All-time classical favourites from the first ever public concert held in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, hosted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Broadcast live on BBC Television, 1st June 2002. Opera fans are in for a particular treat with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (singing Bizet and Gershwin), Sir Thomas Allen (Rossini and Sir Edward German), and Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu (Puccini and Verdi) sharing the honours. Maestro Mstislav Rostropovich also makes a rare guest appearance with the cello section of the London Symphony Orchestra playing Villa-Lobos.
06-01-2002
2h 10m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Production:
BBC, Opus Arte
Locations and Languages
Country:
US; GB
Filming:
GB
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Michael Parkinson
Sir Michael Parkinson CBE (28 March 1935 – 16 August 2023) was an English television presenter, broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his television talk show Parkinson from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007, as well as other talk shows and programmes both in the UK and abroad. He also worked in radio and was described by The Guardian as "the great British talkshow host".
Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa ONZ, CH, DBE, AC (/ˈkɪri təˈkɑːnəwə/; born Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron, 6 March 1944) is a retired New Zealand opera singer. She had a full lyric soprano voice, which has been described as "mellow yet vibrant, warm, ample and unforced". Te Kanawa had three top 40 albums in Australia in the mid-1980s.
Te Kanawa has received accolades in many countries, singing a wide array of works in many languages dating from the 17th to the 20th centuries. She is particularly associated with the works of Mozart, Strauss, Verdi, Handel and Puccini, and found considerable success in portraying princesses, nobility, and other similar characters on stage.
Though she rarely sang opera later in her career, Te Kanawa frequently performed in concert and recital, gave masterclasses, and supported young opera singers in launching their careers. Her final performance was in Ballarat, Australia, in October 2016, but she did not reveal her retirement until September 2017.
Te Kanawa was born Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron in Gisborne, New Zealand, to Māori butcher Tieki "Jack" Wawatai and to Mary Noeleen Rawstron, who was the daughter of Irish emigrants. Wawatai was already married to Apo, the daughter of the Rev. Poihipi Kohere. Poihipi Kohere was the brother of both the community leader Rēweti Kōhere and the soldier and farmer Henare Mokena Kohere. Mary Noeleen Rawstron's mother insisted the baby be given up for adoption. Te Kanawa was adopted as an infant by Thomas Te Kanawa, the owner of a successful trucking business, and his wife Nell.
She was educated at St Mary's College, Auckland, and formally trained in operatic singing by Sister Mary Leo Niccol. Te Kanawa began her singing career as a mezzo-soprano but developed into a soprano. Her recording of the "Nuns' Chorus" from the Strauss operetta Casanova was the first gold record produced in New Zealand.
Te Kanawa met Desmond Park on a blind date in London in August 1967, and they married six weeks later at St Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland. They adopted two children, Antonia (born 1976) and Thomas (born 1979). The couple divorced in 1997. Te Kanawa never made an attempt to contact her biological parents, but her half-brother Jim Rawstron contacted her. Initially, she was unwilling to meet him, but agreed to do so in 1997. The episode ended bitterly, when a newspaper ran a story on their meeting; despite Rawstron denying contact with the newspaper, she has since reaffirmed her decision to have nothing to do with her birth family.
In her teens and early 20s, Te Kanawa was a pop star and entertainer at clubs in New Zealand,[failed verification] and regularly appeared in newspapers and magazines. In 1963, she was runner-up to Malvina Major in the Mobil Song Quest with her performance of "Vissi d'arte" from Tosca, and in 1965 she won the same competition. As winner, she received a grant to study in London.
She appeared and sang in the 1966 musical comedy film Don't Let It Get You. In 1966, she won the Melbourne Sun-Aria contest, which Major had also won the previous year. Both singers had been taught by Sister Mary Leo. ...
Source: Article "Kiri Te Kanawa" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich (27 March 1927 – 27 April 2007) was a Russian cellist and conductor. He is considered by many to be the greatest cellist of the 20th century. In addition to his interpretations and technique, he was well known for both inspiring and commissioning new works, which enlarged the cello repertoire more than any cellist before or since. He inspired and premiered over 100 pieces, forming long-standing friendships and artistic partnerships with composers including Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Henri Dutilleux, Witold Lutosławski, Olivier Messiaen, Luciano Berio, Krzysztof Penderecki, Alfred Schnittke, Norbert Moret, Andreas Makris, Leonard Bernstein, Aram Khachaturian and Benjamin Britten.
Rostropovich was internationally recognized as a staunch advocate of human rights, and was awarded the 1974 Award of the International League of Human Rights. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya and had two daughters, Olga and Elena Rostropovich.
Mstislav Rostropovich was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, to parents who had moved from Orenburg: Leopold Vitoldovich Rostropovich, a renowned cellist and former student of Pablo Casals, and Sofiya Nikolaevna Fedotova-Rostropovich, a talented pianist. Mstislav's father (1892–1942) was born in Voronezh to Witold Rostropowicz, a composer of Polish noble descent, and Matilda Rostropovich, née Pule of Belarusian descent. The Polish part of his family bore the Bogoria coat of arms, which was located at the family palace in Skotniki.
Mstislav's mother Sofiya, of Russian descent, was the daughter of musicians. Her elder sister Nadezhda married the cellist Semyon Kozolupov, who was thus Rostropovich's uncle by marriage.
Rostropovich grew up in Baku and spent his youth there. During World War II his family moved back to Orenburg and then in 1943 to Moscow. At the age of four, Rostropovich learned the piano with his mother. He began the cello at the age of 10 with his father.
In 1943, at the age of 16, he entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied cello with his uncle Semyon Kozolupov, and piano, conducting and composition with Vissarion Shebalin. His teachers also included Dmitri Shostakovich. In 1945 he came to prominence as a cellist when he won the gold medal in the Soviet Union's first ever competition for young musicians. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1948, and became professor of cello there in 1956.
Rostropovich gave his first cello concert in 1942. He won first prize at the international Music Awards of Prague and Budapest in 1947, 1949 and 1950. In 1950, at the age of 23 he was awarded what was then considered the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, the Stalin Prize. At that time, Rostropovich was already well known in his country and while actively pursuing his solo career, he taught at the Leningrad (Saint-Petersburg) Conservatory and the Moscow Conservatory. In 1955, he married Galina Vishnevskaya, a leading soprano at the Bolshoi Theatre. ...
Source: Article "Mstislav Rostropovich" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
