May News
We hope you were able to make it to one of our recitals in London or Henley this month. We had two recitals over the course of May, from two wonderful tenors, Samuel Stopford and Brenton Spiteri.
Samuel Stopford’s recital at the Royal Court Theatre dealt with the “Italianiate Tenor”.
He explored music by Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti and others to determine possible methods for crafting an Italianate tenor, as well as how one may utilise Bel Canto works when transitioning to repertoire from the Romantic and Verismo periods. He did a fantastic job, being a brilliant speaker and singer. He was joined at the piano by Thomas Ang, who played with great skill as usual.
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Later in the month, Brenton Spiteri joined us in Henley to explore the “Rakes, Rascals and Rogues” of opera
His lecture recital delved into the more cunning, twisted side of the operatic tenor, and included pieces by Stravinsky, Mozart, Gounod and more. With his fabulously strong voice, Brenton is still a hero to us, even if he’s frighteningly convincing at portraying these dastardly gentlemen! We were glad that he could be joined by the fabulous Kaoru Wada on the piano.
Brenton has had a busy couple of months, as he has been touring the country with English Touring Opera, alongside fellow OP Young Artist, Shafali Jalota, soprano. Their tour wound up at the end of May, after many highly successful performances of Manon Lescaut (19 shows!) and The Rake’s Progress (17 shows!). See if you can spot our OP stars in these cast pics below:
Annabel Kennedy, mezzo-soprano, began her run at Garsington Opera in the role of Juno in their production of Rameau’s Platée. The opera, conducted by Paul Agnew, was performed in partnership with the English Baroque Orchestra, and follows a very similar story to the more well-known tale of Semele, in which a young woman is seduced and deceived by the god Jupiter. The opera continues into June, so get your tickets to see this young singing star if you haven’t already! OP Young Artists Harry Grigg and Eliran Kadussi also feature in this production as chorus members.
Elsewhere, OP Young Artists Joanna Harries, mezzo soprano and Jolyon Loy, bass baritone revived their production of Handel’s Orlando with Liberata Collective at the Beaumaris festival at the end of the month. They’ll be performing it again in Kent at the end of June, so don’t miss out if you can possibly help it. The production makes use of “baroque gesture”, a form of historical acting which used to be used in opera and theatre throughout the baroque period. It’s fascinating stuff, and truly well delivered by the whole team.
