Britten: Gloriana

Synopsis

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.

Main Cast

Susan Bullock

Elisabeth I

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Toby Spence

Earl of Essex

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Mark Stone

Lord Mountjoy

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Clive Bayley

Sir Walter Raleigh

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Jeremy Carpenter

Sir Robert Cecil

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Kate Royal

Lady Rich

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Patricia Bardon

Countess of Essex

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Brindley Sherratt

Blind Ballad-Singer

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Crew

Department	Role	Name
Directing	Director	Richard Jones
Art	Set Designer	Ultz
Lighting	Lighting Design	Mimi Jordan Sherin
Crew	Choreographer	Lucy Burge
Writing	Writer	Benjamin Britten
Department	Role	Name

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