Amanda Holden

Amanda Juliet Holden (; 19 January 1948 – 7 September 2021) was a British pianist, librettist, translator, editor and academic teacher. She is known for translating opera librettos to more contemporary English for the English National Opera, and for writing new librettos, especially in collaboration with Brett Dean. She contributed to encyclopedias such as the New Penguin Opera Guide. Life and career Amanda Juliet Warren was born in London, the daughter of Sir Brian Warren and Dame Josephine Barnes. She was educated at Benenden School, and studied at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, with Egon Wellesz where she gained a Master of Arts (MA), at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and a MA at the American University, Washington, DC. She also had degrees from the Royal Academy of Music (ARCM and LRAM). She first worked as a freelance pianist and accompanist, teacher at the Guildhall School, and therapist from 1973 to 1986. Librettos and other texts for the stage Many of Holden's opera libretto translations were commissioned by the English National Opera (ENO). She translated Mozart's Don Giovanni for Jonathan Miller in 1985. For the ENO, she also translated Handel's Partenope, Rodelinda, Ariodante, Alcina and Agrippina, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Rossini's The Barber of Seville, and Puccini's La bohème. Holden translated HK Gruber's Gloria: A Pigtale in 2002, which critic Bernard Holland of The New York Times found heavy-handed but "rescued by Amanda Holden's clever English version". She made a "highly acclaimed translation" of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for David Freeman's production at the Royal Albert Hall in 2011. Holden prepared the "deft" narration for a concert performance of Weber's Der Freischütz presented by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre in April 2012. She translated Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice for the St. Louis Opera in 2018, Pascal Dusapin's Passion for its UK premiere at the Music Theatre Wales in 2018, and Hans Abrahamsen's The Snow Queen for Munich in 2019.