REGENTS OPERA JUNE NEWSLETTER
Greetings all from a rare bit of both air conditioning and working WiFi I have found in London!
Apologies for the slighty bumper edition, but there’s lots going on - from Verdi to Britten via Janacek; it’s a busy few months ahead!
Rigoletto at the Bloomsbury, Friday 17th July
Oliver Gibbs as Rigoletto and Luci Briginshaw as Gilda
Our London performance - one night only - of our touring show will take place at the Bloomsbury Theatre on Friday 17th July at 7.30pm. The theatre is a significant upgrade on the previous London venues for our touring show, having 500 comfortable seats with great views, AIR CONDITIONING, and being situated in the West End! There will be ICE CREAMS available! Tickets are £45 and £27.50 for concessions, and, as we can confirm from our recent performances at Walcot Hall, it is an EXCELLENT show!
If you can’t make it to Rigoletto, please do consider making a donation towards the production here.
Janáček Operas in London!
FROM THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: Regents Opera Orchestral Study Weekend.
We will be working on Janáček’s last opera, based on the play by Dostoyevsky, on Sunday 5th July. Observers are welcome to attend the run through at 6pm at St Hilda’s Church in Crofton Park. There are about 20 male roles in this opera, which will be shared by Robin Whitehouse, Evan Dunn, Ashley Mercer, Howard Hutt, Ian Massa-Harris and Roger Paterson. The two female roles (this opera doesn’t come close to passing the Bechtel test!) will be played by Kaylee Norris, who was a finalist in this year’s Elizabeth Connell Prize.
KATYA KABANOVA - New Palace Opera
Katya Kabanova - a Concert performance: 6.30pm, Sunday 19 July 2026, St John’s Waterloo, London SE1 8TY
Don’t miss this chance to see New Palace Opera’s concert presentation of Leos Janáček’s ravishingly beautiful tragedy Katya Kabanova.
This story of one woman’s bid for escape from her suffocating community reflects the composer’s unrequited love for a woman resembling Katya herself. Janáček once wrote, “Katya’s suffering is my own,” bringing forth from the Czech composer a work of burning intensity and wondrous lyricism.
Katya herself is being sung by Philippa Boyle, and she is joined by other Regents Opera alumni including Ashley Mercer, James Schouten and Robin Whitehouse.
Tickets are available from Eventbrite at Katya Kabanova — New Palace Opera
Simon Boccanegra - from our Friends at Midsummer Opera - THIS WEEKEND
Tonight and Sunday, our friends at Midsummer Opera, with really quite a lot of Regents Opera alumni, are giving a fully staged concert performance of this marvellous piece.
Their ticket link
A date for your diaries, in case it wasn’t already there! SUNDAY 4th OCTOBER at 7pm at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, we are giving a yet bigger version of our autumn symphonic concert. This year marks 50 years since Britten’s death, and we honour him with this concert.
If you would like to sing in the chorus please email me.
If you’re a string player, and would like to play in it, please email Alison.
Tickets will go on sale this week from the Fairfield Halls website.
Elektra, 1st November with New Palace Opera
Another big autumn date for you. We will be joining forces with our friends at New Palace Opera to give a concert performance of Strauss’s bloodthirsty masterpiece Elektra, with Catharine Woodward (freshly off her recent success with the Longborough Isolde) in the title role, and Ella de Jongh and Karin Lovelius as Chrysothemis and Klytemnestra.
This will take place at Blackheath Halls, and you can get tickets here.
PARSIFAL!
We’re finalising details to Parsifal as I write, so keep your eyes peeled for the July newsletter to be the first to know. Well. actually, the Friends of Regents Opera will get to know first.
If you’d like to become a Friend of Regents Opera, then please do click here!
That’s all for this very hot June day! Grateful thanks as ever to the team at Big Yellow Storage in Fulham. Thank you for looking after our stuff!
