Oliver Gibbs

Innovative new production of The Cunning Little Vixen comes to Grimeborn

News, Off West End, Opera
Grimeborn Festival presents Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen at the Arcola Theatre

Director Guido Martin-Brandis brings an innovative new production of Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen to the Arcola Theatre as part of the Grimeborn Festival 2017. Guido Martin-Brandis will be joined by veteran theatre maker Alexander McPherson, who was head of design at the Bristol Old Vic, and Theatre Royal and has designed shows for the Welsh National Opera, Opera North and Scottish Opera. The pair join forces again after the success of their 2016 collaboration for BBC Young Musician of the Year winner, Grace Evangeline Mason’s debut opera The Yellow Wallpaper. The Cunning Little Vixen is the story of a young Vixen growing up in the parallel worlds of animals and humans, after having been brought home by a forester. Featuring dance, masks and puppetry and video projections to depict the animal world, this show will mix art forms to reach new opera audiences, young and old. Sung in English with a brand new chamber arrangement, the cast features … Read more

REVIEW: Falstaff, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Opera, Reviews
Falstaff Grimeborn Theatre

After Monty Python and Blackadder it is not really possible to present this type of opera in full cross-gartered fustian without an ironic angle; so much better in many ways, therefore, to take it out of time and re-present it in another period altogether, or in contemporary dress – as here – where in effect it becomes The Merry Chavs of Windsor. The result is one of the best vindications of the Grimeborn ethos in the current season and a wonderful refutation of the Coward quote at the head of this review.