Friday, December 5

Tag: Ilona Karas

Albert Herring – The Lowry
North West

Albert Herring – The Lowry

English National Opera’s first official foray North sees director and designer Antony McDonald delightfully serve up Britten’s 1947 witty comic opera Albert Herring exposing the whimsy and hypocrisy at the heart of post-war British society. Lady Billows (Emma Bell) and her committee’s – aide Florence Pike (Carolyn Dobbin), headteacher Miss Wordsworth (Aoife Miskelly), vicar, Mr Gedge (Eddie Woods), Mayor, Mr Upfold (Mark Le Brocq), and Superintendent Budd (Andri Björn Róbertsson) of the local constabulary – attempts to identify a May Queen for the village come unstuck as they realise all the local girls are lacking the necessary virtuosity. The only option is the shy and reserved Albert Herring (Caspar Singh) who works at his mother’s (Leah-Marian Jones) greengrocers, where he is regula...
Tosca – Royal Ballet and Opera
London

Tosca – Royal Ballet and Opera

Director Oliver Mears triumphs with this modern-day interpretation of Puccini’s full-blooded three-act drama of politics and power with its many allusions to global current affairs to the fore. In a war-torn Rome, Floria Tosca (Anna Netreba) and Mario Cavaradossi (Freddie De Tommaso) live for each other and for their art. But when Cavaradossi helps an escaped prisoner, Cesare Angelotti (Ossian Huskinson), the lovers make a deadly enemy in the form of Baron Scarpia (Gerald Finley), Chief of Police. At the mercy of Scarpia’s twisted desires, Tosca is forced into making a horrific bargain: sleeping with the man she hates to save the man she loves. Can she find a way out? Mears’ focus is very much on the darker elements at the heart of the piece, in particular the contrast in class b...