Benjamin Britten
Operas Paul Bunyan (1941) Peter Grimes (1945) The Rape of Lucretia (1946) Albert Herring (1947) The Little Sweep (1949) Billy Budd (1951) Gloriana (1953) The Turn of the Screw (1954) Noye's Fludde (1958) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960) Curlew River (1964) The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966) The Prodigal Son (1968) Owen Wingrave (1971) Death in Venice (1973)
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Gloriana is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten to an English libretto by William Plomer, based on Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey. The first performance was presented at the Royal Opera House, London in 1953 during the celebrations of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Gloriana was the name given by the 16th-century poet Edmund Spenser to his character representing Queen Elizabeth I in his poem The Faerie Queene. It became the popular name given to Elizabeth I. It is recorded that the troops at Tilbury hailed her with cries of "Gloriana, Gloriana, Gloriana", after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

The opera depicts the relationship between Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Essex, and was composed for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen is said to have been disappointed by the opera, which presents the first Elizabeth as a sympathetic, but flawed, character motivated largely by vanity and desire. The premiere was one of Britten's few critical failures, and the opera was not included in the series of complete Decca recordings conducted by the composer. On 22 November 1963, the composer's 50th birthday, Bryan Fairfax conducted a concert performance, which was the opera's first performance in any form since its inaugural production in 1953. However, the work has been well received in revivals since Britten's death.

A set of Courtly Dances from the opera is often performed separately as a concert piece.

Roles[link]

When the production toured in 1954 to Manchester and Birmingham, Joan Sutherland sang the role of Penelope.^[1]

Synopsis[link]

Time: The late 16th century.

Place: England.

Act 1[link]

Mountjoy wins a jousting tournament. Essex challenges him to a duel and is wounded. The queen scolds the men for their jealousy. Cecil informs the queen of an affair between Penelope and Mountjoy. Essex woos the queen on the lute, and gains permission to attack the Irish rebel Tyrone. The queen prays for strength.

Act 2[link]

A masque is given in the queen's honor. Mountjoy and Penelope have a tryst in the garden. Essex denounces the queen for thwarting his military plans. The courtiers dance a set of five "Courtly Dances" during which dancers are thrown into the air by their partners. The ladies retire. To punish Lady Essex for wearing too fancy a dress, the queen wears it herself. Essex is appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland.

Act 3[link]

Essex arranges a truce with Tyrone. He bursts into the queen's dressing room to give her the news. The queen is dressing, and orders his arrest for such insolence. He escapes and tries to raise an army against the queen. He is captured and condemned. Cecil believes the queen will pardon Essex. Penelope, Lady Essex, and Mountjoy all support the pardon, but this only stiffens the queen's resolve, and she signs his death warrant. The queen wants to be a wise ruler as she faces her own mortality.

Recordings[link]

• Britten: Gloriana – Sarah Walker (Queen Elizabeth I), Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Earl of Essex), Jean Rigby (Countess of Essex), Neil Howlett (Lord Mountjoy), Alan Opie (Sir Robert Cecil), Elizabeth Vaughan (Lady Rich), Richard Van Allan (Sir Walter Raleigh), Malcolm Donnelly (Henry Cuffe); English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Mark Elder (conductor). Live recording, London 1984 (also broadcast on the BBC). Label: ArtHaus Musik DVD^[2]

References[link]

Notes

Sources

• Blyth, Alan, "Review: Gloriana", Gramophone, December 2006.
• Saberton, Roy, Programme Notes: Gloriana - The Courtly Dances, The Burgess Hill Symphony Orchestra, May 1998
• Erb, Jane, Gloriana, ClassicalNet, 1996
• Operadis, Gloriana discography

Jaime King
King at the San Diego Comic-Con International, July 2008.
Born	(1979-04-23) April 23, 1979 (age 33) Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.
Other names	James King Jamie King
Occupation	Actress, model
Years active	1993–present
Spouse	Kyle Newman (2007–present)

Jaime King (born April 23, 1979) is an American actress and model. In her modeling career and early film roles, she used the names Jamie King and James King, which was a childhood nickname given to King by her parents,^[1] because her agency already represented another Jaime — the older, then more famous model Jaime Rishar.^[2]

King appeared in Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Harper's Bazaar, among other fashion magazines. Afterwards, she began taking small film roles. Her first major role was in Pearl Harbor (2001). Her first starring movie role was in Bulletproof Monk (2003). She has appeared as a lead in other films, gaining more note after Sin City (2005).

Early life and family[link]

King was born in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Nancy King, a former beauty queen, and Robert King. She has an older sister, Sandi and a younger brother, Barry.^[3] King was named after Lindsay Wagner's character, Jaime Sommers, of the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman.^[4][5] King's parents separated in 1994.^[2] King had attended Nancy Bounds' Studios, a modeling school, and in 1995 dropped out of Westside High School in order to pursue a modeling career in New York. She later enrolled in a home-study program run by the University of Nebraska.^[2][6]

Modeling career[link]

She was discovered in November 1993, at age fourteen,^[7] while attending Nancy Bounds' Studios. After being spotted at her graduation fashion show by model agent Michael Flutie, King was invited to New York City to begin modeling professionally.^[3][8] She joined Company Management, which already represented Jaime Rishar, a more established model. To avoid confusion, King opted to use her childhood nickname, James, for the duration of her modeling career and later, at the beginning of her film career. In March 1994 she traveled to New York for test pictures and received enthusiastic responses, however, she did not return to New York until July 1994, after gaining a successful advertisement for Abercrombie & Fitch. Much of fall and spring 1994 were spent commuting between Omaha and New York.

King had a successful early career as a fashion model, and by age fifteen she had been featured in the fashion magazines Vogue, Mademoiselle, Allure, and Seventeen. At sixteen, King had graced the pages of Glamour and Harper's Bazaar. She was featured in the cover story of the New York Times Magazine published on February 4, 1996^[9][10] and had walked the runway for Chanel and Christian Dior. In 1998, she began co-hosting MTV's fashion series, House of Style, with fellow model turned actress Rebecca Romijn. Despite her success, King noted that she "remember[s] the times where I was so alone" and thought she was "never gonna be able to be a kid."^[2]

In 2004, King, along with Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, and Eva Mendes was chosen as a spokesmodel for a high profile ad campaign for Revlon. The advertisements were featured in print, television, theatrical, outdoor and Internet venues,^[11] banking on their spokeswomen's "collective star power" to sell the cosmetics products.^[12] In 2006, King was chosen by Rocawear CEO Jay-Z to become the new face of the line; her advertisements were featured for the winter 2006 season.^[13]

Acting career[link]

Early work, 1998–2004[link]

In 1999, King began her acting career and made her debut in the Daniel Waters' comedy Happy Campers, as Pixel. Happy Campers was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, and in 2003, King was nominated for Best Actress at the DVD Exclusive Awards.^[14] Filmed in 1999, she also appeared in Filter's music video for "Take a Picture". Following her debut acting roles, King appeared briefly in the film Blow, portraying the adult Kristina Jung, daughter of cocaine smuggler George Jung (portrayed by Johnny Depp).^[15]

King, interviewed at the Hawaiian premiere of Pearl Harbor, May 2001

King made her first appearance in a large Hollywood production with her role as the seventeen year old nurse, Betty, in the World War II epic romance Pearl Harbor (2001). Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine commented that King "has a lively minute or two" in the film, but her part was small and the "young cast is mostly pinup packaging".^[16] King went on to be featured in the Incubus music video "Wish You Were Here".^[17] The roles King took part in during 2001 garnered her the "New Stylemaker" title at the Young Hollywood Awards.^[18]

In 2002, she appeared in the teen comedy Slackers as Angela Patton, Four Faces of God as Sam, and the crime comedy Lone Star State of Mind as Baby. Slackers received negative responses from critics, including one who found that the characters "are not so strikingly original as to elevate the slack material",^[19] while Four Faces of God and Lone Star State of Mind did not have wide theatrical releases. 2003 saw King in the film Bulletproof Monk, alongside Chow Yun-fat and Seann William Scott, an adaptation of a comic book by Michael Avon Oeming. After five auditions, a screen test, and a physical test, she landed the role of Jade,^[20] a character skilled in martial arts. This was King's first leading action film role. Bulletproof Monk received mostly negative reviews from critics, who cited that the fight scenes were not as well choreographed or directed as those other genre films, and that the alternating comedic and action scenes were jarring.^[21] Regardless, Bulletproof Monk was nominated for Choice Movie in a Drama/Action Adventure award at the Teen Choice Awards. In late 2003, King appeared in the music video for the Robbie Williams song, "Sexed Up", and on the cover artwork for the single's release.^[17] In 2004, she appeared in the comedy White Chicks, playing Heather Vandergeld, with actress Brittany Daniel as her sister Megan Vandergeld, a parody on socialites Paris and Nicky Hilton. White Chicks was negatively reviewed by critics, receiving five nominations at the Razzie Awards in the categories for Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Screen Couple and Worst Screenplay. However, White Chicks received Outstanding Directing for a Box Office Movie and Outstanding Writing for a Box Office Movie at the BET Comedy Awards.^[22]

Breakthrough, 2005–2008[link]

King attending a Q & A at the Sin City premiere in Austin, Texas, March 2005. Photograph by Brian Miller.

In 2005, King appeared in a variety of film and television roles. She first appeared in the independent black comedy and satire Pretty Persuasion, playing a small role as Kathy Joyce, the stepmother of Evan Rachel Wood's character. King landed dual roles (as twins) in the film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City. She had met with director Robert Rodriguez, who was a fan of her work, and at the time King was unaware that Rodriguez wanted her involved in the film. Eventually, "we started reading [the Sin City graphic novel], and it was really fun".^[4] King portrayed Goldie and Wendy, the twin prostitutes in charge of the girls of Old Town, in the segment The Hard Goodbye opposite Mickey Rourke. Sin City featured a large ensemble cast of well-known actors which included Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba, with whom King "kinda grew up together" in New York.^[4]

Sin City had opened to wide critical and commercial success, gathering particular recognition for the film's unique coloring process, which rendered most of the film in black and white but retained coloring for select objects; King was one of the few in the black and white film to have color, that being, red lips and blonde hair when acting as Goldie. The film was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in-competition and won the Technical Grand Prize for the film's "visual shaping."^[23] The family comedy Cheaper by the Dozen 2 featured King as Anne Murtaugh in another large ensemble cast. She also acted in the Al Pacino drama Two for the Money as Alexandria. Both films had negative critical and box office reception.

On television, she had a guest appearance on the teen drama The O.C. and a recurring role on the short-lived situation comedy Kitchen Confidential. King was featured in the Zach Braff-directed music video for Gavin Degraw's "Chariot".^[17]

In 2006, King appeared with a small role as Heather in the comedy The Alibi and a starring role in the thriller True True Lie. Her largest role that year was in the David Arquette horror film The Tripper as Samantha. King had a recurring role on the short lived comedy The Class, which ended its run on television after an announcement in May 2007. The Class had been nominated for an Emmy Award in 2007, and it won the People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Comedy.^[24]

In 2007, King filmed They Wait, a horror-thriller film inspired by true events, with Terry Chen as her husband and Regan Oey as their son.^[25] She stars as a mother attempting to find the truth and save her son when threatened by spirits during the Chinese tradition of Ghost Month. It was featured in the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, but has not yet had a wide theatrical release. In 2008, King appeared as Lorelei Rox in The Spirit, a live-action film adaptation based on the 1940s newspaper strip The Spirit created by Will Eisner. The role reunited King with Sin City writer Frank Miller, who wrote and directed the film.^[26]

Film and television roles, 2009–present[link]

King was cast as Sarah Palmer in the horror remake of My Bloody Valentine 3D, which opened in January 2009. She appeared in the Star Wars-themed comedy Fanboys, which had a release date pushed first to January 2008 when director Kyle Newman received additional funding to shoot new scenes, but the busy schedule of the actors postponed filming.^[27] Still delayed, the filmmakers and its distributor, the Weinstein Company, are involved in a dispute over which version to release.^[28] In May 2008, King featured in another Newman-directed film, Act I of The Cube, the beginning of an online movie-making contest.^[28]

The Pardon, a film based on the true life story of Toni Jo Henry, the only woman to be electrocuted by Louisiana, stars King in the lead role. The Jim Kouf comedy, A Fork in the Road, has King portraying April Rogers, alongside Daniel Roebuck. King will reprise her role as twins Goldie and Wendy in the part sequel and part prequel of the Miller written and co-directed film Sin City 2.

She plays Beth in Darren Lynn Bousman's remake of Mother's Day and narrated the movie on Scream Award 2009.^[29] King hosts the reality show Scream Queens 2, directed by Biagio Messina on VH1.^[30] She appeared in the music video for the song "Bury Me Alive" by the band We Are The Fallen with her husband Kyle Newman.

King worked in the TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.^[31] She played the role of Aurra Sing in the series Season 1 finale episode "Hostage Crisis" and later the final three episodes of Season 2: "Death Trap", "R2 Come Home", and "Lethal Trackdown". Although her character was supposedly killed in the season finale, King is confirmed to return as Aurra Sing as a recurring character in Season 3. She played three other characters in addition to Aurra Sing in series. In the episode "Lightsaber Lost", she voices Cassie Cryar and Muk Muk Monkey. She voices a ticket droid in the episode "Lethal Trackdown".

King appeared in the ABC documentary-style dramedy television series My Generation, which premiered on September 23, 2010. After initial low ratings, ABC pulled the program from broadcast after two episodes.^[32]

King also appeared in the video of The Fray hit single Never Say Never.

King plays Lemon Breeland in the new CW show Hart of Dixie, which premiered on September 26, 2011.

Personal life[link]

During her first job modeling, King began using heroin and had an addiction to the drug from age fourteen to nineteen. In 1997, her boyfriend, 20 year old fashion photographer Davide Sorrenti, had died from what was thought to be a kidney ailment brought on by excessive heroin use.^[3] Following his death, King became sober,^[8] and went to rehabilitation at age nineteen for her addictions to both heroin and alcohol.^[33] In 2006, she commented that her past reputation as a "party girl" is "like another lifetime," and she now thinks of herself as a different person.^[4]

In January 2005, while working on the set of Fanboys, she met future husband Kyle Newman, the film's director. Within three months of dating, the two moved in together.^[34] Newman proposed in Spring 2007, and the two married on November 23, 2007^[35] in an "intimate and relaxed" ceremony in Los Angeles at Greystone Park and Manor, where Newman had proposed.^[36] King told InStyle magazine, "I want at least three children."^[34]

In an interview published in 1996, King, after retiring from modeling, suggested her plans to be a writer or a photographer.^[2] She resides in Los Angeles.^[37]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jaime King at the Internet Movie Database
• King at the Fashion Model Directory