Monday, October 14

Tag: Birmingham Opera Company

Birmingham Opera Company: The Ice Break
West Midlands

Birmingham Opera Company: The Ice Break

Birmingham Opera’s Artistic Director Graham Vick takes a brave leap in transforming this opera by Michael Tippett the first interpretation since 1977 in Covent Garden. An unused warehouse is cleverly transformed into a strange airport terminal where the audience stands and is ushered around to the dramatic action by the chorus; a lot whom are from the local community. Opera can have many connotations, high brow, difficult to understand and perhaps for an old fashioned elite; Vick throws all this on its head with an utterly gripping show where everything is energised for a fascinating heady performance that is contemporary and relevant. It is indeed even more relevant with the Black Lives Movement that has been a regular feature of the last few months. The themes focus on race, rio...
Othello – Birmingham Opera Company
West Midlands

Othello – Birmingham Opera Company

Shakespeare’s Othello is a tragedy which explores timeless themes of race, trust and fidelity and Verdi’s operatic version adds a mesmerising backdrop of powerful music. Birmingham Opera Company’s production is a unique modern interpretation which immersed its original audience within the action of the story and exposes the darkest elements of the story in shocking detail. The opera is sung in English, with occasional subtitles which turn on and off at seemingly random intervals. The opera is performed in a warehouse, with bare brick walls and a blood red carpet, with a live orchestra conducted by Stephen Barlow. As part of the broadcast we see the bewildered and shoeless audience enter the performance space and merge into the Chorus made up of 250 people. It was clearly the intention o...