OperaUpClose performs Puccini's Tosca at the King's Head Theatre

OperaUpClose's vision of a dystopian England through Wagner's Flying Dutchman, distilled for chamber forces, receives strong performances from the cast and Manchester Camerata players.

Winner of OperaUpClose’s Flourish competition for new writing, The Blank Canvas is a heartbreakingly tragic tale of an abstract artist coming to terms with widowhood, success and some worrying hallucinations. 

OperaUpClose have set their version of Verdi’s classic in the 1920s, with some beautiful period costumes and a few prettily observed production details It’s a big story on a very small scale.

Donizetti’s melodramma giocoso in two acts, L’elisir d’amore, is a light-hearted tale of love overcoming all obstacles, with the help of a little “love potion”.

Having arrived earlier than I anticipated for this evening’s production of Puccini’s La Bohème by OperaUpClose, I took the opportunity to read through the libretto, helpfully provided in the form of a thin volume available for purchase. When I organise concerts, I often provide texts so that unclear diction is better understood, but this evening I didn’t look at the libretto once.

Music and politics combine to form a potent mix. Art in its exclusive pursuit, can arguably avoid making a political statement; but it can also shine a bitingly harsh light on political themes, thus bringing them close to home through personal acts of dramatisation. Manifest Destiny 2011 proudly does the latter.