Author: Mike Smith

Glyndebourne to support freelancers

Glyndebourne is launching a fund to support freelancer artists and creatives in the wake of the disproportionate effect the COVID-a9 pandemic has had on this sector. Details of the Glyndebourne Freelancer Fund will be developed ths year but the Company has committed to ring-fence funds equivalent to 10% of the value of its annual freelancer…

South Facing Festival to include ENO Tosca

South Facing Festival at Crystal Palace Bowl in Crystal Palace Park, South London, includes two open-air performances of Tosca from English National Opera on Friday August 27 and Sunday August 29. British conductor Richard Farnes will lead the ENO Orchestra and Chorus. The young cast will include Natalya Romaniw in the title role and Cavaradossi…

Glyndebourne joins the Race to Zero

Glyndebourne is working towards the long-term goal of becoming carbon neutral in its direct operations and, in conjunction with the COP26 meeting in Scotland this autumn, has signed up to the SME Climate Commitment to halve its CO2 emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Next January Glyndebourne marks the 10th anniversary…

Glyndebourne 2022 season focus on women composers

Works by six female composers, comprising two new operas and a rarely performed influential work, will be staged at Glyndebourne in 2022. Pioneering feminist composer Ethel Smyth’s work The Wreckers will open Glyndebourne Festival 2022. The Company described the opera as a powerful, cinematic psychodrama set on the Cornish coast, the most successful of Smyth’s…

L’amico Fritz at Opera Holland Park

Even an unseasonal massive downpour on to Opera Holland Park’s canopy could not wash away the summer delight of this Mascagni 1891 work. James Clutton, CEO and Director of Opera, joked with the audience about their “winter” season and how they had decided to keep the social distancing between seats the same despite relaxation of…

Opera North “homegrown” events

A series of “homegrown” events are being scheduled by Opera North among its international programme for the Howard Assembly Room’s reopening season this autumn. Opera North says the programme will bring together artists and organisations from the north and performers from the Company’s ensembles to the stage, and putting the venue at the heart of…

Notting Hill Carnival comes to Opera Holland Park

Opera Holland Park has teamed up with Notting Hill Carnival, bringing calypso, steelpan and Caribbean jazz to the theatre for three concerts on 19, 20 and 21 August. Featured artists and ensembles in the series include the Mangrove and Ebony Steelbands, Leon ‘Foster’ Thomas, Alexander D Great and Trinidadian opera singer, Anne Fridal in what…

Welsh National Opera team up with Expo 2020 Dubai UEA from October 2021 to March 2022

Expo 2020 Dubai has commissioned the first Emirati opera produced in collaboration with Welsh National Opera to celebrate the United Arab Emirates, as part of Expo 2020 Dubai UEA which runs from October 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022. Al Wasl Opera will be sung in English and Arabic and push the message of the…

Nevill Holt Opera’s 2021 outdoor season

Opera’s most famous unjustifiably fallen woman and justifiably fallen man will be the two August offerings from Nevill Holt Opera’s ambitious 2021 outdoor festival. Shadwell Opera’s Music Director Finnegan Downie Dear and Nevill Holt Opera’s Artistic Director Nicholas Chalmers will conduct performances of Verdi’s La traviata and Mozart’s Don Giovanni. La traviata will be directed…

Remarkable Manon from Elin Pritchard at the Grange Festival

Soprano Elin Pritchard will remember this final performance of Manon Lescaut at the Grange Festival for the rest of her career. In fact, so too will the entire ensemble, such as was the emotion and sense of achievement in having delivered this performance, the conclusion of a unique season somehow created and performed in the…