X-Nico

19 unusual facts about Royal Opera House


1808 in the United Kingdom

20 September - The original Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London is destroyed by fire along with most of the scenery, costumes and scripts.

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.

Figaro Systems

In the UK and Europe, the systems have been installed in venues including the Royal Opera House in London, the Teatro alla Scala and La Scala's Teatro degli Arcimboldi opera houses in Milan, Italy, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, and the Wiener Staatsoper in Wien, Austria.

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.

Hans Henric von Essen

He accompanied Gustav III at the 1792 masquerade ball at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm on March 16, 1792 where the king was shot and mortally injured.

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.

High House, Purfleet

The Royal Opera House opened the Bob and Tamar Manoukian Production Workshop, a scene-making facility for their opera and ballet productions on the High House site in December 2010.

Jean-Baptiste Malter

In Marie Sallé's company, Jean-Baptiste made his English debut at the Royal Opera House on 8 November 1733, quickly winning celebrity.

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.

John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley

Meanwhile he became Chairman of the Port of London authority in 1946 and Chairman of the Royal Opera House in March the same year.

Lollie Alexi Devereaux

Lollie Alexi Devereaux (born October 31, 1981) is a Vancouver, BC based French actress, opera singer, dancer and writer best known for her work with L’Opéra de la Bastille (Bastille Opera) (Paris, France) and Royal Opera House (London, UK).

Nicholas Thomas Dall

He painted some excellent scenes for Covent Garden Theatre, and his engagements in that branch of art prevented him from painting many pictures.

Omai

His portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds among others, and his journey to England and subsequent return to Tahiti with Cook on his third voyage in 1776 became the subject of a theatrical production, written and directed by the dramatist John O'Keefe, entitled Omai – A Voyage ‘round the World that was performed during the 1785 Christmas season at London’s Theatre Royal in Covent Garden.

Opera della Luna

In 1997, when the Royal Opera House had to close for renovations, they presented a season at the Shaftesbury Theatre, including some lighter works, such as a new production of The Merry Widow with a translation by Jeremy Sams.

Peach Melba

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

Royal Opera House, Valletta

The proposal was ostensibly shelved until after the general elections of 2008 and on 1 December 2008, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi revived the proposal with a budget of €80 million.

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.

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.


Alessandro Corbelli

On 26 November 2007, while in London rehearsing for La Cenerentola, Corbelli stepped in at the last minute for a production of L'elisir d'amore at the Royal Opera House, singing the role of Belcore for the second half of the opera from the side of the stage while Ludovic Tézier, who had sung the first half with a throat infection, acted the role.

Bruce Boyce

He then went on to other roles, including Il conte in Marriage of Figaro under Erich Kleiber at the Royal Opera House; he sang in the English Opera Group, the London Opera Club and continental Europe.

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.

Dano Raffanti

He also appeared at the Pesaro Festival in La donna del lago, opposite Katia Ricciarelli, Lucia Valentini Terrani and Samuel Ramey in 1983, and made his debut at the Royal Opera House in London, as Tebaldo in I Capuleti e Montecchi, in 1984, opposite Agnes Baltsa and Edita Gruberová, under Riccardo Muti.

David Harsent

His work in music theatre has involved collaborations with a number of composers (but most often with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, the opera Gawain being their most notable collaboration) and has been performed at the Royal Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Southbank Centre, The Proms, the Wiener Kammeroper, and broadcast on BBC Two, Channel 4 and Trio (USA).

Demon Strings

Another of Albarn's projects, Monkey: Journey To The West saw the Demon Strings as part of the orchestra for runs at the Royal Opera House, Palace Theatre Manchester, Théâtre du Châtelet and culminated in a three-month run at The O2.

Edward Middleton Barry

The Covent Garden work was hugely influential in Barry’s appointment to design the Royal Opera House in Valletta, Malta (1866), bombed by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.

Elena Langer

Her work has been performed at the Royal Opera House, Zurich Opera, Carnegie Hall, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre.

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.

Francesco Maria Bonini

In 1897-1898 he made appearances at the Amazon Theatre in Brazil, the Valletta Royal Opera House in Malta and at the Cairo Opera House in Egypt.

Georges Baklanoff

In 1910 Baklanoff made debuts with three important companies, the Boston Opera Company (as The Miserly Knight), the Metropolitan Opera in New York City (as Verdi's Rigoletto), and the Royal Opera House in London (as Rigoletto and Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca).

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.

Graeme Danby

Graeme Danby (born 23 May 1962 in Consett, County Durham, England) is an operatic bass who has performed at several of the world's leading opera houses, notably the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the English National Opera.

Håkan Hagegård

Hagegård studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and has performed on stages around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the London Royal Opera House, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Sydney Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera (Così fan tutte conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt), and the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm.

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.

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.

Karita Mattila

Mattila appears regularly in the major opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, Théâtre du Châtelet, Opéra Bastille, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Vienna State Opera, Toronto Roy Thomson Hall and Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg and with top orchestras.

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.

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.

Miles Jacobson

Born in 1971 and raised in Watford, Jacobson spent more time on music than education when at school, singing or playing at the Royal Opera House, Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican and St Martin-in-the-Fields during this time.

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.

Opera house

Traditionally, Europe's major opera houses built in the 19th century contained between about 1,500 to 3,000 seats, examples being Brussels' La Monnaie (after renovations, with 1,700 seats), Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater (with 1,636), Warsaw's Grand Theatre (the main auditorium with 1,841), Paris' Opéra Garnier (with 2,200), the Royal Opera House in London (with 2,268) and the Vienna State Opera (the new auditorium with reduced capacity of 2,280).

Richard Verreau

He made his debut at the Royal Opera House in London, as the Duke in Rigoletto, in 1957, other roles there included: Alfredo in La traviata, Rodolfo in La bohème, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly.

Roger Argente

He has appeared as a guest performer with a wide variety of orchestras and ensembles, including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London Sinfonietta, London Brass, Symphonic Brass of London and the Super World Orchestra at the Tokyo International Music Festival.

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.

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.