Year: 2021

Iford Arts New Generation Artists I Pagliacci

This Iford Arts New Generation Artists performance of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci at Belcombe Court demonstrated there is no shortage of developing talent and the vital role of performance experience. The audience was treated to individual performances that should soon happily grace some of our professional state funded opera companies. Clearly, carefully rehearsed by production director Christopher…

mezzoCav and I Pagliacci, Iford Arts

This delicious performance of the stripped back to its emotional basics I Pagliacci had an increased poignancy, being the last show of Iford Arts short summer festival. The story is of the troupe of travelling players about to make their own performance before packing up and heading back on the road, with all the challenges…

Longborough’s Die Walkure available on demand

Longborough Festival Opera is streaming its 2021 concert performance of Die Walkure. Watch here(Available on demand until Friday 25 February 2022) This concert production of Die Walküre was filmed live at Longborough Festival Opera on 8 June as part of the festival’s new Ring cycle. Wotan is sung by Cardiff singer Paul Carey Jones. The cycle began in June 2019,…

Elin Pritchard comes out fighting

Lockdown was intended to squash the COVID sombrero in early 2020 but it also flattened soprano Elin Pritchard’s rising career. Like many other singers the impact of the pandemic was sudden and dramatic. The North Wales-born, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama graduate was performing as Micaëla in Welsh National Opera’s touring production of…

Welsh National Opera finds way through Madam Butterfly minefield

Welsh National Opera is scheduling a series of events around its performances of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly on the type of subjects that have been used to attack arts organisations under the banner of inclusivity, for their choice of work and for non-race matched casting. A new production has been commissioned. It follows a similar approach…

Fun and youthful exuberance in Don Giovanni at Nevill Holt Opera

The weather does not seem too kind to outdoor operas in August and while we had a cool but lovely evening at the exquisite gardens of Nevill Holt for the first night of their sparky and energetic Don Giovanni black clouds threaten some of the further performances. Obviously this is bad news for those seated…

Mid Wales Opera to tour Puccini’s Il tabarro

Wales’ touring company, Mid Wales Opera, is taking a small stage tour of Puccini’s Il tabarro on the road in October. The one-act opera will bring soprano Elin Pritchard (main image) to the role of Giorgetta, fresh from her success with Grange Opera singing Manon Lescaut, with Philip Smith singing her husband Michele who suspects…

Opera Park 2022 season announced

Opera Holland Park’s 2022 Season will open on 31 May 2022, with new productions of Eugene Onegin and Carmen. The second half of the 2022 Season will feature the UK premiere of Mark Adamo’s 1998 opera, Little Women, adapted from Louisa May Alcott’s classic coming-of-age novel. Postponed from 2020, Delius’s verismo opera Margot la Rouge…

WNO announces more details of autumn 2021 season

Welsh National Opera has announced more details of its Autumn 2021 Season which includes a new production of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. It follows the announcement that Wales Millennium Centre, its home base, is opening the main auditorium, the Donald Gordon Theatre, on September 9, in time for the WNO season. The Company has confirmed it…

Academy of Ancient Music’s season opens with Haydn’s The Creation

Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) opens its first season under new Music Director Laurence Cummings on Tuesday, September 28 with Haydn’s The Creation. Co-produced by the Barbican, the performance will include a visual narrative from projection designer Nina Dunn. The AAM choir and orchestra are joined by a solo cast including Mary Bevan, Stuart Jackson,…