Up close & personal: a pacey & vivid account of Mozart's Don Giovanni from Ensemble OrQuesta at the Grimeborn Festival

Mozart: Don Giovanni - Ensemble OrQuesta at Grimeborn Festival, Arcola Theatre
(Photo: Julian Guidera)

Mozart: Don Giovanni; Marcio da Silva, Flavio Lauria, Helen May, Rosemary Carlton-Willis, Anna-Luise Wagner, John Twitchen, director: Marcio da Silva, Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra Ensemble, conductor: Andreas Levisianos, Ensemble OrQuesta; Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre
Reviewed 29 August 2025

A compact chamber version of the opera, notable for its pacey drama and vividly vigorous individual performances

One week, two festivals, two Mozart operas in two very different venues. Following on from Glyndebourne's performance of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms [see my review], we caught Mozart's Don  Giovanni performed by Ensemble OrQuesta at the Arcola Theatre as part of the Grimeborn Festival where Ensemble OrQuesta has performed annually for the last six years.

On Friday 29 August 2025 we caught Mozart's Don Giovanni in the Arcola Theatre's large studio. The company originally performed Don Giovanni in 2017 and Marcio da Silva's production was revived and revised earlier this year at the the Cockpit. Ensemble OrQuesta's artistic director and founder Marcio da Silva both directed the show and performed the title role, with Flavio Lauria as Leporello, Helen May as Donna Elvira, Rosemary Carlton-Willis as Donna Anna, Anna-Luise Wagner as Zerlina, John Twitchen as Don Ottavio, Jay Rockwell as Masetto and Vedat Dalgiran as the Commendatore. Andreas Levisianos conducted an instrumental ensemble of eight drawn from the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra (of which Marcio da Silva is founder and artistic director). Costumes were by Gil Jenks and puppets by Orlando Bishop.

Ensemble OrQuesta functions very much as a repertory company and all of the cast had performed a number of other roles with the company including last year's Le nozze di Figaro [see my review] and Handel's Alcina in 2022 [see my review]. The company's founder and artistic director Marcio da Silva is something of a Renaissance man, encompassing directing shows, conducting as well as singing. For this run of performances, having directed the show da Silva was alternating singing and conducting this meant that this evening's conductor, Andreas Levisianos, though he had worked with the company before, was only conducting this one performance which was not ideal.

The instrumental ensemble (string quartet, double bass, flute, clarinet and bassoon) took a little time to settle down. Andreas Levisianos's speeds in the overture were brisk and there were moments when we missed the sheer weight of a full orchestra, even though the players were admirably incisive. Levisianos also accompanied the recitatives on piano.

The version of the opera used was trimmed so that it lasted 160 minutes (including interval). We had the basic Prague version so no 'Mi tradi' for Donna Elvira, but more than that Don Ottavio got neither of his arias and Zerlina's 'Batti, batti' was omitted too. The ending did not hang around either and we ended with the Don's descent to Hell (cue red glow). The aim was to create a compact version of the drama which matched the intensity and pace of the performance. 

Mozart: Don Giovanni - Ensemble OrQuesta at Grimeborn Festival, Arcola Theatre (Photo: Julian Guidera)

Going where no other company has dared: Green Opera gives the stage premiere of Joubert's Jane Eyre in a full-blooded performance at Grimeborn Festival

Joubert: Jane Eyre - Laura Mekhail (Jane) - Green Opera at Grimeborn Festival, Arcola Theatre - (Photo: Camilla Greenwell)

John Joubert: Jane Eyre; Laura Mekhail, Hector Bloggs, Lawrence Thackeray, Alexander Semple, director Eleanor Burke, conductor Kenneth Woods, Green Opera; Grimeborn Festival at Arcola Theatre
Reviewed 8 August 2025

Amazingly, the stage premiere of Joubert's final opera, a work which has tantalised for decades. Here receiving an admirably full-blooded performance

Composer John Joubert wrote eight works for the stage and if you had asked him, evidently he would evidently have said his best opera was Under Western Eyes from 1968. But his final opera, Jane Eyre, written without commission from 1987 to 1997, remained a tantalising possibility. Never fully staged in the composer's lifetime, for his 90th birthday, Kenneth Woods conducted a concert performance with the English Symphony Orchestra and this was issued on disc by SOMM in 2017 [see my review]. Now Woods has had the chance to conduct a full staging.

Green Opera in collaboration with the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre presented a new staging of John Joubert's Jane Eyre at the Arcola Theatre. We caught the performance on Friday 8 August 2026 with Laura Mekhail as Jane, Hector Bloggs as Rochester, Lawrence Thackeray as Richard Mason and St John Rivers, plus Anna Sideris, Emily Hodkinson, Alexander Semple, Chris Murphy and Steffi Fashokun. The production was directed by Eleanor Burke with designs by Emeline Beroud and movement by Alex Gotch. Kenneth Woods conducted an instrumental ensemble of eight playing an arrangement of the score by Thomas Ang.

Joubert: Jane Eyre - In the Rivers' household: Anna Sideris (Diana), Laura Mekhail (Jane), Emily Hodkinson (Mary), Lawrence Thackeray (St John) - Green Opera at Grimeborn Festival, Arcola Theatre - (Photo: Camilla Greenwell)

The libretto is by the Richard Strauss scholar, Kenneth Birkin who was a PhD student of John Joubert at the University of Birmingham. Originally the opera was in three acts, but with the prospect of the 2016 performance which would lead to the recording, Joubert revised the opera. He removed secondary scenes and orchestral interludes, material from which would find its way into his third symphony. The resulting opera has just two hours of music, and a great deal of plot to get through.

Becoming Tosca: Prologue Opera brings its unique approach to the 2025 Grimeborn Festival

Have ever seen an operatic performance and wondered about a character’s backstory and what drives them?

Tenor Anthony Flaum founded Prologue Opera to answer such questions. Based in Sussex, the company believes opera, as an artform, can enrich lives, and they aim to not only provide quality entertainment to audiences who may not have been exposed to opera previously but also to capitalise on the wealth of local talent in the Sussex area, and encourage positive artistic and emotional experiences through opera and music.

Their productions take a distinctive two-part approach to opera, presenting and original dramatic performance comprising spoken dialogue, newly commissioned music and songs from a range of musical styles, that tell the never-before-seen stories of key characters within the opera before they appear in the original narrative. This part seamlessly leads the audience into the main part of the opera, which is presented as a fast-paced reduction of the original opera.

In 2024, Prologue Opera presented Becoming Tosca, their version of Puccini's Tosca, in Hastings, now the company is reviving the production with performances in Hastings on 26 and 27 August at the Stables Theatre and at the Arcola Theatre on 2, 3, 5, 6 September as part of the Grimeborn Festival.

Becoming Tosca relocates the action to an unspecific Latin American setting in the second half of the 20th century; where religion jostles with the politics of capitalism and self-interest. The production features new music by Frank Moon and was originally directed by Christopher Cowell. Anthony Flaum is Cavaradossi, Anna Sideris is Tosca and Brendan Collins is Scarpia. 

Full details from the Prologue Opera website.

Grimeborn 2025: The first staging of John Joubert's Jane Eyre alongside Tristan, Lucia, Don Giovanni & more

The Grimeborn Festival returns to Arcola Theatre from 16 July to 13 September 2025 for a season which includes fresh versions of classics such as Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Mozart's Don Giovanni as well as a the first full staging of John Joubert's late masterwork, Jane Eyre.

Arcola Theatre and Green Opera are collaborating on the first complete staging of John Joubert's Jane Eyre. John Joubert (1927-2019) worked on Jane Eyre from 1987 to 1997 but the work never had a proper professional performance and remained one of those tantalising possibilities. Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra gave the work its professional premiere in October 2016 in Birmingham, and the resulting live recording was released on the SOMM label in March 2017 [see my review] to coincide with Joubert’s 90th birthday. Now Eleanor Burke directs the work's first full staging, with Laura Mekhail as Jane and Hector Bloggs as Rochester.

Regents Opera, fresh from their triumphant Ring Cycle earlier this year, present an intimate take on Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in a new chamber arrangement of the score, created by musical director Michael Thrift. Guido Martin-Brandis directs with Brian Smith Walters as Tristan, Elizabeth Findon and Becca Marriott sharing Isolde. Brandis directed Regents Opera's predecessor, Fulham Opera's impressive staging of Strauss' Die ägyptische Helena in 2021 also with Brian Smith Walters, see my review. 

Ensemble OrQuesta and Marcio da Silva return to Mozart with a stripped down version of Don Giovanni with the orchestral accompaniment by the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra Ensemble, plus Oshri Segev, Flávio Lauria, Helen May, Rosemary Carlton-Willis, Anna-Luise Wagner, and John Twitchen. See my review of their production of Le nozze di Figaro at last year's Grimeborn Festival

Another returning company is Barefoot Opera who bring Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in a production blending storytelling and physical theatre, directed by Rosie Kat with Beren Fidan as Lucia. Other productions include Green Opera in Testament, a journey through four centuries of vocal music explores humanity’s evolving relationship with nature. Baseless Fabric reinvent Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore for today's social media savvy world, whilst Prologue Opera present Becoming Tosca an evening that explores Puccini's opera and its background, setting the story in context, combining newly commissioned music with an abridged version of Puccini’s score. And Neal Hampton's musical version of Sense & Sensibility (with book and lyrics by Jeffrey Haddow) returns after last year's sold-out run.

Full details from Arcola Theatre's website.

A subtle depiction of a complex man, Green Opera's 555:Verlaine en prison at Grimeborn

Verlaine drinking absinthe in the Café François 1er in 1892, photographed by Paul Marsan Dornac (Photo: Musée Carnavalet)

Logan Lopez Gonzalez, Eleanor Burke - 555:Verlaine en prison; Logan Lopez Gonzalez, Anna Sideris, Stella Marie Lorenz; Green Opera at Grimeborn Festival at Arcola Theatre
Reviewed 6 September 2024

Interweaving settings of Verlaine's poetry with contemporary narrative, an imaginative evening that sought to illuminate the remarkable interior life of poet Paul Verlaine set against the violence of his everyday existence

Green Opera's 555:Verlaine en prison is a music theatre piece that combines Verlaine's poetry and contemporary narrative with settings of Verlaine's poems by Fauré, Hahn, Debussy, Deodac de Severac, Léo Ferré and others, to explore the poet Verlaine's remarkable narrative. Verlaine comes over as a rather unpleasant and disreputable character, his relationship with Arthur Rimbaud less of a great love story and more of a giant conflagration of passion and violence. 

Verlaine would die a destitute alcoholic. But in 1873 he was sentenced to two years in prison (in fact 555 days) for shooting his then lover Rimbaud, yet for Verlaine, the residence in prison was a positive experience, he wrote of it 'I once lived in the best of castles. In the finest land of white water and hills.  Four towers rose up from its four-winged front.  And one was my residence for long long days'. During his tenure he wrote poetry, poems that would change the face of French poetry and which, at first, seem remarkably out of keeping for the drunken sot that Verlaine appeared to be.

555:Verlaine en prison - Logan Lopez Gonzalez - Green Opera (Photo: Laurent Compagnon)

It is this dichotomy that Green Opera's 555:Verlaine en prison seeks to explore. Conceived by Belgian countertenor Logan Lopez Gonzalez and director Eleanor Burke, the work debuted last year and was performed at the Arcola Theatre in September 2023. 555:Verlaine en prison returned to the Arcola Theatre for further performances at the 2024 Grimeborn Festival, with Logan Lopez Gonzalez and Anna Sideris, plus Stella Marie Lorenz on piano.

Drawing you in: Ensemble OrQuesta combined physical theatre with comedy & a sense of anger in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at Grimeborn

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro - Rosemary Carlton-Willis, Marcio da Silva, Joshua Furtado-Mendes - Ensemble OrQesta at Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Fesitval

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro; Marcio da Silva, Helen May, Oshri Segev, Hollie-Anne Clark, Rosemary Carlton-Willis, Anna-Luisa Wagner, director: Marcio da Silva, Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra Ensemble, conductor: Kieran Staub; Ensemble OrQuesta Company at Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival
Reviewed 31 August 2024

Comedy and physical theatre along with veins of seriousness and anger in a chamber production that really drew you into Mozart and Da Ponte's world

And interesting influence on Mozart and Da Ponte's operas is the sequence of operas created by Galuppi and Goldoni in Venice in the mid-18th century which mixed serious aristocrats with comic servants running rings around them. In Galuppi's operas the count is usually a castrato, but if you transfer him to a baritone, you have the situation in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Here the mix of characters, seria, buffa and semi-seria recalls Mozart's letter about this mix of character types in Don Giovanni. The challenge with any production of Le nozze di Figaro is to get this balance of the serious and the comic.

At Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival, Marcio da Silva's Ensemble OrQuesta returned for the company's sixth visit to the festival, this time moving from the Baroque to the Classical with Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (seen 31 August 2024). Marcio da Silva directed (and played Figaro) with Kieran Staub conducting a septet drawn from the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra (of which da Silva is founder and artistic director), Izabela Stocka and Andrew Kelly, violins, Jordi Morell, viola, Natalie Hancock, cello, Adam Churchyard, double bass, Boyan Ivanov and Fresca David, clarinets.

Marcia da Silva was Figaro, Helen May was Susanna, Oshri Segev was the Count, Hollie-Anne Clark was the Countess, Rosemary Carlton-Willis was Marcellina, Anna-Luise Wagner was Cherubino, Flavio Lauria was Don Bartolo, Tara Venkatesan was Barbarina, Joshua Furtado-Mendes was Basilio and Don Curzio, and Jay Rockwell as Antonio.

More Buffy the Vampire Slayer than German Romanticism: Gothic Opera's Der Vampyr at the Grimeborn Festival

Marschner: Der Vampyr - Milena Knauß - Gothic Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Marschner: Der Vampyr, in a version by Julia Mintzer & Kelly Lovelady; Giuseppe Pellingra, Milena Knauß, Jack Roberts, Amber Reeves, Conall O'Neill, Madeleine Todd, Matthew Scott Clark, Gráinne Gillis, director: Julia Mintzer, conductor: Kelly Lovelady, Gothic Opera; Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre
14 August 2024

A brave revival of the important German Romantic opera, reinvented as a Vampire romp, performed with a gusto that rather lost the subtleties of Marschner's score.

A younger contemporary of Weber, Heinrich Marschner wrote operas in the same vein of German Romanticism, with its fascination with supernatural, exploring heightened emotions and the dramatic possibilities that the orchestra and an increased used of reminiscence motifs offered. Marschner's leading male characters are often flawed individuals, Don Giovanni-like, psychologically complex and his operas had an important influence on Wagner. However, they have their limitations, these composers and their librettists were developing a new German opera and the tradition lacked the depth of experience that Italian librettists could draw on. And from a modern stand-point, heroines tend to be passive and lack any sort of agency.

Marschner's 1827 opera, Der Vampyr remains on the very fringes of the repertoire, partly because its libretto (by Marschner's brother-in-law) is ultimately based on John Polidori's 1819 short story, The Vampyre. But in English-speaking countries, productions of the opera remain rare. I am not sure when it last received a large-scale production in the UK, and its last significant outing was on TV in 1992 as a TV soap-opera! But then, this reflects the general lack of interest in pre-Wagnerian German Romantic opera, as much tends to me made of its dramaturgical limitations.

Gothic Opera was founded with a production of Marschner's Der Vampyr in 2019, and director Julia Mintzer and music director Kelly Lovelady returned to the opera, revisiting that adaptation. The production opened at Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival on Wednesday 14 August 2024. Giuseppe Pellingra as Ruthven, Milena Knauß as Malwina, Jack Roberts as Aubrey, Amber Reeves as Emmy, Conall O’Neill as Davenaut, Madeleine Todd as Janthe, Matthew Scott Clark as Georg and Gráinne Gillis as Vampire Master. Designs were by Charles Ogilvie.

Marschner: Der Vampyr - Giuseppe Pellingra, Amber Reeves - Gothic Opera (Photo: Craig Fuller)

The opera was sung in German, but with new English dialogue by Julia Mintzer and the production was best understood as being after Marschner, as Mintzer and Lovelady created a rather irreverent romp inspired by more modern vampire films, the production leaned into humour rather a lot and the finale veered between schock-horror and Monty Python. Somewhere along the line, Marschner's brand of German romanticism got well and truly lost.

Turning Punch and Judy on its head: the Opera Makers' Mr Punch at the Opera puts a new, family oriented twist on Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona

If Birtwistle's 1968 opera Punch and Judy took the children's puppet entertainment into the adult realm, The Opera Makers plan to the opposite with their new show Mr Punch at the Opera which is an interactive, pantomime-style adaptation of Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, intended as a fun (and short) way for children and families to access classical opera this Summer.

Mr Punch at the Opera is at the Arcola Theatre from 21 to 24 August 2024 as part of the Grimeborn Festival. The new adaptation of Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona features a new English book by Becca Marriott and stars Matthew Kellett and Grace Nyandoro, with puppeteer Professor James, cellist Alison Holford and pianist Panaretos Kyriatzidis.

Mr Punch at The Opera explores all the ways puppets and opera singers can interact – as the heroine of the piece takes control of her story and her lazy boss Hubert, and lays siege to the mischievous Mr Punch’s theatre. For its time, La Serva Padrona was a progressive, feminist show with a feisty leading lady, and Mr Punch at The Opera takes this further, using an outdated narrative to red-flag representations of women in theatre and literature then - and now - turning the traditional anti-women idea of Punch & Judy on its head.

Full details from Arcola Theatre website.

Baroque rarity: Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre's Céphale et Procris at the Grimeborn Festival

Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Céphale et Procris
Ensemble OrQuesta

Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Céphale et Procris; Ensemble OrQuesta, Marcio da Silva; Grimeborn Festival Arcola Theatre
Reviewed by Florence Anna Maunders, 30th August 2023

Rare production of baroque opera from a female composer

Premiered in 1694, French composer Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre's Céphale et Procris was not a success and only ran for five or six performances before disappearing from the stage. The work was revived in the late 20th century and is, however, still rarely staged. Were it not for its milestone significance in being the first published French opera by a female composer, it has little to distinguish it musically from other post-Lully stage works of the late 1600's, with an almost stereotypical plot set in classical Athens.

Jacquet de La Guerre's Céphale et Procris was performed at Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival (seen 30 August) by Marcio da Silva's Ensemble OrQuesta with Kieran White as Céphale and Poppy Shotts as Procris. The dynamic one-man force of nature that is Marcio da Silva has committed everything in his power towards the success of this production, directing, conducting, producing a new edition of the score, performing in the orchestra and even appearing in the small role of Arcas. It can't be denied that the production has some successful moments. Although the nature of the drama strived and ultimately failed to escape its 17th Century sensibilities, it still had plenty of elegance, style and moved through the many short musical episodes with a surefooted and rapid pace.

Ethel Smyth in lighter mode: The Boatswain's Mate returns to the Grimeborn Festival

Ethel Smyth: The Boatswain's Mate - Josephine Goddard - Spectra Ensemble (Photo Lidia Crisafulli)

Ethel Smyth: The Wreckers; Josephine Goddard, John Upperton, Shaun Aquilina, Spectra Ensemble, director: Cecilia Stinton, musical director: John Warner; Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre
Reviewed 13 August 2022 (★★★½)

Enterprising small-scale revival of Smyth's innovative and charming comedy, with an engaging cast having great fun

After the premiere of her opera The Wreckers in 1906, Ethel Smyth's operatic career took a somewhat new direction. For a start, she took time out to devote to the Suffragette cause, but when she went to Egypt in 1913 to work without distractions, it was to write a two act comic opera. The move was deliberate, but prescient, after three large-scale grand operas she felt the need for something smaller, felt it in tune with the times. And of course, in 1914 plans for German performances of The Wreckers, Der Wald and The Boatswain's Mate were shelved; Smyth's musical career, hitherto substantially based in Germany, would never be the same again. 

Intriguingly, one of the subjects that she seriously considered for the opera, before settling on the story by W.W. Jacobs, was J.M. Synge's play Riders to the Sea, which was used by RVW some years later.

The Boatswain's Mate isn't a masterpiece, but it has plenty of engaging music and an intriguingly feminist edge to the drama; the opera's protagonist Mrs Waters was reputedly based on Mrs Pankhurst (with whom Smyth was for a time in love). But its compact forces mean that in the 20th century it became one of Smyth's most performed operas.

Ethel Smyth: The Boatswain's Mate - Shaun Aquilina, John Upperton - Spectra Ensemble (Photo Lidia Crisafulli)

The Spectra Ensemble first performed Ethel Smyth's The Boatswain's Mate at the Grimeborn Festival in 2018, in the downstairs studio. The production returned for the 2022 Grimeborn Festival, revised and expanded to fit the larger upstairs studio at the Arcola Theatre (seen 13 August 2022), with further performances planned at North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford, Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh  and St George’s Theatre, Great Yarmouth. Cecilia Swinton directed and musical director John Warner played piano with Emily Earl, violin, and Meera Priyanka Raja (cello). Josephine Goddard was Mrs Waters, John Upperton was Harry Benn, and Shaun Aquilina was Ned Travers, with Beca Davies, Philippe Durrant, and Robert Winslade Anderson.

Stupendous achievement: Grimeborn's Ring adventure comes to a thrilling and satisfying conclusion at the Hackney Empire

Wagner: Götterdämmerung - Lee Bisset - Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival at Hackney Empire (Photo Alex Brenner)

Wagner: Siegfried & Götterdämmerung, adapted by Graham Vick & Jonathan Dove; Lee Bisset, Neal Cooper, Mark Le Brocq, Paul Carey Jones, Freddie Tong, director: Julia Burbach, Orpheus Sinfonia, conductor: Peter Selwyn; Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival at Hackney Empire
Reviewed 6 August 2022 (★★★★★)

The Grimeborn fringe Ring Cycle comes to a thrilling and satisfying conclusion, telling this complex story in a way that was engaging and direct, with some fine singing and acting.

The Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival Ring adventure came to a triumphant conclusion yesterday (6 August 2022) with the performances of Julia Burbach's production of Wagner's Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at the Hackney Empire. The adaptation by Graham Vick and Jonathan Dove was used, with Peter Selwyn conducting the Orpheus Sinfonia. Lee Bisset was Brünnhilde, Paul Carey Jones was the Wanderer, Freddie Tong was Alberich, with Neal Cooper as Siegfried (in Siegfried) and Mark Le Brocq as Siegfried (in Götterdämmerung), plus Lucy Anderson (Gutrune), Mae Heydorn (Erda, Flosshilde), Lizzie Holmes (Woglinde), Elizabeth Karani (Woodbird),  Bethan Mary Langford (Wellgunde), Angharad Lyddon (Waltraute), Simon Thorpe (Gunther), and Simon Wilding (Fafner, Hagen). Designs were by Bettina John, and lighting by Robert Price.

The two operas were performed as a double-bill (as Vick and Dove originally intended with City of Birmingham Opera); Siegfried in a single span of two hours, with Götterdämmerung in the evening with an interval. We thus had over four hours of music, and the young players of the Orpheus Sinfonia (just 18 of them) performing a truly heroic service. Dove's orchestration is highly imaginative and whilst one or two moments lack the sheer depth and richness of Wagner's full version, for nearly all of the time we had the weight and depth of colour that we wanted, and what we lost in sheer magnitude we gained in moments which reach almost chamber intimacy. This was particularly true of Lee Bisset's glorious Immolation Scene where she was able to be quiet, intimate and thoughtful in a way that the full version would not allow, almost taking us into Brünnhilde's thought processes.

Black, el Payaso: Pablo Sorozábal's engaging operetta gets its UK premiere in an enterprising production by Cervantes Theatre at Grimeborn

Sorozábal:Black, el payaso - Michael Lafferty, Giuseppe Pellingra - Cervantes Theatre at Grimeborn Festival (Photo: Elena Molina)

Pablo Sorozábal: Black, el Payaso; Michael Lafferty, Raphaela Papadakis, Giuseppe Pellingra, Juliet Wallace, David Powton, director Paula Paz, music director Ricardo Gosalbo; Cervantes Theatre at the Grimeborn Festival at Arcola Theatre
Reviewed 2 August 2022 (★★★★)

A fantasy plot, that hid themes of exile and revolution in plain sight, is at the heart of this 1941 Spanish operetta full of lovely melodies and with musical links to Berlin music-theatre and Viennese operetta from the Silver Age

Pablo Sorozábal, who died in 1988 at the age of 91, was the last representative of the romantic Spanish zarzuela tradition. He is perhaps best known internationally for the romanza 'No puede ser' (from his 1936 zarzuela La tabernera del puerto) which was sung by Placido Domingo at the Three Tenors concert!

There was a rare chance to hear Sorozábal's work in London when the Cervantes Theatre presented the UK premiere of Sorozábal's Black, el Payaso (Black, the Clown) at Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival (seen 2 August 2022). Paula Paz directed with Michael Lafferty as Black, Raphaela Papadakis as Sofia, Giuseppe Pellingra as White, Juliet Wallace as Catalina, David Powton as Marat and Charles Dupont, and Simon Bundock as the child. Sets and costumes were by Caitlin Abbott with lighting by Lucia Sanchez. Ricardo Gosalbo was the music director and had made the musical arrangement whereby accompaniment was provided by him on piano and Elena Jauregui on violin, percussion and, at one point, toy trumpet. The libretto was adapted by Ignacio Garcia and translated by Simon Breden. The work was presented with English dialogue and sung Spanish.

Sorozábal:Black, el payaso - Juliet Wallace, David Powton - Cervantes Theatre at Grimeborn Festival (Photo: Elena Molina)

Anyone expecting a Spanish theme to the evening was going to be disappointed. As well as Spain, Sorozábal trained in Leipzig and Berlin, where he studied with Friedrich Koch (in preference to Schoenberg). Interestingly amongst Koch's other pupils are Kurt Weill and Boris Blacher. Sorozábal described Black, el Payaso as an operetta, and its Ruritanian theme and musical style align it very much with late Viennese operetta. Sorozábal's music includes a csardas and 'gypsy music', as well as more modern elements such as a tango, whilst the plot (based on a French novel, La princesse aux clowns of 1923 by Jean-Jose Frappa) involves a country on the Black Seas which has had a revolution and a group of emigres in Paris.

But the sheer fantasy of the plot meant that it got past the censors. Black, el Payaso was premiered in Barcelona in 1942; the Civil War had not long ended, Franco was in power, Sorozábal was a liberal and out of favour. The opera was just fantasy wasn't it?

From Bayreuth to Grimeborn: having assisted at Bayreuth Festival's new Ring Cycle, Peter Selwyn moves on to conduct the concluding parts of the Grimeborn Festival's ambitious Ring Cycle

Wagner: Die Walküre - Bethan Langford, Elizabeth Karani & Katie Stevenson as the Valkyries - Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival at Hackney Empire in 2021 (Photo Alex Brenner)

As Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival opens on 26 July 2022, I chat to conductor Peter Selwyn who is conducting the festival's new productions of Wagner's Siegfried and Götterdämmerung as part of its ongoing Ring Cycle. The festival's ambitious Ring Cycle project began in 2018. Staged by Julia Burbach with Peter Selwyn conducting, the first instalment, Das Rheingold [see my review], opened at the Arcola Theatre in August 2019. 

Peter Selwyn

They are using reduction by Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick, but it is still an ambitious project and when the planned staging of Die Walküre was postponed in 2020, the project looked evening more challenging. But Burbach and Selwyn returned in August 2021 with Die Walküre at the Grimeborn Festival, yet staged at the Hackney Empire [see my review]. Now the cycle is being completed and Peter conducts Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at the Hackney Empire on 6 and 7 August 2022. I recently caught up with Peter by Zoom from Bayreuth where has been assisting on the new production of the Ring Cycle which opens at the Bayreuth Festival at the end of this month.

Peter says he has to keep pinching himself that what he describes as a crazy project is still managing to take place. When we spoke, they had already started rehearsing without him and it was all systems go. Das Rheingold was rather special, taking place within the confines of the larger studio at the Arcola, but it stretched the orchestra almost beyond its capabilities. To fit in the space, violins and cellos had to play in a specific attitude. So whilst for the audience it might have been highly effective and very immersive, Peter and Julia felt that they had to move on to the Hackney Empire for Die Walküre. And with COVID, there was of course no way to do the project at the Arcola, as the closeness would not work. So the move gave them space, for the players and for the staging, but also for health reasons. For Die Walküre, last year, the auditorium was around half full but hopefully this year it will be full. Also, there are fewer performances this year, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung  done as a double bill on two days.

The Ring Returns: Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival celebrates opera from Monteverdi through to contemporary with some zarzuela thrown in

Wagner: Die Walküre - Bethan Langford, Elizabeth Karani, Katie Stevenson - Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival at Hackney Empire in 2021 (Photo Alex Brenner)

Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival returns this Summer for its 15th year, presenting fourteen operas and four new works, with the festival's productions of Wagner's Siegfried and Götterdämmerung completing its traversal of Wanger's Ring Cycle.

The festival opens with Ensemble OrQuesta's modern interpretation of Monteverdi's L’Incoronazione di Poppea. Then following the festival's productions of Das Rheingold in 2019 [see my review] and Die Walküre in 2021 [see my review], they return to the Hackney Empire for the final two episodes of the Ring Cycle in Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick's adaptation.

Thanks to Glyndebourne and the BBC Proms, this is rather turning into Ethel Smyth year (hurrah!) so it is delightful that Spectra Ensemble's 2018 production of Smyth's The Boatswain's Mate is returning to Grimeborn [see my review]. Other unusual repertoire includes The Cervantes Theatre in the UK première of Black, el payaso, Pablo Sorozobal's zarzuela which debuted in Spain in 1942, whilst Opera at Home are pairing Walton's The Bear with Daniel Felsenfeld's I decided...

New opera and work in progress includes John Michael Maloney's Sin the Musical from Dmii Productions, Kristina Arakelyan's Penelope (Work in Progress), What More? Production's mixture of Japanese and British Sign Language of Deaf performers in Sumida River and Red Gray & Sarah Nicholls' The Unravelling Fantasia of Miss H. which explores the Victorian mental health system.

Classic operas in the season include Bizet's Carmen in Leo Geyer's bold re-imagining for Baseless Fabric Theatre, Mozart's The Magic Flute in Lindsay Bramley's version for Opera Alegria, Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore in a radical rethink from Emma Jude Harris, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle from environmentally sustainable opera company Green Opera.

The Grimeborn Festival runs from 26 July to 10 September at the Arcola Theatre and the Hackney Empire. Full details from the Arcola Theatre website.

Strong impact: Handel's Alcina from Ensemble OrQuesta at Grimeborn

Handel: Alcina - John Holland-Avery, Kathleen Nic Dhiarmada, Maya Wheeler-Colwell - Ensemble OrQuesta, Grimeborn 2021) - (Photo Andreas Grieger)

Handel Alcina; Helena May, Laura Fleur, Kathleen Nic Dhiarmada, Maya Wheeler-Colwell, Kieran White, Marcio da Silva, Stephanie Gurga, Ensemble OrQuesta; Grimeborn Festival at Arcola Outside
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 25 August 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
With Alcina as office diva, this production was firmly in the 21st century, with a strong musical impact and fine, balanced cast.

On 25 August 2021, Ensemble OrQesta returned to the Grimeborn Festival with a production Handel's Alcina presented at Arcola Outside, the Arcola Theatre's new covered outdoor space. Directed by Marcio da Silva (who was co-music director), the production featured Helen May as Alcina, Laura Fleur as Ruggiero, Kathleen Nic Dhiarmada as Morgana, Maya Wheeler-Colwell as Bradamante, Kieran White as Oronte, John Holland-Avery as Melisso and Poppy Shotts as Oberto with Ethan Udovich as chorus. The opera was accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble, Stephanie Gurga (harpsichord, co-music director), Cédric Meyer (archlute / baroque guitar), Edmund Taylor and Kirsty Main (violin), Georgie Davis (viola) and Jacob Garside (cello).

Handel had something of a fondness for what might be termed 'bad girls', his anti-heroines are often vividly etched and this is particularly true of his sorceresses, whether we are talking about his early operas such as Rinaldo and Teseo, or a late masterpiece like Alcina. By the time Handel came to write Alcina he was running his own company and answerable to no-one except his audience (which was rather fickle). This means that his late sequence of operas is rather more varied in style than those of the great period of the Royal Academy of Music when Handel was beholden to a committee of aristocrats who decided what operas to present.

When first presented at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in 1735 the opera was quite a spectacle including dance sequences for Marie Sallé and her company. But this spectacle should not blind us to the fact that by setting a fantasy libretto, in some ways Handel freed himself from the constraints of opera seria plotting, so that Alcina and Morgana can be amoral and certainly not upright citizens, yet still the focus of our attention. That Handel had great sympathy with human foibles and emotions is what makes his operas so satisfying today, his ability to pull out deep emotions in his characters. So we have immense sympathy for Alcina and Morgana despite their behaviour; the plot, shorn of its Romance trappings, says a lot to us today.

Handel: Alcina - Laura Fleur, Helen May - Ensemble OrQuesta, Grimeborn 2021) - (Photo Andreas Grieger)

To emphasise this Marcio da Silva set Alcina in a modern office, where Alcina (Helen May) is the reigning diva, using her 'magic' to dominate (mentally, physically and sexually) her staff. And as this is the 21st century, sexuality is fluid so that with all the cross dressing (both mezzo-soprano male roles were played by women as was the boy, Oberto) we were never entirely sure of gender or sexuality. The decision was of great practical sense in that the production needed only simple modern set and costumes. But all was not naturalistic, Da Silva used movement and make-up to heighten the drama, this was a very stylised office.

Hopes & Fears: The Opera Makers at Grimeborn Festival

As part of the Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival, The Opera Makers is presenting a new work based around a collection of stories of people living with cancer. Hopes & Fears, which is being presented from 1 to 4 September 2021, features a new libretto by Becca Marriott and uses music by Debussy to create a work which tells stories exploring the strength of human spirit in the face of extreme adversity.

The piece uses audio recordings of interviews with people living cancer as well as those who have supported them alongside Debussy's L’enfant prodigue and La Damoiselle élue in a new arrangement by musical director, Panaretos Kyriatzidis. The production is directed by Jorge Balsa, and created with Shine Cancer Support UK, and features Caroline Carragher, Nina Bennet, Lara Martins, Paul Putnins, Martins Smaukstelis and Becca Marriott.

Full details from the Arcola Theatre website.

A little miracle: Grimeborn Festival opens with Wagner's Die Walküre at Hackney Empire

Wagner: Die Walküre - Finnur Bjarnason, Mark Stone
Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival at Hackney Empire  (Photo Alex Brenner)

Wagner Die Walküre; Mark Stone, Laure Meloy, Natasha Jouhl, Finnur Bjarnason, Harriet Williams, Simon Wilding, Julia Burbach, Orpheus Sinfonia, Peter Selwyn; Grimeborn Festival at the Hackney Empire
Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 4 August 2021 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★)
Grimeborn returns to The Ring with superb panache in a deep exploration of a family in crisis

That Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Festival has been able to open this year with the continuation of its Ring Cycle is nothing short of miraculous. On 4 August 2021, Julia Burbach [see my interview with Julia] returned to direct Wagner's Die Walküre for the Grimeborn Festival, not at the Arcola Theatre but in the grander (and larger) Hackney Empire, with Mark Stone as Wotan, Laure Meloy as Brünnhilde, Finnur Bjarnason as Siegmund, Natasha Jouhl as Sieglinde, Harriet Williams as Fricka, Simon Wilding as Hunding, and Elizabeth Karani, Bethan Langford and Katie Stevenson as the Valkyries. Peter Selwyn conducted the Orpheus Sinfonia. Designs were by Bettina John.

The opera was performed in the version by Graham Vick and Jonathan Dove which trims the piece down to 150 minutes of music and uses an orchestra of 18 (still large for a fringe enterprise). The cutting down is done expertly, and in many ways this is Wagner without Rossini's 'mauvais quart d'heures'. At the core of the piece is a series of tense dialogues through which Wagner unfolds the philosophical underpinning of the cycle, so that whilst there are grand moments it is these personal interactions which count.

Burbach's production focused on the people and their interactions, and the evening was articulated by a series of strong and involving performances. The great moments were there, the discovery of Nothung, 'Winterstürme', the Ride of Valkyries and so-on; for all the production's low budget, Burbach had her eye on Wagner's libretto and made sure everything needed was there (not a given in modern Wagner productions), but her interest wasn't theatrical dazzle for its own sake, but the deep exploration of a family crisis with a strong philosophical underpinning.

A passionate evening: Bellini's I Capuleti ed I Montecchi

Bellini: I Capuleti ed I Montecchi - Flora McIntosh, Chiara Vinci - Grimeborn Festival (Photo Lida Crisafulli)

Bellini: I Capuleti ed I Montecchi; Chiara Vinci, Flora McIntosh; James Ioelu; Anthony Flaum; Pauls Putnins, dir: Lysanne van Overbeek, Kelvin Lim; Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre
Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 2 September 2019 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★)
Bellini's Tragedia Lirica at the Grimeborn Festival

Bellini: I Capuleti ed I Montecchi
Flora McIntosh, Chiara Vinci
Grimeborn Festival (Photo Lida Crisafulli)

I Capuleti ed I Montecchi is a Tragedia Lirica in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with a libretto by Felice Romani. In their version the ill-fated lovers, from the Capulet and Montague families, are members of opposing political factions, the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Romeo, the Montecchi leader, has killed the son of his rival Capellio. Giulietta is betrothed to Tebaldo but is already smitten with Romeo. Defying their households for love, Romeo and Giulietta meet their tragic fate.

Over the years assumptions have been made about the imputed influence of Shakespeare on Bellini’s work. Amongst the other more likely contenders credited with being the main source of inspiration Matteo Bandello is most often cited, including by Romani’s wife. But Romani and Nicola Vaccai’s own Giulietta e Romeo for Milan was based on a play of the same name by Luigi Scevola written in 1818. The tomb scene from Vaccai’s opera has on occasion been used in Bellini’s.

In any event the opera's gestation was hurried. Bellini was in Venice to prepare a production of Il Pirata, when he was given notice that the contract for a new opera would fall to him. Writing it for the available singers, and ruthlessly ‘rescuing’ and reworking music from the poorly received Zaira, it is not the best of Bellini. Structurally it feels unbalanced and lacking in characterisation. The dramatic impetus is controlled by the men with precious little talk of love. The best music goes to the women albeit one en travesti.

So, whether, as a popular entertainment, you can ignore its weaknesses and appreciate its uncomplicated storytelling is a matter of personal taste as much as the quality of its performers. The performance of Bellini's I Capuleti ed I Montecchi at the Arcola Theatre on 2 September 2019 was presented by Over the Pond as part of the Grimeborn Festival in a production directed by Lysanne van Overbeek. The star-crossed lovers were sung by Flora McIntosh and Chiara Vinci. Capellio and Tebaldo were James Ioelu and Anthony Flaum. Pauls Putnins was Lorenzo. Piano accompaniment was by Kelvin Lim.

The production began with a simple enough premise.

Noah Mosley and Elisabetta Campeti's Aurora at the Grimeborn Festival

Katherine Aitken, Isolde Roxby
Bury Court Opera (Photo Robert Workman)

Noah Mosely & Elisabetta Campeti Aurora; Isolde Roxby, Katherine Aitken, Andrew Tipple, Jean-Max Lattemann, dir: Aylin Bozok; Bury Court Opera at the Grimeborn Festival
Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 24 August 2019 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★)
Noah Mosely's irrepressibly romantic new opera returns to Grimeborn after its premiere earlier this year

On Saturday 24 August 2019, Bury Court Opera’s production of Aurora appeared as part of the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre. [See Robert's review of the opera's premiere at Bury Court]. At Saturday’s performance, directed by Aylin Bozok, Isolde Roxby and Katherine Aitken sang Aurora and the Wild Woman; Andrew Tipple the King. Jean-Max Lattemann was the Mountain Witch, whilst Dominic Bowe and Magid El Bushra were the two Princes. Aurora is the second opera Bury Court has commissioned from composer Noah Mosley. Noah is a London based conductor and composer and Music Director of the Helios Collective – is there a theme here, Helios being the sibling of Eos (Aurora)? The libretto is by Elisabetta Campeti.

Aurora the goddess of dawn whose tears fell as morning dew is in this incarnation the protagonist in an Italian folk story set in the Dolomites. The Dolomites’ peculiar shapes and colours have spawned many a tale and myth down the years. It’s not explained upon what particular myth it is based, but the blurb told us that it’s a journey of spiritual awakening, sacrifice and love that ‘deeply resonates with our modern times’.

Less can sometimes be more: Verity Lane's 'The Crane' at the Grimeborn Festival

Verity Lane: The Crane - Grimeborn Festival

Verity Lane The Crane; Hester Dart, Tomoko Komura, Mirei Yazawa, Kiku Day, Beibei Wang; Grimeborn Festivala at the Arcola Theatre
Reviewed by Anthony Evans on 22 August 2019 Star rating: 3.0 (★★★)
A Noh Theatre-inspired multi-media opera installation

Variously described as a "mystical opera" and a "multi-media opera installation", Verity Lane’s production of The Crane at this year’s Grimeborn Festival, a lacework of images, movement and music, takes inspiration from Noh Theatre with a certain amount of cross-cultural pollination. The company is made up of performance artists and musicians from Japan, Denmark, China and London with the animator Rowan O’Brien hailing from Ireland. The music and libretto, both English and Japanese, is by Verity Lane.

At the Arcola Theatre performance of Verity Lane's The Crane on Saturday 24 August, the Crane was Mirei Yazawa, the Old Lady and Old Man were Hester Dart and Tomoko Komura. The ethnomusicologist Kiku Day played 'Japanese flutes' and Beibei Wang percussion. The chorus were Kasia Andrzejewska, Rebecca Hoodless, Dominic Mattos, Rekkha Ray and Holly Slater.