Pauline Viardot's Cendrillon outshines Bizet at Guildhall School

Pleas for more Respighi operas are answered as the students of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama give the UK premiere of Lucrezia, paired with Ethel Smyth's Der Wald.

From the spiritual conversion of a Medieval sex-worker, to the Sleeping Beauty tale reimagined, Guildhall stages a Respighi double-bill.

Under Dominic Wheeler’s expert baton the musicians, all youthful if not downright young, give a spectacular account of a harrowing score. 

Massenet, Smyth and Rota are unlikely bedfellows, but in the Guildhall School's Autumn production, a one-act opera by each contributed to a most convincing triple bill, all set around the La Scala Picturehouse in the 1920s.

Dominic Wheeler did full justice to Britten’s brilliantly colourful and haunting score right from those first eerie glissandi.