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33 unusual facts about Covent Garden


A-Hunting We Will Go

It was written by Arne for the 1777 production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera at Covent Garden.

Ambrose Godfrey

Initially Becher and Godfrey had got along well and they shared lodgings in Covent Garden.

Anthony N. Moore

After graduation in 1974 from Exeter College of Art and Design, he painted a series of grisaille paintings in oil on board, a selection of which were exhibited at the Paton Gallery, Covent Garden, London.

Brake Bros

In addition to the Head Office in Enterprise Park, Ashford, and the Group Head Office in Covent Garden, London, the group has offices and distribution depots around the UK and France, including separate head offices for each division.

Cleveland Street Workhouse

That same decade the church of St Paul's, Covent Garden, which was built by Inigo Jones in 1631–33, was renovated (following a fire) by the eminent architect Thomas Hardwick.

Daniel Stuart

Stuart took rooms for him in King Street, Covent Garden, and Coleridge told William Wordsworth that he dedicated his nights and days to Stuart (Wordsworth, Life of Wordsworth, i. 160).

Eastern Market, Melbourne

Two years later and the Eastern Market, wrote The Argus, was called 'our Covent Garden' (a reference to the famous market at Covent Garden in London established by the Duke of Bedford in the 1600s).

Our market site is within one-fourth as extensive a site as Covent Garden and when, as on a brisk market morning, it is attended by 700 drays loaded with produce, it affords a pleasureable surprise to any visitor who was previously unaware that a market of like pretentions was to be found in Melbourne.

Farmers Club

Its inaugural meeting on 9 December 1842 was held in a pub, the Hereford Arms, in King Street, Covent Garden.

Giovanni Martinelli

Cavaradossi in Tosca, was his debut role at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London, and for his first American engagement in Philadelphia, in 1913.

Jackson of Exeter

In 1767 Jackson wrote the music for an adaptation of Milton's Lycidas, which was produced at Covent Garden on 4 November of the same year, on the occasion of the death of Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany, brother to George III.

Jeff Rich

He attended school in Hackney at Upton House Comprehensive, and whilst there he appeared in the opera Tosca at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Joan Sanderson

A memorial service was held for her at St Paul's, Covent Garden (commonly known as "The Actors' Church") and many distinguished actors attended to pay tribute to her.

John Taras

Taras was principal dancer in de Basil's company and regisseur for their Covent Garden and Paris seasons.

Jussi Björling

On 15 March 1960, Björling suffered a heart attack before a performance of La bohème at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Katalin Bogyay

As Director General she opened the Hungarian Cultural Centre in 1999 in the heart of London's Covent Garden.

Lord Worplesdon

Percival "Percy" Craye, later Earl of Worplesdon, is a recurring fictional character from the Jeeves stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being Agatha Gregson's second husband, who would have been her first but for Agatha's discovering that he had behaved shamefully at a ball at Covent Garden, whereupon she broke their engagement and married Spenser Gregson instead.

Marie Wilt

She sang for many years at the Vienna Hofoper (now Vienna State Opera) and for a number of seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London.

Mark Morris

He has worked extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions for the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, English National Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, among others.

Michel Fokine

His pieces are still performed by the leading ballet troupes of the world, the Mariinsky Ballet having performed a retrospective of his works at London's Covent Garden in late July 2011.

Nicola Rescigno

He conducted at most of the major opera houses of Italy, and made guest appearances at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Vienna State Opera, Zurich Opera, and the Teatro Colón among other theaters.

Orestes

In 1734, George Frederic Handel's opera L'Oreste (based on Giangualberto Barlocci’s Roman libretto of 1723), was premiered in London's Covent Garden.

Reginald Spofforth

He composed about 75 glees, also three books of nursery rhyme settings and many songs and duets, including songs for various stage performances at Covent Garden in the 1790s.

Renata von Tscharner

Prior to starting the Charles River Conservancy, she was a principal of The Townscape Institute, Assistant City Planner in Berne, Switzerland, and Planning Officer with the Greater London Council’s Covent Garden Task Force.

Richard Rock

Hogarth also included Rock in his 1738 engraving, Morning, the first of series entitled The Four Times of the Day, selling his medicines in Covent Garden.

Right to light

In the centre of London near Chinatown and Covent Garden, particularly in back alleyways, signs saying "Ancient Lights" can be seen marking individual windows.

Rosina Buckman

She then returned to New Zealand, toured Australia and debut in London with La boheme at Covent Garden.

Ross Nichols

Nichols was a Member and Chairman of the Ancient Druid Order which traces its lineage to a meeting at the Apple Tree Tavern in Covent Garden, London, in 1717.

Sam Longoria

In 1992, he created 35 mm projected backgrounds from small-format film and video elements, for Peter Sellers's production of Paul Hindemith's Opera Mathis der Maler, at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Speed the Plough

Speed the Plough is a five-act comedy by Thomas Morton, first performed in 1798 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden to great acclaim.

Ted Baker

In 1990 Ted Baker opened a store in Covent Garden (with additional stores in London's Soho, Nottingham and Leeds) and Kelvin bought the company outright from part-owners Goldberg and Sons.

The Fair at Sorochyntsi

The opera was first performed in England on 24 November 1936 by the British Music Drama Opera Company at Covent Garden, staged by Vladimir Rosing, with Albert Coates conducting.

Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie

James Boswell borrowed five guineas from Erskine on 20 October 1762, and on 26 May 1763 took him on a visit to Lord Eglinton's in London, where the overture the Earl composed for the popular pastiche The Maid of the Mill (at Covent Garden in 1765) became exceptionally popular.


Berkeley Smith

Amongst his achievements there, he set up the relay of opera from Glyndebourne and Covent Garden.

Charles Sackville, 2nd Duke of Dorset

After a second grand tour to continental Europe in 1737 and 1738, he returned to England in January 1739 and staged an opera, Angelico e Medoro, with music by Giovanni Battista Pescetti from a libretto by Metastasio at Covent Garden.

Clarence Whitehill

Whitehill went on to appear with considerable success at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in the first Ring Cycle given there in the English language.

Félia Litvinne

During the course of the next three decades she appeared at the Academy of Music in New York, at the Paris Opera, at La Scala in Milan, at the Rome Opera, at La Fenice in Venice, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London and at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels.

François Coppée

For the Crown was performed at Covent Garden as a prize-winning opera The Cross and the Crescent with music by Colin McAlpin in 1903.

George Anne Bellamy

She participated in the rivalry for popular favor in Romeo and Juliet in 1750, playing with Garrick at Drury Lane, while Barry and Mrs. Cibber played at Covent Garden.

Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren

Gilbert's pantomime opened on the same night as rival shows at the Drury Lane Theatre, Covent Garden, Sadler's Wells, and eight other London theatres.

Harold or the Norman Conquest

Opera in four acts with music by the British composer Frederic H. Cowen with a libretto by Edward Malet, edited by Frederic Edward Weatherly, adapted into the German by L.A. Caumont, and first performed at Covent Garden, London on 8 June 1895.

Joseph Gungl

In 1853 he became bandmaster to the 23rd Infantry Regiment at Brno, but in 1864 he moved to Munich, and in 1876 at Frankfurt, after having conducted with great success a series of promenade concerts at the Covent Garden in London in 1873.

Liudmyla Monastyrska

In 2011, she appeared at Covent Garden, where she successfully stepped in for Micaela Carosi as Aida early in the season, with Fabio Luisi as the conductor.

Metropolitan Buildings Office

Buildings in this category included royal palaces, bridges, embankments, wharves, gaols and prisons, the Mansion House, the Guildhall, the Royal Exchange, the British Museum and Covent Garden Market.

Nicolai Ghiaurov

1962 marked Ghiaurov's Covent Garden debut as Padre Guardiano in Verdi's "Forza del Destino" as well as his first appearance in Salzburg in Verdi's "Requiem," conducted by Herbert von Karajan.

Nikolai Tcherepnin

He conducted performances with the Ballets Russes in Berlin, Monte Carlo, Paris, Rome, and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London.

Peach Melba

In 1892, Nellie Melba was performing in Wagner's opera Lohengrin at Covent Garden.

Robert Dodsley

This was followed by a satirical farce called The Toyshop (Covent Garden, 1735), in which the toymaker indulges in moral observations on his wares, a hint which was probably taken from Thomas Randolph's Conceited Pedlar.

Stafford Dean

Of particular note was his performance as Pooh-Bah in the BBC production of Mikado, and his outstanding rendition of the role of Alfonso d'Este in the 1980 Covent Garden production of Donizetti's opera Lucrezia Borgia.

Štefan Margita

His career has also taken him to the stages of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi, the Dallas Opera, the Teatro Real, Oper Frankfurt, Theater Basel, the Teatro di San Carlo, the Theatro Municipal in São Paulo, and the New National Theatre Tokyo among others.

Stephen Courtauld

Courtauld was financial director of Ealing Studios, a trustee of the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, and provided financial support for the Courtauld Galleries in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum.

Turandot Suite

It was made into a full-colour feature film with the same name by Joseph Menchen and Michel Carré with some of the original named cast, which premièred at Covent Garden with a continuous symphonic score by Engelbert Humperdinck on 21 December 1912.