Opera

Ellen Kent’s Nabucco UK Tour

Opera, Touring
Ellen Kent's Nabucco UK Tour

Ellen Kent returns with a production of Verdi’s Nabucco, which was the very first opera that she produced. Nabucco stars Olga Perrier, the international French Soprano as Abigail, together with chorus and full orchestra. Verdi’s haunting and melodic chorus of the Hebrew slaves, Va Pensiero, follows the plight of the Hebrews as they are forced from their homeland into exile by the Babylonian King Nabucco. This powerful tale is laced with revenge, destruction and jealousy. A spectacular traditionally staged production featuring magnificent sets and costumes with amazing lighting and stage effects which include the burning down of Soloman’s temple. Nabucco promises to be an evening to remember. Sung in Italian with English surtitles. Find out more about Ellen Kent’s tours of La Boheme and Aida NABUCCO UK TOUR Wednesday 5 October 2016 Theatre Royal Brighton Friday 11 November 2016 New Alexandra Theatre Birmingham Thursday 17 November 2016 Princess Theatre Torquay … Read more

Ellen Kent’s Aida UK Tour

Opera, Touring
Book tickets for Ellen Kent's Aida Uk Tour

Ellen Kent has announced a new spectacular interpretation of Verdi’s classic opera Aida with international soloists, chorus and full orchestra. Aida will star French Soprano Olga Perrier as Aida and Liza Kadeinik, the celebrated mezzo from the Romanian National Opera as Amneris. Aida, the grandest of all Ellen Kent’s operas, returns  in Autumn 2016 to the UK with a stunning new traditional production, boasting an impressive new set built by Set-Up Scenery in the UK, who also build sets for the Royal Opera Covent Garden. In Aida, the splendour of Egypt is set against the grandeur of the Coliseum of Rome with Ellen Kent’s direction influenced by the ancient Greek dramas of Euripides and symbolising the powerful religious hold of the priests of Egypt. This tragic story of war, jealousy and revenge at whose heart is the doomed love of the beautiful Ethiopian slave girl, Aida, and the Egyptian hero, … Read more

Ellen Kent’s La Boheme UK Tour

Opera, Touring
Ellen Kent's La Boheme Tour

Opera and Ballet International will present a UK tour of Ellen Kent’s production of Puccini’s La Boheme. La Boheme will feature international soloists, chorus and a full orchestra in this new staging of this popular opera. La Boheme is one of the most romantic operas ever written. It tells the tragic tale of the doomed, consumptive Mimi and her love for a penniless writer. The set reflects the Bohemian art of the period and will include, a local brass band, snow effects and Muzetta’s dog will also make an entrance. This classic tale of Parisian love and loss features many famous arias including ‘Your Tiny Hand is Frozen’, ‘They Call Me Mimi’ and ‘Muzetta’s Waltz’. La Boheme is sing in Italian with English surtitles. Find out more about Ellen Kent’s tour of Nabucco and Aida ELLEN KENT’S LA BOHEME UK TOUR Thursday 20 October 2016 Aylesbury Waterside Theatr Saturday 22 … Read more

REVIEW: The Medium and The Wanton Sublime, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Opera, Reviews
The Wanton Sublime presented as part of the Grimeborn Festival

And so to the culmination of the contemporary opera section of the Grimeborn Festival, a double-bill in the form of Peter Maxwell Davies’ The Medium and The Wanton Sublime, a new work by Tarik O’Regan, to a libretto by Anna Rabinowitz. Robert Shaw directed both operas and the Orpheus Sinfonia conducted by Andrew Griffiths accompanied the second half. The house was sold-out in anticipation of an evening of musicianship of high quality – an expectation that was by-and-large fulfilled.

REVIEW: Daphne, Arcola Theatre ✭✭

Opera, Reviews
Daphne at the Grimeborn Opera Festival

Not everything in Grimeborn can work and while the commitment of all concerned deserves recognition, this adaptation cannot be considered wholly successful. As a better test of its worth though, I do hope further performances can be arranged with a full ensemble of strings, woodwind and brass. If all the main lines are present, the core of this delicate work can still generate the right kind of silvery shimmer.

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.

REVIEW: The Clown Of Clowns, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Opera, Reviews
The Clown Of Clowns at Grimeborn Festival

The evening as a whole provided a superbly invigorating beginning to the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola. We were given new insights into an old work that made it seem much less forbidding and more accessible than usual; and in the second half the joyous, madcap side to the life of the clown and the circus was given full rein in a new one. Tradition and its subversion, the two governing tenets of Grimeborn, were in in this instance in perfect balance.

REVIEW: La Boheme, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Opera, Reviews
La Boheme Grimeborn

So in sum, the production did achieve exactly what Grimeborn sets out to do each year. It knocked old layers of varnish off an old favourite and found a new and convincingly thought-through scenario in which to relocate it. Director Lewis Reynolds has a lot of experience in presenting opera at the King’s Head Theatre, which made him a very good choice to achieve fine results here. This was a truly committed, full-on team effort: and in this opera nothing else will deliver the goods.