For Those Who Love Opera

Happy Birthday dear Gino Quilico

The Gambler is an opera in four acts by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer, based on the 1866 story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The opera did not receive its first performance until April 29, 1929

Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent
(April 29, 1895 – October 3, 1967)

was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated included the Ballets Russes, the Huddersfield Choral Society, the Royal Choral Society, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and the London Philharmonic, Hallé, Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Sargent was held in high esteem by choirs and instrumental soloists, but because of his high standards and a statement that he made in a 1936 interview disputing musicians' rights to tenure, his relationship with orchestral players was often uneasy. Despite this, he was co-founder of the London Philharmonic, was the first conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic as a full-time ensemble, and played an important part in saving the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from disbandment in the 1960s.