TV and film producer, Jan Younghusband appointed chair of British Youth Opera

Jan Younghusband (Photo: BYO)

At a time of challenge in arts funding, British Youth Opera (BYO) has bravely soldiered on, providing support, training and opportunity for young singers fresh out of college. BYO's recent Summer opera productions have shown the company challenging and innovating with Vaughan Williams' The Pilgrim's Progress at the Three Choirs Festival in 2023 [see my review], Britten's Rape of Lucretia at the Brunel Museum in 2024 and Britten's Peter Grimes (in collaboration with Cambridge Philharmonic) at Saffron Hall and Cadogan Hall this year [see my review].

Now the company has announced that its long-serving chair, Sir Richard Greenhalgh is stepping down and that multi award-winning TV and film producer, Jan Younghusband has been appointed chair, joining chief executive Anna Patalong.

Jan Younghusband was Head of Music and Events at the BBC for 14 years and was also Head of Arts for Channel 4 for a decade. She has always had a deep affection for opera having started her career in opera production at Glyndebourne and later worked with Sir Peter Hall on his opera productions including The Ring in Bayreuth. In TV she has commissioned three new operas for the screen as TV dramas and made eight opera films. She more recently produced the new Andrea Bocelli film.

Jan Younghusband commented: "I have had the great joy and honour to work in opera all my career on stage and screen. I have always been a passionate supporter of our arts sector and I am delighted to be able to support this brilliant organisation British Youth Opera which trains and supports the next generation of great artists and talent across our industry both in the UK and internationally.

The kinds of opportunities that gave me my start in the arts and specifically in opera just don’t exist anymore, which makes BYO’s mission to widen access to those careers so crucial."

Full details from the BYO website.

British Youth Opera's Christmas on the Strand

British Youth Opera is promising a candlelit blend of music, readings and champagne that really captures the essence of the season at its Christmas on the Strand event in Tuesday 17 December 2024 at St Clement Danes Church, the enchanting Christopher Wren church between the Aldwych and the Royal Courts of Justice. Built in 1682, Wren's church as gutted by bombing in the Blitz and restored in 1958 as the central church of the Royal Air Force.

Special guest at Christmas on the Strand, Joanna Scanlon will be reading a selection of secular Christmas literature, whilst mezzo-soprano Claire Barnett-Jones, soprano Elin Pritchard and BYO Alumni will be on hand to provide Christmas classics, popular opera favourites and winter curiosities including, we are promised, a Joni Mitchell number.

Full details from BYO's website.

Welcome back Sir John

Vaughan Williams: Sir John in Love
Andrew Shore as Falstaff at ENO in 2006

With English opera of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rather than taking the works to our hearts the way other countries do their own idiomatic repertoire, we rather have a tendency to berate the works for not being something else (or ignoring them entirely). We didn't develop an English operatic form that could be compared directly to the great continental models, instead composers tended to take a somewhat personal line. Yet great swathes of late 19th century English opera is berated for not being Verdi (and for being too close to G&S), commercial successes like Sullivan's Ivanhoe and Rutland Boughton's The Immortal Hour are dismissed as fustian, Smyth's The Wreckers is told off because it is neither Peter Grimes nor Tristan und Isolde, whilst RVW's entire oeuvre of stage works seem to be regarded as eccentric and (to a certain extent) unstageable.

Sir John in Love, RVW's 1929 opera based on Shakespeare, is perhaps his most conventional opera though it only occasional reaches the stage and when it does, critics tend to moan that it isn't Verdi or Nicolai. RVW's retort would probably be 'that is the point'. He wrote his own libretto, based on Shakespeare, but adding other Elizabethan lyrics, and the work is very much a product of his own imagination.

There is a welcome chance to experience RVW's Sir John in Love once again as British Youth Opera has announced that it is their Summer opera and they will be performing it at Opera Holland Park in August. These will (probably) be the work's first performances in the UK since 2006 (when English National Opera performed it, see my review). And those 2006 performances were the first professional performances in the UK since 1958.  The work was premiered at the Royal College of Music in 1929 and it has always had a tendency to be seen as a work for students, young professionals and even amateurs. It didn't have its first professional performance until 1946.

This is partly because RVW wanted to keep as much as Shakespeare as possible. RVW had different intentions to Verdi and Boito. Boito simplified the plot, reduced the number of characters and strengthened Falstaff's part by adding speeches from Henry IV. RVW kept Shakespeare's full cast (twenty named parts), left as much of the plot as possible so that the 'Whitehall Farce' elements of Shakespeare's play are present; but RVW used contemporary Elizabethan/Jacobean poetry to give each of the characters their own lyrical moment.  

That's right, 20 named parts. It causes problems in Act One, which can seem over busy but for a company like BYO it is near ideal. One larger scale opera having more roles than a pair of more well-known works and RVW makes sure everyone gets their moment. RVW does use folksong in the music, but only around 15 minutes' worth in the entire piece, all the other tunes are his own though folk-ish in cast.

BYO will be giving four performances with two different casts from 24 to 27 August 2022 at Opera Holland Park, with Southbank Sinfonia in the pit. Further details from the British Youth Opera website.

Anna Patalong named as new chief executive of British Youth Opera

Mozart: Don Giovanni - Anna Patalong - Nevill Holt Opera, 2021 (Photo: Lloyd Winters)

Congratulations to soprano Anna Patalong who has been named as the new chief executive of British Youth Opera (BYO) in succession to Nicola Candish. Anna takes up her appointment in April, but Anna joined BYO as a development consultant in 2019, joining the organisation’s senior management team and shaping its fundraising strategy. Prior to this, she was part of BYO as a young singer between 2007 and 2010.

She has previously described her experiences with BYO as being like ‘an apprenticeship to the opera world’ and credits it for both building her career in opera and securing the funding that made her further training possible. In 2018, Anna was a co-founder of SWAP'ra [see my article], an organisation formed by five women working in opera to both help encourage change and to provide a supportive platform in the face of a collective frustration with the unconscious gender bias in the industry.

We last saw Anna as a passionate and very human Donna Anna in Nevill Holt Opera's production of Mozart's Don Giovanni last year [see my review], and digging through the archives one of her first appearances on the blog was as Serpetta in Mozart's La finta giardiniera at the Buxton Festival back in 2013, which I described as a complete delight and Despina on acid! [see my review]. So, I hope that the new appointment does not mean she plans to retire from the opera stage just yet.

Nicola Candish, having led BYO since 2019 is now moving on to become senior manager of performing arts at Durham University.

Full information from the BYO website.

Rare comic Rossini and immersive Humperdinck: British Youth Opera's Summer season in the park

This Summer Britsh Youth Opera will be performing at Opera Holland Park (OHP) for the first time, taking advantage of OHP's specially reconfigured theatre and giving ten performances during August. Two operas are being performed Rossini's L'occasione fa il ladro and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel.

Rossini's L’occasione fa il ladro, ossia Il cambio della valigia (Opportunity Makes a Thief, or The Exchanged Suitcase) is a one-act farsa written in 1812, one of five such comic pieces that the young composer (he was all of 20!) wrote for the Teatro San Moisè, Venice. Victoria Newlyn will direct BYO's production which will be sung in English. Sets and costumes are by Madeleine Boyd, and Peter Robinson conducts. Rossini's early one-act farse were very popular in his lifetime but effectively disappeared after his death though they are now more frequently revived. BYO has performed some of Rossini's other farse, whilst L'occasione fa il ladro has popped up at the Buxton Festival (in 1987), at Opera North (in 2004 as Love's Luggage Lost) and in 2017 returned to Venice at the Teatro la Fenice [see Anthony's review]

Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel will be rather different. It is a co-production with Daisy Evans' Silent Opera and will be an immersive experience. Evans directs and has written a new English libretto and Stevie Higgins is musical director and arranger with sets and costumes by Loren Elstein. The audience will wear headphones and will listen to pre-recorded orchestral backing which is live-mixed with the live singers, as the production moves around the audience members will be able to choose which strand of the action to follow in their headphones. [read my 2017 interview with Daisy Evans and my review of Silent Opera's Vixen]

Both productions will have two separate alternating casts and of course the productions provide valuable experience not just for the young singers but for stage managers, directors, designers, conductors, musical directors and repetiteurs as well as costume and wigs, hair and makeup teams. Participants will take on real-world responsibilities in productions, under the guidance of a team of expert department heads, and stand to gain rare practical experience alongside valuable mentoring and coaching.   

Find out more from the BYO website.

Make our Garden Grow

As a response to lock-down, British Youth Opera(BYO) drew together a group of BYO Alumni to perform 'Make our garden grow', the final chorus from Leonard Bernstein's Candide. 

The assembled talent features Natasha Argwal, Joshua Baxter, George van Bergen, Katherine Broderick, Katie Coventry, Paul Curievici, Llio Evans, Fiona Finsbury, Tina Gelnere, Jack Holton, Jennifer Johnston, Martha Jones, Elizabeth Karani, Andy Lee, John Lofthouse, Pedro Ometto, Anna Patalong, Kieran Rayner, Matthew Salter, Elena Sancho, Victoria Simmonds, Nicky Spence, Morgana Warren-Jones, Fflur Wyn.

Do support BYO current fund-raising campaign to enable thenhelp hundreds of young professionals grow their own careers in opera.
Just visit https://www.byo.org.uk/donate.

A considerable company achievement: David Blake's Scoring a Century from British Youth Opera

David Blake: Scoring a Century - British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

David Blake Scoring a Century; Hugo Herman-Wilson, Holly Marie Bingham, Florian Panzieri, dir: Keith Warner, cond: Lionel Friend; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 6 September 2019 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★)
David Blake's operatic entertainment disappoints but receives a fine performance

David Blake: Scoring a Century
British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

This must have sounded like a dream when it was first mooted. Lionel Friend and Keith Warner collaborating on a work originally conceived as part of the millennium celebrations. With a libretto by Keith Warner and composed by David Blake Scoring a Century has been described as 'low entertainment for highbrows, or vice versa'. Originally intended to debut at Portland Opera, Oregon, the 9/11 attacks caused a creative hiatus - a collective drawing in of horns that scuppered its premiere.

The work tells the history of Mr and Mrs Jedermann, a couple of song and dance merchants. There is dialogue – lots, and songs, and from time to time the action is interrupted by mini-operas which contain the serious heart of the show. More musical comedy than opera it reviews the twentieth century in twenty ‘Panels’. Our pair of Everymen, the Jedermann’s stumble through the politics and social change of the last one hundred years, never ageing and only reluctantly adapting to the times. Their sole aim is to provide some songs and snatches, to raise a laugh or provoke a tear.

On March 4, 2010 the opera received its World Premiere at the Crescent Theatre, Birmingham, by students from Birmingham Conservatoire, directed by Warner and conducted by Lionel Friend. On 31 August, 4 and 6 September British Youth Opera revived David Blake and Keith Warner's Scoring a Century again at the Peacock Theatre. Mr. and Mrs. Jedermann, the ageless fulcra of the piece, were played by Hugo Herman-Wilson and Holly Marie Bingham with their wingman and composer Bertold played by Florian Panzieri. Lionel Friend was once more in the pit.

All was stylish & expressive, leaving us to enjoy the music & the comedy in such an engaging way that the time sped by: British Youth Opera in Rossini's La Cenerentola

Rossini: La cenerentola - Adam Maxey, Sian Griffiths - British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Rossini La Cenerentola; Siân Griffiths, Liam Bonthrone, Holly Brown, Natalie Davies, Thomas Mole, Adam Maxey, Jerome Knox, dir: Stuart Barker, Southbank Sinfonia, cond: Peter Robinson; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 3 Sept 2019
A youthful and charming account of Rossini's comedy with stylish and engaging young cast

Rossini: La cenerentola - Holly Brown, Natalie Davies, Jerome Knox
British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Gioacchino Rossini's dramma giocoso La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo (Cinderella or Goodness Triumphant) is about young people, the protagonists are a young girl and a young man seeking love, along with the young man's valet and the young girl's sisters. Yet the musical requirements of the piece, the sheer technical complexity of Rossini's vocal writing, generally mean that the protagonists are played by singers who are rather older. Though, in fact, the first Cenerentola, Geltrude Righetti, was only 24 when she created the role in 1817, and she had already created the role of Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione the year before (the first Dandini was a similar age though the first Don Ramiro was some 10 years older).

So it was with great delight that I saw that British Youth Opera's 2019 season at the Peacock Theatre included Rossini's La Cenerentola (seen 3 September 2019) which they performed in a production directed by Stuart Barker with designs by Bek Palmer. Cenerentola was Siân Griffiths, Don Ramiro was Liam Bonthrone, Dandini was Jerome Knox, Clorinda was Holly Brown, Tisbe was Natalie Davies, Don Magnifico was Adam Maxey and Alidoro was Thomas Mole. Peter Robinson conducted the Southbank Sinfonia. The opera was sung in William Judd's 1986 English translation.

 La Cenerentola with young voices doesn't work, you need to have the right voices, a mezzo-soprano who has a strong lower range (the role was originally written for a coloratura contralto) and a tenor comfortable with the lyrical high writing common in tenor parts of this period, not to mention the other roles. The cast fielded by British Youth Opera was impressive in its balance and strength, these were all young voices that we could enjoy in their roles and I look forward immensely to hearing how the singers develop.

Rossini: La cenerentola - Liam Bonthrone, Jerome Knox & chorus - British Youth Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Of course, simply casting the roles with young singers isn't enough, you require the right young singers.

An evening of theatrical magic: Judith Weir's The Vanishing Bridegroom

British Youth Opera - David Horton (The Friend), Eleanor Sanderson-Nash, Harriet Birchall, Siân Griffiths (Three Women),
Ida Ränzlöv (The Daughter puppeteer), Ian Beadle (The Husband) and Alexandra Lowe (The Wife) - Judith Weir: The Vanishing Bridegroom
(Photo Robert Workman)

British Youth Opera - Timothy Edlin (The Stranger)
Judith Weir: The Vanishing Bridegroom (Photo Robert Workman)

Judith Weir The Vanishing Bridegroom; Alexandra Lowe, David Horton, Ian Beadle, Timothy Edlin, Ida Ränzlöv, dir: Stuart Barker, Southbank Sinfonia, cond: James Holmes; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 2 2017 Star rating: 4.5
Judith Weir's entrancing opera in a performance which brought out the sense of magical story-telling

Having performed Judith Weir's A Night at the Chinese Opera in 2012, British Youth Opera returned to Weir's operas and gave us the valuable opportunity to see The Vanishing Bridegroom in a new production at the Peacock Theatre on 2 September 2017, directed by Stuart Barker, designed by Andrew Riley, movement by Mandy Demetriou, lighting by David Howe and Darren East as puppetry consultant. James Holmes conducted the Southbank Sinfonia, and the cast included Alexandra Lowe, David Horton, Ian Beadle, Timothy Edlin and Ida Ränzlöv.

Weir's opera was commissioned for Glasgow European City of Culture in 1990 and premiered by Scottish Opera. The music and subject matter both have a distinctly Scottish tint; Weir's own libretto imaginatively weaves together three Scots Gaelic folk-tales, and includes poetry from Carmina Gadelica and other sources, whilst the music references a number of styles of performance from the West Highlands whilst always remaining true to Weir's own voice.

British Youth Opera - The Cunning Little Vixen

The Cunning Little Vixen – British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre.
Hazel McBain (Sharp Ears) and Katie Coventry (Golden Mane) with company. Photo: Bill Knight for BYO

Janacek The Cunning Little Vixen; Hazel McBain, Kieran Rayner, dir: Stuart Barker, cond: Lionel Friend; British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on Sep 06 2015
Star rating: 4.0
Puppets, personality, bags of charm and not a little edge - Janacek's opera brought to life by BYO's young singers

Having warned us last year that the financial situation was such that they might not be able to present their summer opera this year, it is satisfying to be able to report that British Youth Opera (BYO) is back at the Peacock Theatre (from 5 to 12 September 2015) with three operas. A double bill of RVW's Riders to the Sea and Holst's Savitri which premiered on 9 September, and Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen which premiered last night, 5 September 2015. Conducted by Lionel Friend and directed by Stuart Barker, The Cunning Little Vixen was designed by Simon Bejer with movement by Mandy Demetriou, lighting by David Howe and Darren East as the puppetry consultant. Hazel McBain was the vixen Sharp Ears, with Kieran Rayner as the Forester and a large cast which included Mria Hughes, Ailsa Mainwaring, Rebecca Silverman, Heulen Cynfal, Joanna Norman, Susanna Buckle, Ashley Mercer, William Wallace, Kenneth Read, Simon Tournier and Joanna Norman, with the South Bank Sinfonia in the pit. The opera was sung in Norman Tucker's translation.

  The Cunning Little Vixen – British Youth Opera at the Peacock Theatre.
Kieran Rayner (Forester) and Simon Tournier (Harašta).
Photo: Clive Barda/ArenaPAL

Simon Bejer's designs used virtually no set, just a lit backdrop against which chorus members in black would bring on portable items. The black figures were a big feature of the entire production, holding stylised trees, manipulating the puppets which represented the animals, wearing golden fox-masks to effect the transformation scenes for the moment when Sharp Ears dreams of the moon, and when she dies. Descendants of such figures as the stylised servants in Nicholas Hytner's ENO production of Handel's Serse, the black clad figures were not completely impassive. Their headgear reflected the season and the action, and they reacted to the action around them and even had their own choreographic moments.

Stuart Barker and Simon Bejer are founders of the puppet company Third Hand, whilst puppet consultant Darren East is a third generation puppeteer who was artistic associated for the Little Angel Theatre  in 2013. The same team was responsible for BYO's magical production of Jonathan Dove's The Little Green Swallow, and The Cunning Little Vixen had the same magical mix of live action and puppetry. We knew we were in for a treat when the opening action included the butterfly emerging from its pupa! The larger animals, badger, owl and the various chorus members, were simply represented by the singer suitably dressed, whilst the smaller insects were puppets manipulated by the singer (in black) often with another puppeteer (also in black).