English Touring Opera

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Susannah with Andrew Slater and Donna Bateman, 2008

The English Touring Opera (ETO) is an English opera company founded in 1949 by the Arts Council of Great Britain under the name Opera for All . In 1979 the result was Opera 80 , and in 1992 the company was given its current name.

The ETO is supported by the Arts Council England . James Conway has been artistic director and chief director since 2002 , and Michael Rosewell is musical director .

history

In 1949 the Arts Council of Great Britain commissioned a small group called Opera for All to present the art form opera in smaller towns and villages . The company started in September 1949 with a first performance in Blaenau Ffestiniog , a small mining town in northwest Wales. At that time the troupe consisted of four singers, a pianist and a compère / stage manager, the performances were still played without a proper set. In the first season, 69 locations in the UK were visited. The project developed further and as early as 1952 Così fan tutte could be shown in a modest stage version.

Thirty years after it was founded, the project was reorganized as Opera 80 . Every year now two tours were organized, one in spring, one in autumn, in real productions with stage design, costume and mask and with a 30-member orchestra. Over the course of 18 weeks, 25 cities were recorded, mostly with English-language versions of works by Mozart , Verdi and Britten . In London they played at Sadler's Wells , but Opera 80 also made guest appearances at the Bath Festival and in France. In 1983 David Parry became music director of the ETO. In 1989 a production by this company, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro , marked the start of the Garsington Opera Festival , which then produced its own performances.

In 1992 the troupe was given its current name. It is a non-profit organization that aims to promote understanding of opera among broad sections of the population and across the country. Therefore, the performances are still sung in English. Venues are often smaller stages and event halls in which operas have never been performed before, for example in Cambridge, Exeter, Poole, Cheltenham, Malvern, Crawley, Sheffield, Wolverhampton, Buxton, Durham and Perth. The Arts Council England funding the project continuously, for example with £ 1,577,015 in 2012/13 and £ 1,819,244 in the season 2014/15.

Artist

The English Touring Opera usually hires young artists at the beginning of their careers. Some of them later gained wider notoriety, such as Jake Arditti , Sarah Connolly , Alison Hagley and Simon Wallfisch , but also the singers Sylvia O'Brien , Amanda Echalaz , Susan Gritton , Paul Nilon, Mary Plazas, Jonathan Veira , who are still less known in continental Europe and Todd Wilander.

The company's conductors have included and still include Martin André , Stephen Barlow , Ivor Bolton , Laurence Cummings , Richard Farnes , Leo Hussain and Nicholas Kraemer , and the directors Robert Carsen , Declan Donnellan , Richard Jones and Steven Pimlott .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tim Ashley, " The Emperor of Atlantis - review" , The Guardian (London), Oct. 9, 2012
  2. ↑ Harold Rosenthal: Opera for All , OMO, accessed April 18, 2018
  3. ^ "Opera 80", The New Grove Dictionary of Opera , at Oxfordmusiconline.com
  4. ↑ Thicknesse, pp. 71-72
  5. ↑ Opera Now : Latest News ( Memento of the original from October 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rhinegold.co.uk archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , October 11, 2010

literature

  • Robert Thicknesse: Company Profile: English Touring Opera , Opera Now (London), October 2012

Web links