Roger Parker

Last updated

Roger Parker (born London United Kingdom, 2 August 1951) is an English musicologist and, since January 2007, has been Thurston Dart Professor of Music at King's College London. [1] His work has centred on opera. Between 2006 and 2010, while Professor of Music at Gresham College, London, Parker presented four series of free public lectures, one example being "Verdi and Milan" in 2007 which is available on video. [2]

Contents

In addition to teaching, Parker has been active as joint editor in the preparation of critical editions of the work of 19th-century Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti for the Milan publishing house Ricordi. [3] He also acts as Repertory Consultant [4] to the UK's specialised recording company, Opera Rara, which has commissioned performances and recordings of rare Donizetti operas such as Belisario in 2012 and Les Martyrs in 2014. [5] Additionally, Parker has presented talks on UK radio on aspects of opera, including his talk "Verdi 200: Viva Verdi" [6] on BBC Radio 3 on 6 January and 13 October 2013.

Education and academic work

He studied at the University of London, first at Goldsmiths' College, and then at King's College London from which he obtained his PhD in 1981. In 1982, he moved to Cornell University in upstate New York, where he was assistant professor and then associate professor. Returning to England to become a lecturer in music (later professor) and fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford, in 1999 he became professor of music at Cambridge University, where he was a fellow of St John's College. Between 2005 and 2006, he was the chair of the School of Arts and Humanities. Parker became the Visiting Ernest Bloch Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and, in 2007, he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. [5]

Preparation of critical editions of operas

Roger Parker's focus has been in the area of Italian opera of the nineteenth century. For ten years he was founding co-editor (with Arthur Groos) of the Cambridge Opera Journal, and he continues as General Editor of The Critical Edition of the Operas of Gaetano Donizetti published it Italy by Casa Ricordi of Milan and in the United States by the University of Chicago Press under the auspices of the Fondazione Donizetti. His co-editor is Gabriele Dotto, who led Ricordi's editorial department from 1992 to 2001. [3] [7]

Other critical editions of Donizetti's operas on which Parker has worked include Linda di Chamounix in 2007 [8] as well as those titles which appear on the Donizetti Society's list of works completed by Parker alone, such as Lucrezia Borgia (1998) and Adelia . Additionally, along with Dotto, he has co-authored the critical edition of Lucia di Lammermoor which was presented at the Royal Opera House, London in 2003. [9] Roger Parker is also credited as editor of the critical edition of Puccini's opera, Manon Lescaut published by Ricordi in 2013.

A major revival [10] of a never-completed Donizetti opera, Le duc d'Albe , was given in 2012 by the Vlaamse Opera from a critical edition prepared by Parker. [11] He has written about the work involved in its preparation. [12]

Involvement with performances

For the preparation, recording, and presentation of the Opera Rara recording of Donizetti's Belisario in 2012, it has been noted that the opera was "performed in the edition by Sir Mark Elder, Roger Parker and Jürgen Selk, based on the 2010 edition by Ottavio Sbragia." [13] For that event, Parker coordinated and presented an afternoon-long public symposium on the opera. In a similar fashion, when Donizetti's Les Martyrs was presented by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in London in November 2014, Roger Parker was part of an introductory panel which also included Dr Flora Willson (who prepared the critical edition) and author and Donizetti biographer Jonathan Keates. [14]

Awards and appointments

He received the "Premio Giuseppe Verdi" in 1986, was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1986–87, and in 1991 was awarded the Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association. 2008 saw his election as Fellow of the British Academy, [5] while, in 2014, he was appointed member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Recent publications

Personal life

Married to concert cellist Lynden Cranham, has three children and eight grandchildren.

See also

Musicologist Philip Gossett (General Editor of critical editions of Giuseppe Verdi and Gioachino Rossini's operas.)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giacomo Puccini</span> Italian opera composer (1858–1924)

Giacomo Puccini was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late-Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera, he later developed his work in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaetano Donizetti</span> Italian opera composer (1797–1848)

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy Il Pigmalione, which may never have been performed during his lifetime.

<i>Belisario</i> Opera by Gaetano Donizetti

Belisario (Belisarius) is a tragedia lirica in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after Luigi Marchionni's adaptation of Eduard von Schenk's play, Belisarius, first staged in Munich in 1820 and then in Naples in 1826. The plot is loosely based on the life of the famous general Belisarius of the 6th century Byzantine Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casa Ricordi</span> Italian publisher of sheet music

Casa Ricordi is a publisher of primarily classical music and opera. Its classical repertoire represents one of the important sources in the world through its publishing of the work of the major 19th-century Italian composers such as Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Giuseppe Verdi, and, later in the century, Giacomo Puccini, composers with whom one or another of the Ricordi family came into close contact.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hariclea Darclée</span> Romanian opera singer

Hariclea Darclée was a celebrated Romanian operatic spinto soprano of Greek descent who had a three-decade-long career.

<i>Dom Sébastien</i> Opera by Gaetano Donizetti

Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal is a French grand opera in five acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe, based on Paul Foucher's play Don Sébastien de Portugal which premiered at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin on 9 November 1838 It is a historic-fiction about King Sebastian of Portugal (1554–1578) and his ill-fated 1578 expedition to Morocco. The opera premiered on 13 November 1843 at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra. This was the last opera that Donizetti completed before going insane as a result of syphilis.

<i>Maria Padilla</i> Opera by Gaetano Donizetti

Maria Padilla is a melodramma, or opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Gaetano Rossi and the composer wrote the Italian libretto after François Ancelot's play. It premiered on 26 December 1841 at La Scala, Milan. The plot is loosely based on the historical figure María de Padilla, the mistress of Pedro the Cruel, King of Castile.

<i>Rita</i> (opera) Opera by Gaetano Donizetti

Deux Hommes et une femme, also known as Rita, is an opéra comique in one act, composed by Gaetano Donizetti to a French libretto by Gustave Vaëz. The opera, a domestic comedy consisting of eight musical numbers connected by spoken dialogue, was completed in 1841. Never performed in Donizetti's lifetime, it premiered posthumously at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 7 May 1860.

Opera Rara is a London-based opera company and recording label which specialises in recording and performing forgotten operatic repertoire from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Founded in 1970 by bel canto enthusiasts Patric Schmid and Don White, Opera Rara's recordings are internationally distributed by Warner Classics. In September 2019, Italian conductor Carlo Rizzi succeeded Sir Mark Elder as Artistic Director.

Peter Forbes Robinson was a British bass, born in Macclesfield, best known for his performances in works by Mozart, Verdi, and Britten.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giuseppe Taddei</span> Italian opera singer

Giuseppe Taddei was an Italian baritone, who, during his career, performed multiple operas composed by numerous composers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nelly Miricioiu</span> British opera soprano

Nelly Miricioiu is a Romanian-born British operatic soprano singing a large repertoire ranging from bel canto to verismo.

Miriam Gauci is a Maltese operatic soprano, particularly associated with lyric Italian roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margherita Rinaldi</span> Italian opera singer (1935–2023)

Margherita Rinaldi was an Italian lyric soprano, primarily active in the 1960s and 1970s, after she made her debut as Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in 1958, prompting her career at La Scala in Milan. She also appeared internationally, performing a wide repertoire including, besides Italian belcanto roles, Baroque and French opera. She recorded the roles of Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto and Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo. From 1981, she worked as a voice teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giuseppe Borgatti</span> Italian opera singer

Giuseppe Borgatti was an Italian dramatic tenor with an outstanding voice. The creator of the title role in Umberto Giordano's verismo opera Andrea Chénier, he subsequently earned renown for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, becoming in 1904 the first Italian tenor to appear at the Bayreuth Festival. He sang a variety of leading roles at La Scala, Milan, from 1896 until 1914, but deteriorating eyesight caused by glaucoma put a premature end to his stage career, after which he turned successfully to teaching.

<i>LAnge de Nisida</i> Opera in four acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti

L'Ange de Nisida is an opera semiseria in four acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, from a French-language libretto by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Gossett</span> American musicologist (1941–2017)

Philip Gossett was an American musicologist and historian, and Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor of Music at the University of Chicago. His lifelong interest in 19th-century Italian opera began with listening to Metropolitan Opera broadcasts in his youth. Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, a major work on the subject, won the Otto Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society as best book on music of 2006.

A critical edition of an opera has been defined by American musicologist Philip Gossett as "an edition that bases itself wherever possible on the very finest and most accurate sources for an opera. That means that it must study the entire performance history of a work."

References

Notes

  1. "Roger Parker - Research Portal, King's College, London".
  2. "Verdi and Milan". gresham.ac.uk.
  3. 1 2 "Ricordi".
  4. "Charles Alexander - Chairman". opera-rara.com.
  5. 1 2 3 "King's College London - Professor Roger Parker". kcl.ac.uk.
  6. "BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Verdi 200: Viva Verdi". BBC.
  7. "Fondazione Donizetti Bergamo - Fondazione Donizetti Bergamo". donizetti.org. Archived from the original on 21 February 2014.
  8. Linda di Chamounix.
  9. "Donizetti Society Scores and Librettos Page". donizettisociety.com.
  10. Loomis, George (15 May 2012). "Filling in the Missing Links of an Opera Donizetti Never Finished". The New York Times.
  11. "King's College London - Finishing the job: King's academic completes Donizetti opera". kcl.ac.uk.
  12. "Donizetti Society Article - Le Duc d'Albe". donizettisociety.com.
  13. "Donizetti's Belisario – BBCSO/Mark Elder and Opera Rara [Nicola Alaimo, Joyce El-Khoury, Russell Thomas & Camilla Roberts] @www.classicalsource.com". classicalsource.com.
  14. "Programme for Les Maryrs" (PDF). oae.co.uk.
  15. "Verdi the revolutionary? Let's separate fact from fiction". the Guardian. 7 October 2013.
  16. Critical edition of Manon Lescaut [ permanent dead link ]
  17. "Penguin Rights".

Sources