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Michael Burden, FAHA, (born 14 March 1960) is an Australian musicologist, working in the United Kingdom. He was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2018.
Born in Adelaide, South Australia, he was educated at Pulteney Grammar School and the University of Adelaide; his took his PhD at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently[ when? ] Fellow in Music, Dean and Chattels Fellow at New College, Oxford; he is also director of New Chamber Opera, and Professor of Opera Studies in the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford. In 2016, he became one of the patrons of the St Peter’s Cathedral Music Foundation, which supports the music of St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide.
He served as chair of the board of the University of Oxford's music faculty from 2015 to 2018. From 2007 until 2015, he was a visitor to Oxford's Ashmolean Museum; he is also curator of the Music Faculty's collection of portraits. In the academic year 2009–2010, he was one of the university's four pro-proctors (deputies to the proctors).
He is currently chair of the Society for Theatre Research. From 2009 to 2013, he was the president of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, preceded by two years as vice-president, and followed by two years as past president. He has also served on the council of the Royal Musical Association and is on the steering committee of the Besterman Centre for the Enlightenment (see Voltaire Foundation), a member of the Project Team for Ballad Operas Online, a trustee of both Répertoire International des Sources Musicales United Kingdom, and the Gerald Coke Handel Foundation; and on the advisory panel of The Oxford Centre for Life Writing.
His research is on the stage music of Purcell, and on aspects of dance and theatre in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and includes a catalogue of Metastasio’s operas as performed in London, an edition of Le Ballet de la Nuit: Rothschild B1/16/6 with Jennifer Thorp, and a biographical account of Regina Mingotti’s years in London. He is currently[ when? ] completing a book on the staging of opera in London 1660 to 1860. Much of his recent research has been directed towards the London Stage Project, in particular to soon-to-be released The London Stage Calendar 1800-1844. .
With Jennifer Thorp, he organises the annual Oxford Dance Symposium, which takes place each year at New College.
His collection of mainly 18th century English theatre books, music, and other ephemera is gradually being accepted in a series of gifts to the Rare Books collection by the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide.
With Jonathan Hicks and Caroline Radcliffe, he is joint editor of the series 'Nineteenth-century British Theatrical Culture'.
He is on the editorial boards of the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies , and the series 'Studies in British Musical Cultures' published by Clemson University Press. He has been Consultant Editor for numbers of the journal Early Music ('Music in Purcell's London I' (1995); 'Music in Purcell's London II'; (1996), Metastasio (1998)) and Guest Editor for numbers of the journals Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies - 'Farinelli' (2004) - and with Jennifer Thorp for Music in Art (2010) and The Court Historian (2010).
He is on the editorial committees for the collected music editions of the works of Alessandro Stradella and John Eccles. His own editions include
One of his interests outside music is architectural history, particularly the history of architecture and town planning in Adelaide, South Australia. His first book was a photographic exploration of demolished buildings of that city. Published as Lost Adelaide by Oxford University Press in 1983, it remains a classic text in the documentation of Adelaide's lost architectural heritage.
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Henry Purcell was an English composer of Baroque music.
John Eccles was an English composer.
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to about 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only attained common usage once opera seria was becoming unfashionable and beginning to be viewed as something of a historical genre. The popular rival to opera seria was opera buffa, the 'comic' opera that took its cue from the improvisatory commedia dell'arte.
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was composed no later than July 1688, and had been performed at Josias Priest's girls' school in London by the end of 1689. Some scholars argue for a date of composition as early as 1683. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons her. A monumental work in Baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas is remembered as one of Purcell's foremost theatrical works. It was also Purcell's only true opera, as well as his only all-sung dramatic work. One of the earliest known English operas, it owes much to John Blow's Venus and Adonis, both in structure and in overall effect.
The Accademia degli Arcadi or Accademia dell'Arcadia, "Academy of Arcadia" or "Academy of the Arcadians", is an Italian literary academy founded in Rome in 1690. The full Italian official name was Pontificia Accademia degli Arcadi.
The Fairy-Queen is a semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. First performed in 1692, The Fairy-Queen was composed three years before Purcell's death at the age of 35. Following his death, the score was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth century.
Dioclesian is an English tragicomic semi-opera in five acts by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Thomas Betterton based on the play The Prophetess, by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, which in turn was based very loosely on the life of the Emperor Diocletian. It was premiered in late May 1690 at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden. The play was first produced in 1622. Choreography for the various dances was provided by Josias Priest, who worked with Purcell on several other semi-operas.
Jeffrey Skidmore OBE is the conductor and artistic director of Ex Cathedra, a choir and early music ensemble based in Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. An active participant in musical education and a pioneer in researching and performing neglected choral works of the 16th to 18th centuries, he has worked with leading musicologists to prepare new performing editions of French and Italian music. In particular, his recordings of French and Latin American Baroque music with Ex Cathedra have won wide acclaim.
The phrase dramma per musica is commonly found after the title in Italian opera librettos beginning in the 17th century and continuing into the 18th century. It indicates that the text was intended to be set to music by a composer. By extension it has also been used to refer to the musical setting itself, but this is less common.
Giuseppe Maria Orlandini was an Italian baroque composer particularly known for his more than 40 operas and intermezzos. Highly regarded by music historians of his day like Francesco Saverio Quadrio, Jean-Benjamin de La Borde and Charles Burney, Orlandini, along with Vivaldi, is considered one of the major creators of the new style of opera that dominated the second decade of the 18th century.
Dido, Queen of Carthage was an opera in three acts by Stephen Storace. Its English libretto by Prince Hoare was adapted from Metastasio's 1724 libretto, Didone abbandonata, which had been set by many composers. Storace's opera premiered on 23 May 1792 at The King's Theatre in London combined with a performance of his masque, Neptune's Prophecy. The story is based on that of Dido and Aeneas in the fourth book of Virgil's Aeneid. The opera was not a success and was never revived after its original run of performances. The score has been lost.
Baroque music of the British Isles bridged the gap between the early music of the Medieval and Renaissance periods and the development of fully fledged and formalised orchestral classical music in the second half of the eighteenth century. It was characterised by more elaborate musical ornamentation, changes in musical notation, new instrumental playing techniques and the rise of new genres such as opera. Although the term Baroque is conventionally used for European music from about 1600, its full effects were not felt in Britain until after 1660, delayed by native trends and developments in music, religious and cultural differences from many European countries and the disruption to court music caused by the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and Interregnum. Under the restored Stuart monarchy the court became once again a centre of musical patronage, but royal interest in music tended to be less significant as the seventeenth century progressed, to be revived again under the House of Hanover. The Baroque era in British music can be seen as one of an interaction of national and international trends, sometimes absorbing continental fashions and practices and sometimes attempting, as in the creation of ballad opera, to produce an indigenous tradition. However, arguably the most significant British composer of the era, George Frideric Handel, was a naturalised German, who helped integrate British and continental music and define the future of music in the United Kingdom.
April Rosemary Cantelo was an English soprano. She created roles in operas by major composers, including the title role of Semele by John Eccles, Helena in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in several works by Malcolm Williamson such as English Eccentrics.
The Voltaire Foundation is a research department of the University of Oxford, founded by Theodore Besterman in the 1970s. It publishes the definitive edition of the Complete Works of Voltaire, as well as Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, a monograph series devoted to the eighteenth century, and the correspondences (letters) of several key French thinkers. Directed by Professor Nicholas Cronk, it forms part of Oxford's Humanities Division.
Adriano in Siria is a libretto by Italian poet Metastasio first performed, with music by Antonio Caldara, in Vienna in 1732, and turned into an opera by at least 60 other composers during the next century. Metastasio based the background of the story on late Classical works by Cassius Dio and Elio Sparziano.
Daniel Evan Freeman is an American musicologist who specializes in European art music of the eighteenth century, in particular the musical culture of eighteenth-century Prague and the Bohemian lands. He is also active as a pianist and music editor.
New Chamber Opera is a professional opera company located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It specialises in the fields of chamber opera and music theatre, and produces rarely performed works from the Baroque era to the present. It is a member of the Opera and Music Theatre Forum. New Chamber Opera has received financial support from the Arts Council of Great Britain and The National Lottery.
Christian Curnyn is a British conductor, harpsichordist and baroque music specialist.
Dinko Fabris is an Italian musicologist. He specializes in lute music, the music of Naples, and Italian music in general, having written books on Italian composers such as Andrea Falconieri, Andrea Gabrieli, Francesco Provenzale and Francesco Cavalli. He holds teaching posts at the Conservatory of Bari and the University of Basilicata, and was president of the International Musicological Society from 2012 to 2017.
