Quick Facts
Biography
Amanda Juliet Holden (born 19 January 1948) is a British musician, librettist and translator.
Education
Holden is the daughter of Sir Brian Warren and Dame Josephine Barnes, DBE. She was educated as Benenden School, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (where she gained a Master of Arts), Guildhall School of Music and Drama and American University, Washington (MA). She also has degrees from the Royal Academy of Music (ARCM and LRAM).
Librettist
She translated the libretto of Don Giovanni for Jonathan Miller in 1985. Her librettos include Bliss, for Brett Dean and The Silver Tassie, for which she was joint winner, with composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, of the Outstanding Achievement in Opera Laurence Olivier Award in 2001. 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 the opera Der Freischütz presented by the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre, London, in April 2012
Publications
Holden's publications include contributions to The Mozart Compendium in 1990, the New Penguin Opera Guide in 2001 and the Penguin Concise Guide to Opera in 2005. James Oestreich, writing in The New York Times, described the New Penguin Opera Guide as a "valuable source" and "most impressive", though he would have liked the index to cover performers, places and events – rather than just the composers and librettists.
Many of her opera translations are commissioned by the English National Opera. The Age compared Holden's partnership with composer Brett Dean in "long-distance collaboration" to "the great composer-librettist partnerships" of "Mozart and da Ponte, or Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal" who "did not have email or jet planes". Critic Bernard Holland, writing in The New York Times about H. K. Gruber's Gloria: A Pigtale, thought it heavy-handed but "rescued by Amanda Holden's clever English version".
Broadcasting
Holden has appeared on Deutsche Welle's Inspired Minds talking about her work on opera libretti.
Personal life
She married Anthony Holden in 1971. They have three sons and divorced in 1988.