Operissima

Charlotte Valori reviews opera & theatre: in East Anglia and beyond…

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A Ring around the world

Two exciting things are happening this Sunday, 13th November. In London, Regents Opera open their brand new, pared-down orchestration of Wagner’s Das Rheingold at Freemasons Hall, Covent Garden, the start…

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Bühnenfestspiel / Fringe

More smoke than fire: Die Walküre, Grimeborn

Grimeborn are following up their fantastic 2019 Das Rheingold (see my previous review) with Die Walküre this year. Moving to the gorgeous Hackney Empire, with the Orpheus Sinfonia comfortably ensconced in the pit, this production…

Fringe / Opera

Swoonsome swashbuckling: Cabildo, Grimeborn

Director Emma Jude Harris “couldn’t believe her luck” when she discovered Cabildo, the only opera by pioneering composer Amy Beach: her witty, dynamic production of this passionate chamber piece glows with…

Opera

Troublingly fun: Treemonisha, Grimeborn

Scott Joplin was rightly proud of Treemonisha, an opera for which he wrote both libretto and score; it was never fully staged in Joplin’s lifetime, much to his pain, but its…

Fringe / Opera

Graceful gestures: Hotspur & Pierrot Lunaire, Grimeborn

The double bill of Gillian Whitehead’s Hotspur with Schoenberg’s great Modernist Pierrot Lunaire is the first outing for innovative opera company formidAbility, which seeks to bring disabled and non-disabled professional artists together on (and…

Dimness before dawn: Noah Mosley’s Aurora

If Aylin Bozok is directing anything at Grimeborn, I always try to go. I’ve been absolutely blown away by her past productions: her powerfully considered, exquisitely poised approach is always…

August 25, 2019 in New writing, Opera.

Not much unfolding: Origami Soundscapes /The Crane, Grimeborn

I have to admit – I’m a sucker for a bit of rarefied Japanese elegance on stage in almost any context: the very mention of Noh theatre always makes my…

August 24, 2019 in Fringe, Opera.

Social media via Strauss: Baseless Fabric’s Die Fledermaus

“I’m not saying I’m Batman. I’m just saying nobody has ever seen me and Batman in a room together,” reads the slogan on trendy Falke’s ironic t-shirt. Furious at a recent…

August 15, 2019 in Fringe, Operetta.

Blitz spirit: Rossini’s Comte Ory, Grimeborn

Rossini’s Le Comte Ory is a flirtatious farce in which a naughty young Count drives everyone demented with his relentless erotic enthusiasms: and it glitters, musically and dramatically, with madcap Rossinian flair…

August 15, 2019 in Buffa, Opera.

Grimeborn’s glittering treasure: Das Rheingold, Wagner

The Ring Cycle is opera’s biggest box set: a sixteen-hour binge of dwarves, nymphs, dragons, gods, heroes and monsters, all suspended inside one of the greatest philosophical conundrums expressed by…

August 4, 2019 in Vorabend zum Bühnenfestspiel.

My mad monodramas: Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson /Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night

A pairing of two American music dramas promised plenty of angsty feminist fun for a Friday night at Grimeborn; and I admit, in less accomplished hands, the angst might have…

August 3, 2019 in Fringe, Opera.

Overpruned to wilting point: Violetta, Grimeborn

Violetta is a reduction of Verdi’s La traviata, using only three characters: the doomed courtesan Violetta, her idealistic yet immature lover Alfredo, and – surprise! Alfredo’s mother. Yes, Germont père is exchanged…

August 1, 2019 in Fringe, Opera.

Greek perfection at Grimeborn 2018: GREEK, Turnage

Like the roar of an older, bolder London, Mark-Anthony Turnage’s GREEK bounces snarling onto the Grimeborn stage, celebrating its thirtieth anniversary in the first ever revival of its world premiere production for…

August 11, 2018 in Opera.

Hurtling into blankness: Entanglement! An Entropic Tale at Tête à Tête

Opera and physics: as a combination, what could possibly go wrong? As I briefly scanned one of the many programme notes generously supplied for the brave audience of Entanglement! An…

August 10, 2018 in Fringe, New writing, Opera.

Bad boys go head to head: Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Grimeborn

Lucia di Lammermoor is an opera of shocking brutality, with savage emotional aggression rivalling physical violence throughout its fast-paced plot. Fulham Opera’s reduction for Grimeborn brings Donizetti’s dark, doomed characters…

August 10, 2018 in Opera.

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