Talk:British National Opera Company

Broadcast

Sorry to be a Beckmesser, but: "...the first opera company in Europe to broadcast a complete opera on radio when a matinee performance of Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, with Maggie Teyte as Hansel, was broadcast on 6 January 1923." The source is, I'm afraid, quite wrong. The Times, both before and after the event, gives a different opera and a different date. This is its report dated 9 January 1923 (p. 8): "The broadcasting of opera by wireless took place for the first time in this country last night, when thousands of people heard in their homes excerpts from the performance of The Magic Flute at Covent Garden." The report goes on to say that excerpts from Hänsel and Gretel would be broadcast that evening (i.e. 9 January). Excepts in both cases, I see, rather than the whole work. The Times report is corroborated by The Manchester Guardian, 10 January 1923, p. 10, which reports that about an hour and a half of The Magic Flute was broadcast.

Can we change the opening to read something like, "...a pioneer of broadcast opera, with excerpts from The Magic Flute broadcast by the British Broadcasting Company in January 1923, less than a year after the foundation of both the BBC and the opera company."? (The original private BBC started in November 1922 and the BNOC debuted in February 1922.)

I have not so far been able to discover which company made the first complete opera broadcast. - Tim riley (talk) 16:53, 11 October 2009 (UTC)