July Newsletter - Bohème, and Tristan!

Hello everyone,

I write this on the bus - much cheaper and slightly quicker than the train - to Bayreuth, the home of Wagner himself. Cat is singing Gerhilde and indeed covering Brünnhilde at the festival this summer. I’m there for a couple of days R&R before returning to London for our ONLY London show of La Bohème, which has now had highly successful performances at Walcot Hall, and in Sussex, (review in their local Bugle).

Christine Buras and Davide Basso as Mimi and Rodolfo

Our La Bohème is on at Hoxton Hall (map) this coming Thursday 10th July at 7.30pm.

We have a discount code for the remaining seats, which is MIMI10, which will give you £10 off.

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Tristan und Isolde - our partner production at Grimeborn!

We are in partnership with Shatterbrain Productions, led by CJ Heaver, who was our marvellous producer on the Ring Cycle.

CJ says:

With quite a few familiar faces back from the Ring Cycle (half the cast and orchestra, in fact!), I’m very excited to be offering you another Wagner fix.

With an audience capacity of under 200, and a comparatively tiny cast, this is going to be intimate on a very different scale to the Ring, but no less epic in the depth of passion for storytelling and glorious music. And all for under £40.

We’ll be using an ensemble comprising a string quartet and piano, and while I won’t give anything else away, you might hear one or two other instruments briefly stepping in and out throughout the night. You’ll just have to come along to the show to hear them. 

Please do email me on cj@regentsopera.com if you have any questions, and I hope to see you there in August.

Michael Thrift returns to the Regents Opera fold to conduct the performances.

Michael says:

If there is a higher peak in the world of romantic opera than Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, I've not yet encountered it, and I dare say that it doesn't exist. Even by Wagnerian standards the numbers are huge; the length of the score, the aggregate hours the two leads spend on stage, the volume of philosophical head scratching it induces, even the amount of tenors that have died trying to sing it...there is little to challenge the scope of this opera. The story is - in several regards - unremarkable for the experienced opera-goer; two lovers, forbidden desire, ultimately doomed. Haven't we all been here before? Nonetheless, we keep getting pulled back to hear Wagner at his most harmonically intimate, his most theatrically tempestuous, his most cerebrally baffling best. This is the power of his music; it goes beyond mere notes, taking in several crafts and disciplines, giving any fan of theatre something to grab onto, whether they know Wagner or not.

For such a large work, a commensurately large team is required. In this co-production, where Shatterbrain are so gratefully supported by Regents Opera and The Opera Makers, I get to work with a glorious assemblage of colleagues both old and new, many of whom I got to know during my time with Regents Opera a few years ago, often in the large scale works of Wagner, Verdi and Puccini. The experience and talent we have on board for this puts us in good stead to provide you all with a wonderful night in the theatre.

6pm Wednesday August 13
6pm Friday August 15
6pm Saturday August 16

Cast list

Tristan: Brian Smith Walters
Isolde: Elizabeth Findon (August 13 and 16)
Isolde: Becca Marriott (August 15)
Kurwenal: Oliver Gibbs
Brangäne: Lauren Easton
König Marke: Simon Wilding
Melot, Young Sailor, and Shepherd: David Horton

Conducted by Michael Thrift
Directed by Guido Martin Brandis

Michael Thrift, in this picture conducting at Ben & Cat’s wedding

Hoping to see many of you at Hoxton Hall on Thursday!

Ben x