Britten: Gloriana (2013)
Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana was written in 1953 for celebrations around the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to whom the opera is dedicated. It had its first performance at the Royal Opera House on 8 June 1953, in the presence of The Queen then just 6 days into her reign. The centenary in 2013 of Britten’s birth prompted this new Royal Opera production, in which director Richard Jones uses the setting of a celebratory pageant in 1953 to explore the work’s alternating splendour and intimacy. This theatrical, inventive and colourful staging has at its core the symbolic reflections between the Tudor Elizabethan and the New Elizabethan ages that characterize the opera. The juxtaposition of the modern and the archaic in William Plomer’s libretto is wonderfully amplified in music that artfully fuses the sounds and manners of Tudor England – from lute songs to courtly dances – with Britten’s own distinctive style.
Director: Richard Jones
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Susan Bullock as Elisabeth I |
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Toby Spence as Earl of Essex |
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Mark Stone as Lord Mountjoy |
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Clive Bayley as Sir Walter Raleigh |
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Jeremy Carpenter as Sir Robert Cecil |
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Kate Royal as Lady Rich |
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Patricia Bardon as Countess of Essex |
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Brindley Sherratt as Blind Ballad-Singer |
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Paul Daniel as Conductor |
| Lighting | Mimi Jordan Sherin | Lighting Design |
| Directing | Richard Jones | Director |
| Crew | Lucy Burge | Choreographer |
| Art | Ultz | Set Designer |
| Writing | Benjamin Britten | Writer |
