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Revivals by the English Bach Festival

Through the years from 1977, EBF has staged a number of Rameau revivals at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as a 'guest company', with La Princesse de Navarre followed by
Hippolyte et Aricie
Castor et Pollux
Orphée et Euridice
and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank
Nais
Pygmalion
Zoroastre
Information for hiring the performing material for the English Bach Festival Rameau editions from Graham Sadler at a.g.sadler@hull.ac.uk.

In 1995, EBF staged the first ever 'Dido and Aeneas' at the Royal Opera House. Other revivals at the ROH have included two Händel operas: 'Riccardo Primo', commemorating 800 years of the landing in Cyprus of Richard the First, 'Teseo', and 'Oreste' as a double bill with Xenakis's 'Oresteia', at the Linbury Theatre.

British Premières at the EBF

The EBF has been playing an important role in introducing modern and innovative composers to British audiences.


A Karl-Heinz Stockhausen Festival in St John's Smith Square introduced Dutilleux and Ligeti to London.

The EBF also introduced Greek composers in England:
• Nikos Skalkottas in Oxford and at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
• Jani Christou with 'Tongues of Fire', a Festival commission in Oxford and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.
• And of course, Iannis Xenakis premières in Oxford, and a world première of his stunning Oresteia, the first staged event in 2000 at the Royal Opera House new Linbury Theatre. In 1971, a connected event to Xenakis Oresteia's 'Prologue' by Sir Harrison Birtwistle from Agamemnon of the Oresteian Trilogy, an EBF commission.

The EBF has presented the Greek traditional dances, the Lykeion ton Hellenidon, at the Albert Hall in 1972 and at the Royal Festival Hall in 1979.
The EBF has also had the pleasure of presenting a unique event, the Gagaku, Japanese musicians playing for the first time out of the Palace of Japan.

Over the years, the EBF has presented the British public with many unique performances. From the EBF days in Oxford, a first staged revival of Händel's 'Athalia', a tribute to Ralph Vaughan Williams, the rarely heard 'Sancta Civitas', and a gift to Lina Lalandi-Emery from William Walton, a choral work. Later in London for Walton's birthday, the EBF produced 'Façade' at City Hall with Richard Baker.

Olivier Messiaen

In Paris in the sixties, Lina Lalandi-Emery had met France's distinguished and famous Minister of Culture André Malraux. Together, they were discussing EBF projects when Malraux exclaimed "Un divertissement? Je vous donne Messiaen..." This was to be the start of a long and fructuous association of the EBF and the French avant-garde composer. Following this seminal conversation, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, originally premièred at the Cathédrale de Chartres, was performed for the first time in England at Westminster Abbey. Lina Lalandi-Emery was given by Olivier Messiaen himself the original manuscript of Et exspecto.
Messiaen, whose centenary is coming up, became a personal friend of Lina Lalandi-Emery and Ralph Emery over the years. Olivier Messiaen has been closely associated with the EBF, and has made personal appearances with his wife, pianist Yvonne Loriod, playing together at the EBF, with Messiaen's first performance of the Turangalîla Symphony raising the roof of the Town Hall in Oxford in 1967, and again at the Royal Festival Hall in 1968. The EBF has proudly presented Messiaen's piano and organ works and all his other works up to the 'Transfiguration' at St Paul's Cathedral.

Spanish composers and dances

The EBF also created a number of rare Spanish events: an exhibition at the RFH of Manuel de Falla autograph manuscripts, premières of works by Manuel de Falla, Tomas Marco, Benguerel, and Falla's 'Vida Breve' as well as Zarzuelas at the RFH and the presentation in the Crypt of St John's Smith Square of traditional Flamenco singers and a talk in the Purcell Room by Lina Lalandi-Emery herself about the Flamenco tradition.