Author: Mike Smith
Opera Holland Park’s 2024 Season
21st November 2023Characters from carnival, commedia dell’arte and classical myth tell stories of transformation,enchantment and revenge in Opera Holland Park’s 2024 Season. A diva confronts a corrupt chief ofpolice in the grit and glamour of 1960s Rome. A barber plays puppet-master in Seville, outwitting hisclients in an attempt to prevent an unwanted wedding. A Flemish knight must […]
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Mid Wales Opera funding cut appeal as tour gets underway
19th October 2023Mid Wales Opera’s ‘Beatrice & Benedict’ enthrals audiences and impresses critics as it begins SmallStages Tour while Arts’ Council Wales consider their appeal following their withdrawal of funding earlier this month. MWO said it is delighted with the success of their tour so far following the opening night of “Beatrice & Benedict” earlier this month […]
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Buxton announces 2024 festival
17th October 2023Buxton International Festival (BIF) is celebrating an exceptional 2023 festival which far exceeded attendance expectations with sell-out events and accolades across the board. Once again, the Festival’s cutting-edge opera programme emerged as the greatest draw with its popular books programme a close second. On the back of this fantastic year, the Festival announces its plans […]
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Mid Wales Opera Shakespeare season against backdrop of funding axe
9th October 2023Mid Wales Opera are back on the road this season with two Shakespearean operas. In March next year the company presents its first ever production of Verdi’s great masterpiece Macbeth. Before that, this autumn, the company presents Berlioz’s effervescent Beatrice and Benedict, based on Shakespeare’s comedy Much ado about nothing. However, the tour comes against […]
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Swansea City Opera’s new chamber opera Shoulder to Shoulder
9th October 2023Swansea City Opera’s new chamber opera Shoulder to Shoulder will tour in November with a five-strong cast. It has been created through Swansea City Opera’s partnership with the charity Men’s Sheds Cymru, which develops social groups for older men. Through interviews with Shedders, as members of Sheds are known, the Artistic Director of Swansea City […]
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Mid Wales Opera has lost its £107k annual funding from the Arts Council of Wales.
28th September 2023In a hammer blow to opera in Wales and to Welsh singers, Mid Wales Opera has lost its £107k annual funding from the Arts Council of Wales. It is understood the decision could also mean the loss of the £99.5k the innovative small venue stiurign company receive through the Creatve arts scheme. This is awarded […]
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Welsh National Opera says Arts Council allocation 10% below standstill funding
28th September 2023While Welsh National Opera has again received the largest single Arts Council of Wales funding allocation, the company says it amounts to a 10 per cent cut against its application for standstill funding. The company had applied for £4.5m but as part of Arts Council Wales’s Investment Review, it has received a conditional offer of £4.1m […]
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Mark Doss talks about his career and singing Giorgio Germont in La Traviata with Welsh National Opera
14th September 2023Mark Doss sings Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata which opens at Wales Millennium Centre on September 21 and tours to Llandudno, Bristol, Plymouth, Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Southampton Mike Smith: Can you tell me how you first came to work with WNO and what was that experience like compared to, say, work in the US? […]
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English Touring Opera new season announced
13th September 2023English Touring Opera (ETO) has announced its Autumn tour as an exploration of themes of love, power and how the two interact. There will be two brand-new productions of Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea and Rossini’sCinderella. The first tour to be programmed by General Director Robin Norton-Hale since taking upthe role in January this year, […]
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Jennifer Smith to stand down as Executive Director of Longborough Festival Opera
13th September 2023Jennifer Smith is standing down as Executive Director of Longborough Festival. She will be taking on the role of Domestic Bursar at Balliol College. Smith took up the post of Executive Director in 2014. Under her leadership, Longborough Festival Opera has undergone a period of significant expansion. Alongside operational changes, the charity’s turnover has grown […]
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