Raymond Gubbay
Encyclopedia
Raymond Gubbay is a classical music
promoter and impresario
based in London. The programme to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his starting out as a promoter says that, after arranging small scale concerts around the UK, he began gradually to promote in London. He now presents more than seventy performances each year at London's Royal Albert Hall
and hundreds more around the UK and in Europe and Australia.
He grew up in a comfortable middle-class Jewish household of a fairly prosperous accountant. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/raymond-gubbay-populist-showman-who-likes-the-sound--of-success-579802.html. In 1966 he started on his own, presenting concerts with three or four singers and a pianist at small halls and theatres. He began promoting in London in 1968, first on South Bank (at the newly opened Queen Elizabeth Hall
) and later at the Royal Festival Hall
, and from the early 1970s at the Royal Albert Hall.
The opening of the Barbican Centre
in 1982 allowed him to expand the number of London concerts and he is regarded as having helped the Barbican to establish itself at a difficult time after the opening. Among the well-known names he has worked with at the Barbican are Luciano Pavarotti
, Kiri Te Kanawa
, James Galway
, Victor Borge
, Ray Charles
, Henry Mancini
, Yehudi Menuhin
, and all four London symphony orchestras. His "Teddy Bears" concerts introduced young children to the concert hall in an informal and light-hearted way. At the Royal Festival Hall, he has presented concerts including the four-concert Fiftieth Birthday series by violin virtuoso, Itzhak Perlman
.
At the Royal Albert Hall, "Classical Spectacular" has enjoyed success with regular runs of six performances at a time, almost unheard of in the field of classical music, and over 150 sold-out performances during the last few years. The same successful formula has worked in all the major arenas around the country and abroad with audiences of 12,000 or more. A major tour of German and Swiss arenas took place in autumn 2005 with performances in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Zurich. The 2006 schedule includes performances in Rotterdam, Vienna, Stuttgart, Munich, Leipzig, Melbourne and Sydney.
In December 1991 Raymond Gubbay presented the Royal Opera
production of Turandot
at Wembley Arena
. More recently he has co-presented in-the-round opera and ballet productions at the Royal Albert Hall including La Bohème
(directed by Francesca Zambello
), Carmen
, Madam Butterfly, Tosca
, and Aida
(all directed by David Freeman), Cavalleria Rusticana
, and Pagliacci
; and, with English National Ballet
, Swan Lake
, Romeo And Juliet
and The Sleeping Beauty.
In London's West End, his productions include: The Ratepayers Iolanthe and The Metropolitan Mikado, Ute Lemper
in seasons at the Queen's Theatre
and the Savoy Theatre
, Circus Oz and Bejart Ballet at Sadlers Wells, the Bolshoi Ballet
at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
in several seasons of Gilbert and Sullivan
at the Savoy Theatre, and Peter Pan
, The Marriage of Figaro
and The Barber of Seville
at the Savoy. At the Royal Festival Hall he has presented seasons of Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol
, Stanislavsky Ballet, Follies, On Your Toes and Circus Oz.
The annual Raymond Gubbay Christmas Festival features over 180 performances in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and throughout the UK.
His tongue-in-cheek application to run the Royal Opera House in 2000 was greeted with scorn by the musical establishment but received remarkable heavyweight support in the press and elsewhere.
Raymond Gubbay is an Honorary Fellow of both the Royal Academy of Music
and Trinity College of Music
, London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
. He was awarded a CBE in June 2001. He lives in London and France.
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
promoter and impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
based in London. The programme to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his starting out as a promoter says that, after arranging small scale concerts around the UK, he began gradually to promote in London. He now presents more than seventy performances each year at London's Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
and hundreds more around the UK and in Europe and Australia.
He grew up in a comfortable middle-class Jewish household of a fairly prosperous accountant. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/raymond-gubbay-populist-showman-who-likes-the-sound--of-success-579802.html. In 1966 he started on his own, presenting concerts with three or four singers and a pianist at small halls and theatres. He began promoting in London in 1968, first on South Bank (at the newly opened Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...
) and later at the Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
, and from the early 1970s at the Royal Albert Hall.
The opening of the Barbican Centre
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the City of London, England, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory...
in 1982 allowed him to expand the number of London concerts and he is regarded as having helped the Barbican to establish itself at a difficult time after the opening. Among the well-known names he has worked with at the Barbican are Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti
right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...
, Kiri Te Kanawa
Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa, ONZ, DBE, AC is a New Zealand / Māori soprano who has had a highly successful international opera career since 1968. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved sopranos in both the United States and Britain she possesses a warm full lyric soprano voice, singing a wide array...
, James Galway
James Galway
- External links : IMGArtists.com 15 September 2008. AllAboutJazz.com 5 August 2008.*...
, Victor Borge
Victor Borge
Victor Borge ,born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane,and The Great Dane.-Early life and career:...
, Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...
, Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
, and all four London symphony orchestras. His "Teddy Bears" concerts introduced young children to the concert hall in an informal and light-hearted way. At the Royal Festival Hall, he has presented concerts including the four-concert Fiftieth Birthday series by violin virtuoso, Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...
.
At the Royal Albert Hall, "Classical Spectacular" has enjoyed success with regular runs of six performances at a time, almost unheard of in the field of classical music, and over 150 sold-out performances during the last few years. The same successful formula has worked in all the major arenas around the country and abroad with audiences of 12,000 or more. A major tour of German and Swiss arenas took place in autumn 2005 with performances in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Zurich. The 2006 schedule includes performances in Rotterdam, Vienna, Stuttgart, Munich, Leipzig, Melbourne and Sydney.
In December 1991 Raymond Gubbay presented the Royal Opera
Royal Opera, London
The Royal Opera is an opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Along with the English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Company, it was known by that title until 1968...
production of Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
at Wembley Arena
Wembley Arena
Wembley Arena is an indoor arena, at Wembley, in the London Borough of Brent. The building is opposite Wembley Stadium.-History:...
. More recently he has co-presented in-the-round opera and ballet productions at the Royal Albert Hall including La Bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
(directed by Francesca Zambello
Francesca Zambello
Francesca Zambello is a leading American opera and theatre director. Zambello lived in Europe when she was a child, learning to speak French, Italian, German and Russian. Zambello is of Italian descent, the daughter of Jean , an actress and Charles C. Zambello, a former actor who became head of...
), 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...
, Madam Butterfly, Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, and Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
(all directed by David Freeman), Cavalleria Rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
, and Pagliacci
Pagliacci
Pagliacci , sometimes incorrectly rendered with a definite article as I Pagliacci, is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe...
; and, with English National Ballet
English National Ballet
English National Ballet is a classical ballet company founded by Dame Alicia Markova and Sir Anton Dolin and based at Markova House in South Kensington, London, England. Along with the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Scottish Ballet, it is one of the four major ballet companies in Great...
, Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
, Romeo And Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
and The Sleeping Beauty.
In London's West End, his productions include: The Ratepayers Iolanthe and The Metropolitan Mikado, Ute Lemper
Ute Lemper
Ute Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill.- Biography :Born in Münster, Germany, Ute Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the punk music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16...
in seasons at the Queen's Theatre
Queen's Theatre
The Queen's Theatre is a West End theatre located in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It opened on 8 October 1907 as a twin to the neighbouring Gielgud Theatre which opened ten months earlier. Both theatres were designed by W.G.R...
and the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
, Circus Oz and Bejart Ballet at Sadlers Wells, the Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies, however it only achieved worldwide acclaim by the early 20th century, when Moscow became the...
at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
, 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 several seasons of 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...
at the Savoy Theatre, and Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
, The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
and 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...
at the Savoy. At the Royal Festival Hall he has presented seasons of Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
, Stanislavsky Ballet, Follies, On Your Toes and Circus Oz.
The annual Raymond Gubbay Christmas Festival features over 180 performances in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and throughout the UK.
His tongue-in-cheek application to run the Royal Opera House in 2000 was greeted with scorn by the musical establishment but received remarkable heavyweight support in the press and elsewhere.
Raymond Gubbay is an Honorary Fellow of both 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...
and Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music is one of the London music conservatories, based in Greenwich. It is part of Trinity Laban.The conservatoire is inheritor of elegant riverside buildings of the former Greenwich Hospital, designed in part by Sir Christopher Wren...
, London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...
. He was awarded a CBE in June 2001. He lives in London and France.
External links
- "Raymond Gubbay: Maria Callas and my dream team", The Independent, London, 15 December 2002.
- "Raymond Gubbay: 'It's bums on seats' - a 'Nutcracker' to make the establishment's eyes water", The Independent, London, 19 December 2004.
- Raymond Gubbay official website