Jonathan Miller

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jonathan Miller in 1988 when he appeared on the UK late night show After Dark

Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE ( July 21, 1934 in London - November 27, 2019 in London ) was a British theater and opera director and author . He studied medicine and neuropsychology . Although he had only seen a few operas and was unable to read sheet music, he began directing himself in the 1970s and was later considered one of the world's leading opera directors. In 1982 he staged the opera Rigoletto as a mafia play, set in Little Italy in the 1950s. He worked at the Royal National Theater in London and the Old Vic Theater , also in London. He was also known as a presenter on British and American television.

biography

Miller grew up in London. His father Emanuel Miller was a psychiatrist , his mother Betty wrote novels and biographies. He studied science and medicine at St John's College, Cambridge and eventually moved to University College London . While studying medicine, he began working for the Cambridge Footlights theater club. In 1959 he received his doctorate in medicine and worked for 2 years at Central Middlesex Hospital, London.

In the 1960s he wrote and produced a musical (Beyond the Fringe) for the Edinburgh Festival with Alan Bennett , Peter Cook and Dudley Moore . In 1964 he directed the first play at the newly founded American Place Theater - The Old Glory by Robert Lowell with Frank Langella , Roscoe Lee Brown and Lester Rawlins in the leading roles. The piece won five Obie Awards , including Best American Piece. In 1966 he wrote a film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and also directed it. In 1970 Laurence Olivier played in Miller's production of The Merchant of Venice .

From 1973 to 1976 Miller held a research fellowship in medical history at University College, London. After staging his first opera in 1973 (an English premiere of Alexander Goehrs Arden must die ), he began producing and directing operas for Kent Opera , Glyndebourne Festival Opera and English National Opera . In the 1970s he began campaigning for the rights of same-sex lovers and was vice-president of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality , one of the oldest UK gay rights organizations .

In the 1980s he produced Shakespeare plays for the BBC, some of which he directed himself. Among other things, John Cleese appeared in one of his productions. At the same time he studied neuropsychology and received a research grant at Sussex University .

In 1988 he became artistic director of the Old Vic Theater in London and remained so until 1991.

In the 1990s and 2000s he worked a lot for television and produced some documentation series for the BBC, among others, on the History of Medicine, Madness (Madness), the emergence of human language, as well as a series on atheism .

In Vienna, in 1991 Miller staged Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro , a production of the Vienna State Opera in the Theater an der Wien , followed in 1993 by Umberto Giordano's Fedora at the Bregenz Festival as a co-production with the Vienna State Opera, where this production was shown in 1994. In 1997 his path also took him to the Salzburg Festival , where he directed Mitridate, re di Ponto .

It was not until 2007, 10 years after his last stage work for a British theater, that he returned with Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard , followed by Monteverdi's L'Orfeo . He also curated an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London.

In 2010 he directed La Bohème for the English National Opera and the Cincinnati Opera in a 1930s setting. In 2011 he directed La traviata and in 2012 Così fan tutte in Washington DC.

In 2013 an exhibition of the all-rounder interested in abstract and modern works of art with his own works took place in Islington.

Together with 54 other well-known personalities, such as Richard Dawkins , Terry Pratchett and Stephen Fry , he signed an open letter in the Guardian against a state visit by Pope Benedict XVI. judged.

Miller was married to Helen Rachel Collet since 1956; they lived in Camden, London with two sons and a daughter. Jonathan Miller died in London in November 2019 at the age of 85 from complications from Alzheimer's disease .

Titles and awards

bibliography

Books

  • Jonathan Miller: McLuhan . Fontana Modern Masters, 1971.
  • Jonathan Miller: Censorship and the Limits of Personal Freedom . Oxford University Press, 1971.
  • Jonathan Miller: Freud: The Man, His World and His Influence . Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972.
  • Jonathan Miller: The Uses of Pain (Conway memorial lecture) . South Place Ethical Society, 1974.
  • Jonathan Miller: The Body in Question . Jonathan Cape, 1978.
  • Jonathan Miller: Darwin for Beginners . Writers and Readers Comic Book / 2003 Pantheon Books (USA), 1982, ISBN 0-375-71458-8 .
  • with David Pelham: Jonathan Miller: The Human Body . Viking Press, 1983. (1994 Jonathan Cape [pop-up book])
  • Jonathan Miller: States of Mind. Conversations with Psychological Investigators . BBC / Random House, 1983.
  • with David Pelhalm: Jonathan Miller: The Facts of Life . Jonathan Cape, 1984. . ISBN 0-670-30465-4 (pop-up book)
  • Jonathan Miller: Subsequent Performances . Faber, 1986.
  • Miller, Jonathan & John Durrant: Laughing Matters: A Serious Look at Humor . Longman, 1989.
  • Jonathan Miller: Acting in Opera . Applause Theater & Cinema Books, 1990. (The Applause Acting Series)
  • Jonathan Miller: The Afterlife of Plays . San Diego State Univ. Press, 1992. (University Research Lecture Series No. 5)
  • Jonathan Miller: Dimensional Man . Jonathan Cape, 1998.
  • Jonathan Miller: On Reflection . National Gallery Publications / Yale University Press (USA), 1998, ISBN 0-300-07713-0 .
  • Jonathan Miller: Nowhere in Particular . Mitchell Beazley, 1999, ISBN 1-84000-150-X . (Collection of his photographs)

editor

  • Jonathan Miller: Harvey and the Circulation of Blood: A Collection of Contemporary Documents . Jackdaw Publications, 1968.
  • Jonathan Miller: The Don Giovanni Book: Myths of Seduction and Betrayal . Faber, 1990.

Contributor

This article or section needs to be revised:
citebook - used as it is - is not suitable for linking names.
Please help to improve it and then remove this marking.

Filmography

actor

Director

author

Selected stage productions

musical

Oratorio

Stage plays

Opera

For more than 40 years Miller has directed more than 50 operas in cities such as London, New York, Florence, Milan, Berlin, Munich, Zurich and Tokyo.

Exhibitions

Literature on Miller

  • Kate Bassett: In Two Minds: A biography of Jonathan Miller 2012 forthcoming, ISBN 978-1-84943-451-5 .
  • Ronald Bergan: Beyond the Fringe ... and Beyond: A Critical Biography of Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore . Virgin Books, 1990, ISBN 1-85227-175-2 .
  • Michael Romain (Ed): A Profile of Jonathan Miller . Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-521-40953-5 .
  • Humphrey Carpenter: That Was Satire, That Was: Beyond the Fringe, the Establishment Club, "Private Eye" and "That Was the Week That Was" . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000, ISBN 0-575-06588-5 .
  • Robert Hewison: Footlights! - A Hundred Years of Cambridge Comedy . Methuen, 1983, ISBN 0-413-51150-2 .
  • Roger Wilmut: From Fringe to Flying Circus - Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960–1980 . Eyre Methuen, 1980, ISBN 0-413-46950-6 .

Web links

Commons : Jonathan Miller  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Benedict Nightingale: Jonathan Miller, Bold Director of Theater and Opera, Is Dead at 85. In: The New York Times , November 27, 2019 (English). Retrieved November 27, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Miller, Jonathan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Miller, Sir Jonathan Wolfe (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British theater and opera director and author
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 2019
Place of death London