Author: Mike Smith

Macbeth, Mid Wales Opera

16th March 2024

**** It would be wrong to make what may be the last review of a full-scale work by Mid Wales Opera about the preposterous axing of the company’s funding by the increasingly out of touch Arts Council of Wales. However, the energy on the stage seemed as marked outside of the auditorium at the Riverfront, […]

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Opera Favourites, Welsh National Opera

6th March 2024

** While Welsh National Opera’s spring concert imaginatively called Opera Favourites did what it said on the tin, it was also partly a musical preview of some scheduled shows. There was, for example, a fair chunk of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, February 2025, and a rousing chorus and orchestral section from Britten’s Peter Grimes, […]

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Opera Holland Park 2024 season

29th February 2024

Opera Holland Park’s 2024 Season opens to press and public on 28 May with a revival of StephenBarlow’s sharp and seductive 2008 production of Tosca, new productions of The Barber of Seville(sponsored by Viking) and Acis and Galatea, three semi-staged performances of Puccini’s earlyromance, Edgar, a sensational double bill contrasting John Wilkie’s stylish 2019 staging […]

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CASTS ANNOUNCED FOR BUXTON INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL’S FIVE BRAND NEW OPERA PRODUCTIONS

2nd February 2024

Buxton International Festival (4-21 July) has announced the line-up of artists for its five new opera productions this summer. Adrian Kelly, artistic director, said: “This summer’s season contains a huge range of repertoire, and the Festival has once gone all out to assemble a formidable line-up of soloists.” Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘Ernani’,July 6, 10, 12, 14 […]

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New executive director at Longborough Festival Opera

12th January 2024

Emily Gottlieb has been appointed LFO’s new Executive Director from April 2024. Emily has served as Chief Executive of the National Opera Studio for nine years, following 15 years with the Royal Opera House. Emily Gottlieb said: “I’m thrilled to join the Longborough team, especially in this exciting and ambitious year where this intrepid company […]

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Longborough Festival Opera: the first 30 years

12th January 2024

This generously illustrated book will appeal to those who have followed Martin and Lizzie Graham’s obsessive dream turned into reality in creating an opera house in the Cotswolds. But it will also appeal to anyone who enjoys a tale of dogged perseverance in the face of what at times seems the chains of bureaucracy and […]

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The Handmaid’s Tale returns to the English National Opera

10th January 2024

The Handmaid’s Tale returns to the English National Opera  1 February – 15 February Following its premiere in April 2022, this production won the Broadway World Award for Best Classical/Opera Production, and was nominated for both the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards in the Opera and Music Theatre Award category and the International Opera Awards in the […]

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Opera Holland Park’s 2024 Season

21st November 2023

Characters 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 2023

Mid 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 2023

Buxton 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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