Friday, December 5

Tag: Rosa Sparks

Don Giovanni – Lowther Pavilion Theatre
North West

Don Giovanni – Lowther Pavilion Theatre

Whilst it’s not customary to review the same production, a couple of key cast changes, a new venue, and the omission of the supporting orchestra meant that director Sarah Helsby-Hughes would have to overcome some challenges with Flat Pack Music’s ingenious re-setting of one of Mozart’s most complete operas to La Dolce Vita of 1960’s Italy: she was not to disappoint. Don Giovanni (Richard Walshe) has seduced over two thousand women, all catalogued by servant Leporello (David Bicarregui), and he is looking to add another name with his attempted rape of Donna Anna (Carrie-Ann Williams) that results in him killing her father, the Commendatore (George Elson), and which her fiancé Don Ottavio (Joseph Buckmaster) swears to revenge. Donna Elvira (Helsby-Hughes), an earlier conquest, has come...
The Marriage of Figaro – Waterside Arts, Sale
North West

The Marriage of Figaro – Waterside Arts, Sale

Mozart’s satirical and deeply human four-act comic opera, an adaptation with Da Ponte of Beaumarchais’ banned 1778 play about warring masters and servants, is delightfully brought to life with Chris Gill’s English libretto translation entertainingly directed by Sarah Helsby-Hughes. As the day of Figaro (David Cane) and Susanna’s (Heather Buckmaster) wedding arrives, it becomes clear that the Count (Mike Dewis), is keen to exercise his ‘droit du seigneur’ – his right to bed a servant girl on her wedding night – and they conspire with the forsaken Countess (Helsby-Hughes), to outwit her husband and teach him a lesson in fidelity. Plans however are thrown awry when Bartolo (Matthew Baldwin), seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his own earlier plans to marry the Countess, tries to ...