Danny Kaye was an American actor, comedian, singer, and dancer. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire novelty songs.
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of bestselling adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). His novels, always well documented, are generally set in the second half of the 19th century, taking into account the technological advances of the time.
Pamela Lyndon Travers was an Australian-British writer who spent most of her career in England. She is best known for the Mary Poppins series of books, which feature the eponymous magical nanny.
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe and a libretto by Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe. Based on the 1910 French novel of the same name by Gaston Leroux, it tells the story of a beautiful soprano, Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, masked musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House.
Anne Sofie von Otter is a Swedish mezzo-soprano. Her repertoire encompasses lieder, operas, oratorios and also rock and pop songs.
William Horace Marshall was an American actor, director and opera singer. He played the title role in the 1972 blaxploitation classic Blacula and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973), and appeared as the King of Cartoons on the 1980s television show Pee-wee's Playhouse and as Dr. Richard Daystrom on the Star Trek television series. He was 6‘5” tall and was known for his bass voice.
Ivan Alexander Galamian was an Armenian-American violin teacher of the twentieth century who was the violin teacher of many seminal violin players including Itzhak Perlman.
Diana Marie Lynn was an American actress.
Interlochen Center for the Arts is a non-profit corporation which operates arts education institutions and performance venues. Established in 1928 by Joseph E. Maddy, Interlochen Center for the Arts is located on a 1,200-acre (490 ha) campus in Green Lake Township, Grand Traverse County, Michigan, near the eponymous community of Interlochen.
Lois Collier was an American actress born in Salley, South Carolina. She was sometimes credited as Lois Collyer.
The 25th Daytime Emmy Awards were held in 1998 to commemorate excellence in daytime programming from the previous year (1997).
Dennis Noble was a noted British baritone and teacher. He appeared in opera, oratorio, musical comedy and song, from the First World War through to the late 1950s. He was renowned for his enunciation and diction. He became the most prolific radio broadcaster of his time.
The Summer Camp Music Festival is a multi-day music festival created by Jay Goldberg Events & Entertainment and held annually on Memorial Day Weekend at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois. The event typically attracts around 20,000 visitors, of which between 8,000 and 10,000 arrive before gates open. In 2014, it was listed as one of the top 40 music festivals in Rolling Stone and in 2015 on Rolling Stone's 50 Must-See Music Festivals.
The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition is an annual singing competition sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera. Established in 1954, its purpose is to discover, assist, promote, and develop young opera singers. The competition is held in four stages: Districts, Regional, Semi-Final, and Final competitions. Each stage is judged by a panel of representatives from the Metropolitan Opera. There are a total of 14 regional competitions within the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, and 42 district competitions within each region. Winners from the district competition compete in Regionals, and then the winners of regionals are awarded a trip to New York City where they compete on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in the National Semi-Final Competition. Approximately 10 semi-finalists are chosen to compete in the final competition; the five winners are awarded a grand prize of $15,000 each, and the remaining finalists receive $5,000.
Dark Shadows is a 2012 dark fantasy film based on the gothic television soap opera of the same name. Directed by Tim Burton, the film stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Bella Heathcote in a dual role. Christopher Lee has a small role in the film, his 200th film appearance and his fifth and final appearance in a Burton film. Jonathan Frid, star of the original Dark Shadows series, makes a cameo appearance. He died shortly before the film was released. One of the film's producers, Richard D. Zanuck, died two months after its release.
Grace Bradley was an American film actress who was active in Hollywood during the 1930s.
Journey Through the Impossible is an 1882 fantasy play written by Jules Verne, with the collaboration of Adolphe d'Ennery. A stage spectacular in the féerie tradition, the play follows the adventures of a young man who, with the help of a magic potion and a varied assortment of friends and advisers, makes impossible voyages to the center of the Earth, the bottom of the sea, and a distant planet. The play is deeply influenced by Verne's own Voyages Extraordinaires series and includes characters and themes from some of his most famous novels, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and From the Earth to the Moon.
Heimo Verneri Haitto was a Finnish-American classical violinist who played in several U.S. symphony orchestras. A child prodigy, he was characterized as “Finland’s Jascha Heifetz”.
The 2000 New Year Honours in New Zealand were appointments by Elizabeth II in her right as Queen of New Zealand, on the advice of the New Zealand government, to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by New Zealanders, and to celebrate the passing of 1999 and the beginning of 2000. They were announced on 31 December 1999.
