Gillian Knight
Encyclopedia
Gillian Knight is an English singer and actress, known for her performances in the contralto
roles of the Savoy Operas
. After six years starring in these roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
, beginning in 1959, Knight began a grand opera
career.
Knight joined Sadler's Wells Opera (now known as English National Opera
) in 1968 and, in 1970, went on to the Royal Opera
, where she performed numerous roles over a period of more than three decades. Knight has also performed with many other opera companies in Britain, Europe and America and at houses internationally and has recorded many of her Gilbert and Sullivan
and grand opera roles.
, Worcestershire
, England, and educated in Birmingham
. She won a five-year scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music
, where she studied with May Blythe and Roy Henderson. She sang in concerts, oratorio and on television with the Linden Singers while still at the Academy.
Knight joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
in 1959, going on tour immediately in eight of the leading contralto
roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan
repertory. In September of that year, at the age of 25, she succeeded Ann Drummond-Grant
as the company's principal contralto on Drummond-Grant's death. The Times
wrote, "Many good Savoyards have regretted Gilbert's unkind lampooning of the unattractive elderly female, stouter than she used to be, with a caricature of a face and so on; and we have observed with gratitude that Buttercup, Ruth, Lady Jane and their equivalents are acted this season by a pleasing and personable young lady.... Miss Gillian Knight's Buttercup is in itself an iconoclastic impersonation." Before even beginning to tour with the company, her first performance with the company was to play the role of Little Buttercup in the company's recording of H.M.S. Pinafore
released in 1960, the first Gilbert and Sullivan recording to include complete dialogue.
Knight spent almost six years with the D'Oyly Carte, appearing in the roles of Little Buttercup, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance
, Lady Jane in Patience, the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe
, Lady Blanche in Princess Ida
, Katisha in The Mikado
, Dame Hannah in Ruddigore
, Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard
, and the Duchess of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers
.
Knight married D'Oyly Carte master carpenter Trevor Morrison in 1960. She left the D'Oyly Carte company in 1965, and soon afterwards, the couple's daughter, Rebecca
, was born. Rebecca Knight later became an opera singer.
, making her debut as Ragonde in Count Ory
. The Times noted, "Gillian Knight has a formidable stage presence as Ragonde, and a superbly articulated contralto to match." For Sadler's Wells she also played, among other roles, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly
, Berta in The Barber of Seville
, Maddalena in Rigoletto
, Isabella in The Italian Girl in Algiers
, Dryade in Ariadne on Naxos
, the title role in Iolanthe ("most warmly, touchingly sung", wrote The Times), Lady Jane in Patience, and the title role in Bizet's Carmen
, which she was soon invited to play at the Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden. For the Handel
Opera Society, she appeared at Sadler's Wells Theatre
in Xerxes
in 1970.
In 1970, Knight made her Covent Garden debut as the Page in Salome
. In the same year she took over the role of Carmen from Tatiana Troyanos
, and in a later revival she succeeded Grace Bumbry
in the part. Alan Blyth
in The Times
wrote of her performance, "Miss Knight conveyed more than any recent Carmen in this house the sense of doom in Bizet's marvellous writing... going to her end, like all the best Carmens, with an almost heroic insolence." The role brought her to international attention, and she performed it opposite Plácido Domingo
. She also performed at Covent Garden in Arabella
; The Bartered Bride
; The Cunning Little Vixen
; Eugene Onegin
; Falstaff
; The Fiery Angel; The Golden Cockerel
; Iphigénie en Tauride
; Jenůfa
; Die Meistersinger
; Rigoletto
; the Ring
cycle; Der Rosenkavalier
; Semele
; La traviata
; Il trovatore
; Otello
; and Wozzeck
. Among modern operas at Covent Garden, Knight appeared in Peter Maxwell Davies
's Taverner; Hans Werner Henze
's We Come to the River
; Nicholas Maw
's Sophie's Choice; Michael Tippett
's King Priam
; and Alexander Zemlinsky's The Dwarf
.
Other opera venues where Knight has sung include the Paris Opéra, the Tanglewood
Festival, and Pittsburgh, Frankfurt, Basel (where she sang in the world premiere of Faust by Luca Lombardi), Scottish Opera
, Opera North
, the New Israeli Opera, and the Wexford Festival, where she appeared in Adrien Boieldieu's La dame blanche
and Édouard Lalo
's Le roi d'Ys. In 1981, Knight played The Old Lady in Leonard Bernstein
's Candide
, and the following year she sang the title role in The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas
. Between 1984 and 1990, she sang Ruth in Pirates, Buttercup in Pinafore, and Katisha in The Mikado for the summer opera seasons presented by The Lyric Opera of Dallas. In 1988 she appeared with the revived D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as Dame Carruthers in Yeomen and the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe, in which the critic Arthur Jacobs
said she sang and acted "with more richness and energy than ever". Beginning in the 1990s, Knight toured in Gilbert and Sullivan productions with the Carl Rosa Opera Company
. In 1999, she sang Kabanicha in Janáček
's Katya Kabanova for Opera North
. During these years, Knight also performed regularly on the concert platform.
Away from opera Knight's concert work in London included Rossini concerts in 1968 and 1978, Haydn
's Nelson Mass with István Kertész and the London Symphony Orchestra
, and Rossini's Stabat Mater, with the same forces in 1971, and Stravinsky's Les Noces
with BBC
forces conducted by Pierre Boulez
in 1972.
. She returned to the Royal Opera House in 2003 to sing in Elektra
.
In 2004, Knight reprised the role of Ruth in Pirates with the Lyric Opera of Chicago
. Chicago radio host Bruce Duffie, interviewing Knight after seeing that production noted, "Gillian Knight is one of those great personalities who simply go about their business season after season, giving splendid renditions of various roles, and adding luster to their home companies while not going far afield very often and, thus, passing up the opportunity for real world-wide stardom". During that interview, Knight said, "I'm getting a bit controversial here, but there is a snobbish attitude towards Gilbert and Sullivan in the opera world.... I believe in excellence. Now I believe that if Gilbert and Sullivan is done well... then it is excellent, and it should be in a [major opera] house". She advised audiences, "Don't close your mind to anything because somebody has said, 'Oh, this is Gilbert and Sullivan,' or, 'This is modern music.' Just keep an open mind and you may be surprised at how much you get out of it".
, she recorded Little Buttercup (1960), the Queen of the Fairies (1960), Lady Jane (1961), the Duchess of Plaza-Toro (1961), Dame Hannah (1962) and Dame Carruthers (1964). She was also Kate in a 1966 BBC radio broadcast of Pirates and was the voice of Dame Hannah in the 1967 Halas and Batchelor
cartoon version of Ruddigore.
Knight appeared as Ruth in the 1982 Brent Walker television production of Pirates. In 1989 she recorded seven roles in a BBC radio series of the operas: Lady Sangazure in The Sorcerer
, Buttercup, Lady Jane, Fairy Queen, Katisha, Lady Sophy in Utopia Limited, and the Baroness von Krakenfeldt in The Grand Duke
. In 1993 she was Ruth in the Welsh National Opera
recording of Pirates, and in 1997 she was a soloist in a BBC 2 G&S concert broadcast from Cheltenham
. Knight plays Katisha on the Carl Rosa 2001 video and CD recordings of The Mikado and was a soloist on the Symposium CD recording of Sullivan's cantata
, The Martyr of Antioch
, from the 2000 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
.
Prominent among Knight's operatic recordings is Madama Butterfly (1978), in the role of Suzuki, opposite Renata Scotto
and Plácido Domingo, conducted by Lorin Maazel
for CBS/Sony. Knight also appears in Maazel's recordings of Suor Angelica
(1975), Il tabarro
(1977), and La Rondine
(1983).
Knight's other audio recordings include Mozart
's masses, "Credo", "Coronation" and K427, conducted by Colin Davis
. Her other opera recordings include La damnation de Faust (2001), and Dido and Aeneas
(1971), conducted by Davis (1971); La forza del destino (1977), conducted by James Levine
; Moses und Aron
(1975), conducted by Pierre Boulez; Parsifal (1973) and La traviata (1995), conducted by Georg Solti
; Rigoletto (1971), conducted by Richard Bonynge
; and ENO's Ring cycle, conducted by Reginald Goodall
, recorded live by EMI
between 1973 and 1977 and released on CD by Chandos Records
in 2001.
On video are the Covent Garden production of Salome
(1992) in Peter Hall's production, The Cunning Little Vixen (1992), and La traviata (1995). She also appears in a wide range of specialist recordings for the Reader's Digest, notably the Timeless Favourites series of 3-CD sets produced by Jay Productions between 1995 and 2000. In a 2004 interview, Knight said, "I don't think I've ever been satisfied with a recording. I haven't played all my recordings. Some of them I haven't heard. I haven't seen... the video that I did of Salome from Covent Garden.... [P]erhaps when I'm not singing any more, I'll dig it out and watch it.... I listen and I'll think, 'Yes, but I could have done this or that'".
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
roles of the Savoy Operas
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
. After six years starring in these roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
, beginning in 1959, Knight began a grand opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
career.
Knight joined Sadler's Wells Opera (now known as English National Opera
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
) in 1968 and, in 1970, went on to the Royal Opera
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, where she performed numerous roles over a period of more than three decades. Knight has also performed with many other opera companies in Britain, Europe and America and at houses internationally and has recorded many of her Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
and grand opera roles.
Beginnings and D'Oyly Carte years
Knight was born in RedditchRedditch
Redditch is a town and local government district in north-east Worcestershire, England, approximately south of Birmingham. The district had a population of 79,216 in 2005. In the 19th century it became the international centre for the needle and fishing tackle industry...
, Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, England, and educated in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
. She won a five-year scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, where she studied with May Blythe and Roy Henderson. She sang in concerts, oratorio and on television with the Linden Singers while still at the Academy.
Knight joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
in 1959, going on tour immediately in eight of the leading contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
repertory. In September of that year, at the age of 25, she succeeded Ann Drummond-Grant
Ann Drummond-Grant
Ann Drummond-Grant was a British singer and actress, best known for her performances in contralto roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.Drummond-Grant began her career as a soprano...
as the company's principal contralto on Drummond-Grant's death. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote, "Many good Savoyards have regretted Gilbert's unkind lampooning of the unattractive elderly female, stouter than she used to be, with a caricature of a face and so on; and we have observed with gratitude that Buttercup, Ruth, Lady Jane and their equivalents are acted this season by a pleasing and personable young lady.... Miss Gillian Knight's Buttercup is in itself an iconoclastic impersonation." Before even beginning to tour with the company, her first performance with the company was to play the role of Little Buttercup in the company's recording of H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
released in 1960, the first Gilbert and Sullivan recording to include complete dialogue.
Knight spent almost six years with the D'Oyly Carte, appearing in the roles of Little Buttercup, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, Lady Jane in Patience, the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
, Lady Blanche in Princess Ida
Princess Ida
Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre on January 5, 1884, for a run of 246 performances...
, Katisha in The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
, Dame Hannah in Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
, Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
, and the Duchess of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers
The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 7 December 1889 and ran for a very successful 554 performances , closing on 30 June 1891...
.
Knight married D'Oyly Carte master carpenter Trevor Morrison in 1960. She left the D'Oyly Carte company in 1965, and soon afterwards, the couple's daughter, Rebecca
Opera Babes
The Opera Babes are a crossover classical music duo, consisting of Karen England , mezzo soprano, and Rebecca Knight , soprano....
, was born. Rebecca Knight later became an opera singer.
Sadler's Wells and Royal Opera years
In 1968, Knight joined Sadler's Wells OperaEnglish National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
, making her debut as Ragonde in Count Ory
Le comte Ory
Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...
. The Times noted, "Gillian Knight has a formidable stage presence as Ragonde, and a superbly articulated contralto to match." For Sadler's Wells she also played, among other roles, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
, Berta in The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
, Maddalena in Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, Isabella in The Italian Girl in Algiers
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
, Dryade in Ariadne on Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
, the title role in Iolanthe ("most warmly, touchingly sung", wrote The Times), Lady Jane in Patience, and the title role in Bizet's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
, which she was soon invited to play at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden. For the Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
Opera Society, she appeared at Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue located in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The present day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500 seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive...
in Xerxes
Serse
Serse is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was first performed in London on 15 April 1738. The Italian libretto was adapted by an unknown hand from that by Silvio Stampiglia for an earlier opera of the same name by Giovanni Bononcini in 1694...
in 1970.
In 1970, Knight made her Covent Garden debut as the Page in Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
. In the same year she took over the role of Carmen from Tatiana Troyanos
Tatiana Troyanos
Tatiana Troyanos was an American mezzo-soprano of Greek and German descent.-Early life:...
, and in a later revival she succeeded Grace Bumbry
Grace Bumbry
Grace Bumbry , an American opera singer, is considered one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of her generation, as well as a major soprano for many years...
in the part. Alan Blyth
Alan Blyth
Geoffrey Alan Blyth was an English music critic, author, and musicologist who was particularly known for his writings within the field of opera. He graduated from the Rugby School before attending the University of Oxford where he studied with Jack Westrup...
in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote of her performance, "Miss Knight conveyed more than any recent Carmen in this house the sense of doom in Bizet's marvellous writing... going to her end, like all the best Carmens, with an almost heroic insolence." The role brought her to international attention, and she performed it opposite Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
. She also performed at Covent Garden in Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
; The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the...
; The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen
The Cunning Little Vixen is an opera by Leoš Janáček, with a libretto adapted by the composer from a serialized novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek and Stanislav Lolek, which was first published in the newspaper Lidové noviny.-Composition history:When Janáček discovered Těsnohlídek's...
; Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
; Falstaff
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
; The Fiery Angel; The Golden Cockerel
The Golden Cockerel
The Golden Cockerel is an opera in three acts, with short prologue and even shorter epilogue, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Its libretto, by Vladimir Belsky, derives from Alexander Pushkin's 1834 poem The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, which in turn is based on two chapters of Tales of the Alhambra by...
; Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride
Iphigénie en Tauride is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. It was his fifth opera for the French stage. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard....
; Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
; Die Meistersinger
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
; Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
; the Ring
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
cycle; Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
; Semele
Semele (oratorio)
Semele is a 1743 opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It is based on the classical myth of Semele, mother of Dionysus.-Background:...
; La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
; Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
; Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
; and Wozzeck
Wozzeck
Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
. Among modern operas at Covent Garden, Knight appeared in Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
's Taverner; Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
's We Come to the River
We Come to the River
We Come to the River is an opera by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond. Henze and Bond described this work as "Actions for music", rather than an opera. It was Henze's 7th opera, written originally for the Royal Opera in London, and takes as its focus the horrors of war...
; Nicholas Maw
Nicholas Maw
John Nicholas Maw was a British composer.-Biography:Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, Maw was the son of Clarence Frederick Maw and Hilda Ellen Chambers. He attended the Wennington School, a boarding school, in Wetherby in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was 14...
's Sophie's Choice; Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
's King Priam
King Priam
King Priam is an opera by Michael Tippett, to his own libretto. The story is based on Homer's Iliad, except the birth and childhood of Paris, which are taken from the Fabulae of Hyginus.The premiere was on 29 May 1962, at Coventry...
; and Alexander Zemlinsky's The Dwarf
The Dwarf
The Dwarf is a novel by Pär Lagerkvist. It is considered his most important novel and the most artistically innovative. It was translated into English by Alexandra Dick in 1945.-Plot:...
.
Other opera venues where Knight has sung include the Paris Opéra, the Tanglewood
Tanglewood
Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...
Festival, and Pittsburgh, Frankfurt, Basel (where she sang in the world premiere of Faust by Luca Lombardi), Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
, Opera North
Opera North
Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle...
, the New Israeli Opera, and the Wexford Festival, where she appeared in Adrien Boieldieu's La dame blanche
La Dame blanche
La dame blanche is an opéra comique in three acts by the French composer François-Adrien Boieldieu. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and is based on episodes from no less than five of the works by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, including his novels The Monastery, Guy Mannering, and The...
and Édouard Lalo
Édouard Lalo
Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo was a French composer.-Biography:Lalo was born in Lille , in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck...
's Le roi d'Ys. In 1981, Knight played The Old Lady in Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's Candide
Candide (operetta)
Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to...
, and the following year she sang the title role in The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
. Between 1984 and 1990, she sang Ruth in Pirates, Buttercup in Pinafore, and Katisha in The Mikado for the summer opera seasons presented by The Lyric Opera of Dallas. In 1988 she appeared with the revived D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as Dame Carruthers in Yeomen and the Fairy Queen in Iolanthe, in which the critic Arthur Jacobs
Arthur Jacobs
Arthur David Jacobs was an English music critic, musicologist, teacher, librettist and translator. Among his many books, two of the best known are his Penguin Dictionary of Music, which was reprinted in several editions between 1958 and 1996, and his biography of Arthur Sullivan, which was praised...
said she sang and acted "with more richness and energy than ever". Beginning in the 1990s, Knight toured in Gilbert and Sullivan productions with the Carl Rosa Opera Company
Carl Rosa Opera Company
The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl August Nicholas Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was...
. In 1999, she sang Kabanicha in Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
's Katya Kabanova for Opera North
Opera North
Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle...
. During these years, Knight also performed regularly on the concert platform.
Away from opera Knight's concert work in London included Rossini concerts in 1968 and 1978, Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
's Nelson Mass with István Kertész and the London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...
, and Rossini's Stabat Mater, with the same forces in 1971, and Stravinsky's Les Noces
Les Noces
Les noces by Igor Stravinsky, is a dance cantata, or ballet with vocalists.-History:The ballet was premiered on June 13, 1923 at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, by the Ballets Russes with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska...
with BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
forces conducted by Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
in 1972.
Later career
In recent years, Knight has performed several roles with the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company at The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton, England, and Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. She returned to the Royal Opera House in 2003 to sing in Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
.
In 2004, Knight reprised the role of Ruth in Pirates with the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
. Chicago radio host Bruce Duffie, interviewing Knight after seeing that production noted, "Gillian Knight is one of those great personalities who simply go about their business season after season, giving splendid renditions of various roles, and adding luster to their home companies while not going far afield very often and, thus, passing up the opportunity for real world-wide stardom". During that interview, Knight said, "I'm getting a bit controversial here, but there is a snobbish attitude towards Gilbert and Sullivan in the opera world.... I believe in excellence. Now I believe that if Gilbert and Sullivan is done well... then it is excellent, and it should be in a [major opera] house". She advised audiences, "Don't close your mind to anything because somebody has said, 'Oh, this is Gilbert and Sullivan,' or, 'This is modern music.' Just keep an open mind and you may be surprised at how much you get out of it".
Recordings
With the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Decca RecordsDecca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, she recorded Little Buttercup (1960), the Queen of the Fairies (1960), Lady Jane (1961), the Duchess of Plaza-Toro (1961), Dame Hannah (1962) and Dame Carruthers (1964). She was also Kate in a 1966 BBC radio broadcast of Pirates and was the voice of Dame Hannah in the 1967 Halas and Batchelor
Halas and Batchelor
Halas and Batchelor was an animation company founded by John Halas and his wife, Joy Batchelor. The company started as a small animation unit that created commercials for theatrical distribution...
cartoon version of Ruddigore.
Knight appeared as Ruth in the 1982 Brent Walker television production of Pirates. In 1989 she recorded seven roles in a BBC radio series of the operas: Lady Sangazure in The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
, Buttercup, Lady Jane, Fairy Queen, Katisha, Lady Sophy in Utopia Limited, and the Baroness von Krakenfeldt in The Grand Duke
The Grand Duke
The Grand Duke; or, The Statutory Duel, is the final Savoy Opera written by librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan, their fourteenth and last opera together. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on March 7, 1896, and ran for 123 performances...
. In 1993 she was Ruth in the Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera is an opera company founded in Cardiff, Wales in 1943. The WNO tours Wales, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world extensively. Annually, it gives more than 120 performances of eight main stage operas to a combined audience of around 150,000 people...
recording of Pirates, and in 1997 she was a soloist in a BBC 2 G&S concert broadcast from Cheltenham
Cheltenham
Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...
. Knight plays Katisha on the Carl Rosa 2001 video and CD recordings of The Mikado and was a soloist on the Symposium CD recording of Sullivan's cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
, The Martyr of Antioch
The Martyr of Antioch
The Martyr of Antioch is an oratorio by the English composer Arthur Sullivan. It was first performed on 15 October 1880 at the triennial Leeds Music Festival, having been composed specifically for that event...
, from the 2000 International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival is held every summer at the Opera House in Buxton, Derbyshire, England. The three-week Festival of Gilbert and Sullivan performances and fringe events attracts thousands of visitors, including performers, supporters, and G&S enthusiasts from all...
.
Prominent among Knight's operatic recordings is Madama Butterfly (1978), in the role of Suzuki, opposite Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto
Renata Scotto is an Italian soprano and opera director.Recognized for her sense of style, musicality and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered one of the preeminent singers of her generation, specializing in the bel canto repertoire with excursions into the verismo and Verdi...
and Plácido Domingo, conducted by Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...
for CBS/Sony. Knight also appears in Maazel's recordings of Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica
Suor Angelica is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...
(1975), Il tabarro
Il tabarro
Il tabarro is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on Didier Gold's play La houppelande. It is the first of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...
(1977), and La Rondine
La rondine
La rondine is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Heinz Reichert...
(1983).
Knight's other audio recordings include Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's masses, "Credo", "Coronation" and K427, conducted by Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
. Her other opera recordings include La damnation de Faust (2001), and Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...
(1971), conducted by Davis (1971); La forza del destino (1977), conducted by James Levine
James Levine
James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...
; Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron
Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The German libretto was by the composer after the Book of Exodus.-Compositional history:...
(1975), conducted by Pierre Boulez; Parsifal (1973) and La traviata (1995), conducted by Georg Solti
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
; Rigoletto (1971), conducted by Richard Bonynge
Richard Bonynge
Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
; and ENO's Ring cycle, conducted by Reginald Goodall
Reginald Goodall
Sir Reginald Goodall was an English conductor, noted for his performances of the operas of Richard Wagner and conducting the premieres of several operas by Benjamin Britten.-Biography:...
, recorded live by EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
between 1973 and 1977 and released on CD by Chandos Records
Chandos Records
Chandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...
in 2001.
On video are the Covent Garden production of Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
(1992) in Peter Hall's production, The Cunning Little Vixen (1992), and La traviata (1995). She also appears in a wide range of specialist recordings for the Reader's Digest, notably the Timeless Favourites series of 3-CD sets produced by Jay Productions between 1995 and 2000. In a 2004 interview, Knight said, "I don't think I've ever been satisfied with a recording. I haven't played all my recordings. Some of them I haven't heard. I haven't seen... the video that I did of Salome from Covent Garden.... [P]erhaps when I'm not singing any more, I'll dig it out and watch it.... I listen and I'll think, 'Yes, but I could have done this or that'".
External links
- Gillian Knight at the IMDB database
- Profile and Photograph of Knight at the Memories of the D'Oyly Carte website
- Gillian Knight interview by Bruce Duffie
- List of Knight recordings at CD Universe
- Photos of Knight playing Katisha in 1998
- Photo of Knight at Lady Jane with John Reed
- Photos of Knight in G&S roles