There is no definitive edition of Bizet’s Carmen. In January and March 1875, two different editions of the score were published, neither of which match the conducting score for its premiere (also March 1875, at the Opéra Comique, Paris). As a result, musicologists differ as to Bizet’s true intentions for Carmen and its characters: the work is free…
La Traviata has always been up close and personal. Its 1853 première was actually a critical failure, due to a revolutionary decision by Piave, Verdi’s librettist, to give the opera a contemporary setting – something which the Venetian audience had never seen before. Revived a year later, but this time in a Louis XIV setting,…
Based on Marina Lewycka‘s 2007 novel of the same name, Two Caravans takes us into the rough, sad but somehow amusing world of Ukrainian strawberry-pickers in Kent, and reflects back some uncomfortable home truths at a home-grown audience. Buzzing with energy, a lively cast offer laughs, thrills, spills… and enough strawberries to make you sick of the…