On a clean, largely clear stage, dotted with a few barrels and benches, a tidy vegetable stand to one side and a pub sign, The Four Bears, to the other, a stormy sky lours menacingly at us, cradling a high, full moon at its corner. Cambridge University Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s Ruddigore starts as it…
We tend to think of Victorian society as morally strict, judgemental, and socially tense: and Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, while confirming all the above, savagely pokes fun at Victorian ideals of social and moral perfection, pushing stereotypes to extremes in order to satirise the question of private and public goodness from all sorts of different…
A joyous explosion of tuneful Victorian satire provides an unlikely, yet ideal, contrast to English Touring Opera‘s Tosca as their Patience tours the UK in this finely-cast, period-perfect rendition. Director Liam Steel presides over a vivacious, vigorous production which brims with genuine humour, constantly energised by strong group choreography, a vocally sumptuous chorus, and a cast…
A sense of real excitement surrounded the revival (and UK premiere) of Franz von Suppé’s A Trip to Africa at the Maddermarket Theatre, the culmination of several years of work by conductor Dario Salvi, who found and meticulously researched and restored the score and libretto with his wife Hannah after a 94-year performance hiatus. There…
Any great opera experience is, to some extent, a process of discovery. Whether I find myself reimagining a familiar piece thanks to incisive direction, noticing an aria afresh due to some exceptional singing, or quite simply getting my head around a completely new work at Tête à Tête or Grimeborn, it’s always what I learned…
Fulham Opera, noted in recent years for their serious and compelling Wagner and Verdi output, are also not shy of comedy (as demonstrated by their very successful Falstaff). Die Fledermaus is a revenge comedy in the lighter tradition of operetta, and Fulham Opera’s take on Strauss is characteristically skilful, immediate, and musically polished, with minimal…