The UK Premiere of Mark Adamo’s “Little Women” was a tad late getting underway. The almost capacity audience at Opera Park Holland needing to be reminded three times to take their seats in order for the performance to commence. Not that Mr. Adamo himself, present at the event in the 5th row back, would have minded much; given that he {…}
(Image credit: © Lidia Crisafulli) Julia Burbach directs a new production of “Eugene Onegin” at Opera Holland Park, Tchaikovsky’s passionate realisation of Alexander Pushkin’s classic Romantic verse novel. Bookish Tatyana falls for the lofty, Darcy-ish Onegin, a dashing figure but also a rebarative one. He lets her down gently – thinking he has done the honorable thing, which he both {…}
(Photo credit: Ali Wright) Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” after the novella by Prosper Mérimée, is a piece that presents plenty of challenges to audiences today. Some are owing to problematic aspects of the text – stereotyped depictions of the Gypsies in the piece, the spectacle of a murdered woman crowning the action – and others simply the weight of tradition and {…}
Opera Holland Park has announced a new commission and world premiere for 2023. The new work “Itch.” based on Simon Mayo’s bestselling novels “Itch and and Itch Rocks” will be composed by Jonathan Dove and librettist Alasdair Middleton. The opera’s hero will be Itchingham Holte, a teenage scientist on a mission to collect all the elements in the periodic table. {…}
Opera Holland Park in the U.K. has announced its casting and creative team for the 2022 season. The season will open with a new production of “Eugene Onegin” which is set to be conducted by Lada Valešová and directed by Julia Burbach. The cast will include Anush Hovhannisyan, Samuel Dale Johnson, Thomas Atkins, Emma Stannard, Amanda Roocroft, Kathleen Wilkinson, Matthew Stiff, and John Wood. Performance Dates: May 31-June 25, {…}
Opera Holland Park in the U.K. has announced its 2022 season. The company announced that it will open on May 31, 2022 with new productions of “Eugene Onegin” and “Carmen” before presenting the UK premiere of Mark Adamo’s 1998 opera, “Little Women,” adapted from Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel. The fourth production of the season will be a double bill {…}
Credit: (OHP Marketing/Opera Holland Park) The last offering from Opera Holland Park’s (OHP) 2021 summer season was another collaboration: W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance”, co-produced with Gilbert & Sullivan specialists Charles Court Opera, postponed from last summer. A Playful Production How do we imaginatively enter the topsy-turvy world of Gilbert & Sullivan, with its surreally distended {…}
(Photo: Ali Wright) The second half of Opera Holland Park’s revamped summer offering opened this week with Leoš Janáček’s late, philosophical comedy “The Cunning Little Vixen,” conducted by Jessica Cottis and directed by Stephen Barlow. One of the strange gifts of lockdown for Londoners – those blessed with gardens anyway – was the opportunity, working from home, to experience more {…}
(Image (c) Danny Kaan) Opera Holland Park features several collaborations thorughout its 2021 summer season, offering much-needed work to a myriad of freelancers from across the theatre world. Charles Court Opera will join OHP for a “Pirates of Penzance” in August; British Youth Opera will bring Rossini’s “L’occasione fa il ladro;” Waterperry Opera Festival are coming to town with a {…}
Opera Holland Park has announced Song in Opera. The short series of recitals curated by Julien Van Mellaerts presents three programs with an innovative focus on storytelling and will star pianists Perez, Ella O’Neill, and Simon Lepper. Singers will include Fleur Barron, Nicky Spence, Anush Hovhannisyan, and Nardus Williams, and three of the 2021 OHP Young Artists, Charlotte Badham, Charlotte {…}
(Credit: Ali Wright) Opera Holland Park’s season opened this week with the quintessential summer opera – a new production by Oliver Platt of W.A. Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte’s “Le nozze di Figaro,” a farce that is still as sparklingly inventive and effervescent as it was over 200 years ago. There is much to praise in this opening artistic salvo {…}