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Operas
SNEGUROCHKA, The Snow Maiden
Based on ‘springtime fairy-tale’ and full of genuine Russian folk melodies, the music of Snegurochka has melted the hearts of audiences all over the world for more than a hundred years.
- Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov
- RIMSKY- KOSAKOV’S FAVOURITE OPERA
- (Sung in Russian with English Surtitles)
It has been winter for fifteen years because the Sun God is angry that Frost and Spring have had a daughter together: Snegurochka. Now on the verge of adulthood, she decides to escape the cold and lonely forest and join the world of the mortals. She is attracted by Lel’s seductive songs but is unable to express her feelings for him. Snegurochka’s friend Kupava is engaged to Mizgir, but when he sees Snegurochka he falls in love with her instead and breaks off the original engagement, leaving Kupava upset and angry at her betrayal. She seeks solace in the arms of Lel. Meanwhile Snegurochka begs her mother to grant her the capacity for human love and warmth. At a mass spring wedding, Snegurochka professes her love for Mizgir as a ray of sun strikes her and she melts away. The Sun God is appeased by her death and all celebrate the coming of spring.
Book NowTHE MINES OF SULPHUR
A cast of low- lifes and a grim tale of murder, theft and amateur dramatics. The music is written in an exquisitely melancholy idiom.
- Richard Rodney Bennett
- OPERA THAT HURTS LIKE HELL…
- (Sung in English with English Surtitles)
The setting is a grand but decaying house in the West Country, where a gypsy who has been mistreated by the lord of the manor returns, with two accomplices, to take her revenge. He is duly murdered, but celebrations are cut short by the arrival of a troupe of actors seeking shelter for the night. They give a performance in exchange, although as the play progresses the subject matter tends too uncomfortably close to recent events for the liking of the three killers. Worse still, the actors discover the body of the owner of the house. A desperate plan is hatched: the gypsy and her two companions will lock the actors in the house, set fire to it and escape. Just as they are about to do so, however, it is revealed that the mysterious actors are carrying with them more than just their costumes and props…
Book NowTUTTI IN MASCHERA, Everyone in Disguise
If Opera singers are always talking about themselves, the same might be said of the works they perform: Tutti in maschera is an opera…..about opera!
- Carlo Pedrotti
- IN JOKES AND OUT-TAKES
- (Sung in Italian with English Surtitles)
In this updated telling of Pedrotti’s masterpiece, the action is set in Italy in the aftermath of the Second World War It’s a time when lots of theatrical artists are touring around the devastated countryside of Italy looking for work, hungry for glory and fame—or just plain hungry!—but things are looking up for one particular group of singers: a wealthy foreigner has come to Venice to recruit his own opera company. His criteria for casting the main female roles, however, comes under suspicion, and there’s another problem too: when the entire impoverished company is invited by the unscrupulous impresario to a masked ball at La Fenice (Venice’s famous opera house), how will they come up with the necessary sumptuous costumes?
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"There are two big opera anniversaries this year: 150 years since the birth of Puccini, and
100 years since the death of
Rimsky-Korsakov. We are managing to celebrate both. The choice of Snegurochka to the
main stage gives us an opportunity to introduce audiences to a masterpiece very rarely performed
outside Russia. Two long running themes of the Festival, the
exploration of neglected but worthy opera in English and that of pre-Verdian Italian opera, are
developed this year in the shape
of the Mines of Sulphur and Tutti in
Maschera"
- David Agler - Artistic Director
