Myfanwy Piper
Title: Myfanwy Piper
Subject: Winter Words (song cycle), Owen Wingrave, Death in Venice (opera), The Turn of the Screw (opera), Latin mnemonics
Bust of Myfanwy Piper.
Mary Myfanwy Piper (;[1] Welsh: /məˈvanuj/; 28 March 1911 – 18 January 1997) was a British art critic and opera librettist.
Opera libretti 2
Mary Myfanwy Evans was born on 28 March 1911 into a Welsh family in London. Her father was a chemist in Hampstead, north London. She attended North London Collegiate School, from where she won a scholarship to read English Language and Literature at St Hugh's College, Oxford.
From 1935 to 1937 she edited the periodical, Axis, devoted to abstract art. In 1937 she married the artist John Piper, with whom she lived in rural surroundings at Fawley Bottom near Henley-on-Thames for much of her life.[2]
Between 1954 and 1973 she collaborated with the composer Benjamin Britten on several of his operas, and between 1977 and 1981 with composer Alun Hoddinott on most of his operatic works. She was a friend of the poet John Betjeman, who wrote several poems addressing her, such as "Myfanwy"[3] and "Myfanwy at Oxford".
John and Myfanwy Piper had two sons and two daughters. Her elder son, painter Edward Piper, predeceased her.[4]
She died at her home in Fawley Bottom on 18 January 1997.[4]
Opera libretti
The Turn of the Screw, Benjamin Britten, 14 September 1954, Teatro La Fenice, Venice (based on the work of Henry James)
Owen Wingrave, Benjamin Britten, 16 May 1971, BBC (based on the work of Henry James)
Death in Venice, Benjamin Britten, 16 June 1973, Aldeburgh Festival, Snape, Suffolk (based on Der Tod in Venedig by Thomas Mann)
Easter, Malcolm Williamson
What the Old Man Does is Always Right, Alun Hoddinott, 1977
The Rajah's Diamond, Alun Hoddinott, 1979
The Trumpet Major, Alun Hoddinott, 1981
The Seducer, Søren Kierkegaard play in 2 acts, based on Kierkegaard's on The Seducer's Diary, 1843
Piper family
^ Iowa Public Radio
^ Frances Spalding, John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in art. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-956761-4.
^ "myfanwy" at www.johnbetjeman.com
^ a b David Fraser Jenkins, Obituary: Myfanwy Piper. The Independent, 22 January 1997.
Myfanwy Piper — Opera Libretti
Picture in the National Portrait Gallery, London
People educated at North London Collegiate School
Writers from London
Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford
English art critics
English opera librettists
English people of Welsh descent
20th-century women writers
Women critics
Women librettists
20th-century English writers
English non-fiction writer stubs
British dramatist and playwright stubs
Opera biography stubs
Igor Stravinsky, Gustav Mahler, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Dmitri Shostakovich, Suffolk
United Kingdom, City of London, Paris, Greater London, Australia
Alun Hoddinott
Classical music, Opera, Wales, Cardiff University, James Joyce
CBeebies, United Kingdom, Doctor Who, BBC Television, BBC Radio
Winter Words (song cycle)
Benjamin Britten, Piano, Gloriana, Thomas Hardy, AllMusic
Owen Wingrave
Benjamin Britten, Gloriana, Bbc, The Turn of the Screw (opera), Death in Venice (opera)
Death in Venice (opera)
Benjamin Britten, Gloriana, Opera, England, Thomas Mann
The Turn of the Screw (opera)
Benjamin Britten, W. B. Yeats, Gloriana, The Turn of the Screw, Henry James