Il tabarro

No need for laying it on with a trowel with this clean if grubby Il tabarro from Mid Wales Opera

It is a challenging enterprise to take opera out to smaller venues at the best of times let alone when audiences are still wary in Covid days but it is one that Mid Wales Opera with Richard Studer and Jonathan Lyness at the tiller do with a sure touch and excellent musicianship. The combination of…

Jonathan Lyness and Richard Studer on Mid Wales Opera’s Parisian love affair

Music Director Jonathan Lyness talks about creating a new score for four instruments to perform Puccini’s Il tabarro, and Artistic Director Richard Studer reflects on the production’s genesis and development during lockdown life, as they bring Mid Wales Opera’s latest tour to audiences. “Puccini seems to have felt a special affinity with Paris, so much…

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…

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…