 1954.[2]
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes Lamb as "a noted authority on the lighter forms of music theatre" and notes the lucidity of his extensive writings on a wide range of musical topics, including zarzuela, operetta, American and British musical theatre, Arthur Sullivan, the Strauss family, Jacques Offenbach, Jerome Kern and the Waldteufels.[6][1] In 2012, Lamb instituted a project to honour the composer Edward James Loder that resulted in musical events in Bath in 2015, CD recordings of Loder's piano music and his opera Raymond and Agnes, and a book commemorating the Loder family, edited by Nicholas Temperley, to which Lamb contributed a biographical chapter.[7]
Writings
Lamb's books and biographies, relating mostly to musical theatre, include the following:
Jerome Kern in Edwardian London, Littlehampton, 1981; enlarged, Inst. for Studies in Amer. Music (Brooklyn, New York), 1985. ISBN0-914678-24-8
He has also compiled albums of songs by Lehár for Glocken Verlag (ISMN M-57006-019-1, ISMN M-57006-109-9, ISMN M-57006-111-2 and ISMN 979-0-57006-115-0) and of operetta numbers by Offenbach for Choudens ( ISBN978-1-84938-035-5).
Notes
1 2 3 4 5 Andrew Lamb at Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002 (subscription required), accessed 22 March 2009
↑ Membership records of Lancashire County Cricket Club, Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester, M16 0PX
↑ 21 July 2008, 18 July 2009 and 19 July 2011, Official Buxton Festival Programmes
↑ "Lamb, Andrew", Grove Music Online (subscription required), accessed 22 March 2009
↑ Lamb, Andrew: "Edward James Loder (1809-1865): A Life in Music", in Temperley, Nicholas (ed.): Musicians of Bath and Beyond: Edward Loder (1809–1865) and His Family, Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, The Boydell Press (2016), pp. 125–148
Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, and length of the work. Apart from its shorter length, the operetta is usually of a light and amusing character. The subject matter may portray "lovers' spats, mistaken identities, sudden reversals of fortune, and glittering parties". It sometimes also includes satirical commentaries.
Orpheus in the Underworld and Orpheus in Hell are English names for Orphée aux enfers, a comic opera with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy. It was first performed as a two-act "opéra bouffon" at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris, on 21 October 1858, and was extensively revised and expanded in a four-act "opéra féerie" version, presented at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris, on 7 February 1874.
Jacques Offenbach was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Franz von Suppé, Johann Strauss II and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. The Tales of Hoffmann remains part of the standard opera repertory.
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
Alexandre Charles Lecocq was a French composer, known for his opérettes and opéras comiques. He became the most prominent successor to Jacques Offenbach in this sphere, and enjoyed considerable success in the 1870s and early 1880s, before the changing musical fashions of the late 19th century made his style of composition less popular. His few serious works include the opera Plutus (1886), which was not a success, and the ballet Le cygne (1899). His only piece to survive in the regular modern operatic repertory is his 1872 opéra comique La fille de Madame Angot. Others of his more than forty stage works receive occasional revivals.
Robinson Crusoé is an opéra comique with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Eugène Cormon and Hector-Jonathan Crémieux. It premiered in Paris on 23 November 1867.
La Périchole is an opéra bouffe in three acts with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. The opera depicts the mutual love of two impoverished Peruvian street singers – too poor to afford a marriage licence – and a lecherous viceroy, Don Andrès de Ribeira, who wishes to make La Périchole his mistress. Love eventually triumphs. The story is based loosely on the play Le carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée (1828), and the title character is based on the Peruvian entertainer Micaela Villegas.
La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein is an opéra bouffe, in three acts and four tableaux by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. The story is a satirical critique of unthinking militarism and concerns a spoiled and tyrannical young Grand Duchess who learns that she cannot always get her way.
La Vie parisienne is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, composed by Jacques Offenbach, with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.
Madame Favart is an opéra comique, or operetta, in three acts by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Alfred Duru and Henri Chivot.
Le pont des soupirs is an opéra bouffe set in Venice, by Jacques Offenbach, first performed in Paris in 1861. The French libretto was written by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy. Plays, including melodramas, set in Venice were quite common in Paris in the early 19th century; the libretto, by the successful team from Orphée aux enfers, also nods towards the operas La reine de Chypre (1841) and Haydée (1847). Gänzl describes the piece as being in Offenbach's "best bouffe manner", noting a "long list of sparkling and funny musical pieces": the multiple serenade beneath Catarina's balcony, the tale of the loss of the Venetian fleet, the parody of an operatic mad scene for Catarina, and a farcical "quatuor des poignards". Offenbach would return to Venice in the Giulietta act of his final work Les Contes d'Hoffmann.
Les deux aveugles is an 1855 one-act French bouffonerie musicale (operetta) by Jacques Offenbach. The libretto was written by Jules Moinaux and was a condensation of his 3-act Les musiciens ambulants.
The Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens is a Parisian theatre founded in 1855 by the composer Jacques Offenbach for the performance of opéra bouffe and operetta. The current theatre is located in the 2nd arrondissement at 4 rue Monsigny with an entrance at the back at 65 Passage Choiseul. In the 19th century the theatre was often referred to as the Salle Choiseul. With the decline in popularity of operetta after 1870, the theatre expanded its repertory to include comedies. The theatre is still active with regular productions of stage plays.
La belle Hélène is an opéra bouffe in three acts, with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. The piece parodies the story of Helen of Troy's elopement with Paris, which set off the Trojan War.
In 1862 during Haussmann's modernization of Paris, the Théâtre de la Gaîté of the boulevard du Temple was relocated to the rue Papin across from the Square des Arts et Métiers. The new theatre, built in an Italian style to designs of the architects Jacques-Ignace Hittorff and Alphonse Cusin, opened on 3 September.
Fatinitza was the first full-length, three-act operetta by Franz von Suppé. The libretto by F. Zell and Richard Genée was based on the libretto to La circassienne by Eugène Scribe, but with the lead role of Wladimir, a young Russian lieutenant who has to disguise himself as a woman, changed to a trousers role; in other words, a woman played the part of the man who pretended to be a woman.
Les cent vierges is an opérette in three acts, with music by Charles Lecocq and a libretto by Clairville, Henri Chivot and Alfred Duru. It was first produced at the Théâtre des Fantaisies-Parisiennes, Brussels, on 16 March 1872. The plot concerns the British government's efforts to ship brides out to a distant colony for the all-male colonists. Two French women are accidentally on board the ship taking the brides out, and are pursued to the island by their husbands. The four French intruders are threatened by the colonial governor, but after plotting and farcical goings-on, all ends satisfactorily.
Le cœur et la main is a three-act opéra comique with music by Charles Lecocq and words by Charles Nuitter and Alexandre Beaume. It was first performed on 19 October 1882 at the Théâtre de Nouveautés, Paris.
Anna Tariol-Baugé was a French operetta singer and theatre actress. She is known for her performances in Offenbach's operettas.
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