July News
July’s big event for us came in the form of summery recital, In Perfect Harmony
This beautiful recital was hosted by some wonderful friends of Opera Prelude, and was all about celebrating the raising of voices in harmony with one another. We were treated to lovely performances of duets, trios and quartets from some iconic operas, courtesy of our singers Milly Forrest (soprano), Annabel Kennedy (mezzo-soprano), Michael Temporal Darrell (Baritone) and Xavier Hetherington (tenor), and pianist Kaoru Wada. A huge thank you to all of our musicians for joining us – and in particular thank you and farewell to Annabel, who will move away to Dusseldorf at the end of the summer to join the Deutsche Oper am Rhein! We are wishing her the best with the many roles she will have the pleasure of performing out there.
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Our Young Artists continued to shine for the remainder of the month, with soprano Bridget Esler joining the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. The festival is well known for helping musicians develop their skills in ensemble and chamber music settings. After weeks of intensive rehearsals and musical collaborations, the musicians share their work in a series of weekend concerts. We’re proud of Bridget for excelling at the festival this year – it was great to see pictures of her performing.
Harry Grigg, tenor, and Eliran Kadussi, countertenour, spent the summer as Alvarez Young Artists at Garsington Opera. Harry recently released a wonderful recording of Benjamin Britten’s ‘To lie flat on the back’ made during his time at the festival, which we highly recommend checking out:
Finally, tenor Magnus Walker appeared with Neville Holt Opera in their production of The Magic Flute as the Priest / First Armed Man. The production received excellent reviews, with the Telegraph remarking: “Melly Still’s staging of Mozart’s masterpiece at beautiful Nevill Holt is bristling with ideas… staged with flair”. He subsequently appeared with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra ad the Tenor Soloist for their performance of Berlioz’s Grande Messe des orts, described as a “magnificent performance” by Edinburgh Music Review.
Congratulations to all of our young artists on a terrific summer of music-making!