February newsletter - Our Strauss year begins!
Greetings everyone, and I hope you’ve had a good start to the year. Thanks to those of you who wished me a happy birthday a couple of weeks ago, and further thanks to those of you who either donated to my birthday fundraiser, or who have already helped with sponsoring our Salome, which starts rehearsals in just two short weeks time!
Capriccio Orchestral Study Weekend - this Sunday 1st March
Richard Strauss’s final opera Capriccio was referred to by the composer as a Konversationsstück - a conversation piece - without much of a discernable plot, more a musing on which is the greater art form: poetry or music? This had been a topic of discussion for well over a century, with Salieri’s 1786 opera: Prima la musica, e poi le parole (first the music, and then the words) addressing precisely this issue.
We’ve got a marvellous cast of some of our Regents Opera regular singers, led by Corinne Hart (the Woodbird in Siegfried) as the Countess, Andrew Mayor as her brother, the Count, with Gerard Delrez as the Theatre Director, Ashley Mercer as Olivier, Howard Hutt as Flamand, Ingeborg Børch as Clairon, and Davide Basso and Anna Gregg as the Italian singers.
The final scene has become something of a soprano showpiece, and was a particular favourite of Renée Fleming, though yesterday I did find myself listening to a rather good recording by Nina Stemme and Antonio Pappano (Apple Music / Spotify)
Do come and see how we get on with it (goodness me it’s difficult…) on Sunday 1st March at 6pm at St Hilda’s Church on Courtrai Road in Crofton Park (map). We ask observers for a £10 contribution towards costs.
If you are a string player and would like to join us for the weekend, please get in touch with Alison Holford post haste! alisonholfordmusic@gmail.com
Eleanor Dennis - one of our two Salomes
Excitement is building for Salome!
Tickets for our big exciting Salome production are selling like hot cakes, and you’ll see lots more of us on social media, in the press and further afield over the next month. We start in a fortnight’s time.
Alison our orchestral manager met with Nigel the arranger the other day and she now has all of the orchestral parts in her possession, and meetings between production team, venue and to a lesser extent, yours truly, are now increasing in frequency as we prepare to bring you one of the most exciting operatic events to hit London for years. Superb singing, top-quality playing, remarkable storytelling and an extremely distinguished choreographer are guaranteed to make this the operatic event of 2026!
And of course, it wouldn’t be me producing opera if I didn’t ask once more if you might be able to help with a donation towards it, would it?
Having Wagner withdrawal? We’ve got Parsifal to look forward to next Easter!
I was doing a bit of work on Parsifal the other day, and I came across this rather superb introduction to the opera, by my friend Elias Corrinth, from the Berlin Staatsoper. It’s in German with very accurate English subtitles, and will convert the Parsifal agnostics to the way of the Grail!
I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Meanwhile, warmest wishes from a less frosty Berlin, where, as George Harrison once said: the ice is slowly melting.
And thanks as ever to our sponsors, Big Yellow Storage; thank you for keeping good care of all of our stuff!
