A topical tale: Gilead returns to the Coliseum stage

By Matthew Rye, 09 April 2022

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“Kate Lindsey – making her ENO debut – gives a career-defining performance as Offred”

Reviewed at The London Coliseum, London on 8 April 2022

Ruders, The Handmaid's Tale

English National Opera

Joana Carneiro, Conductor

Annilese Miskimmon, Director

Annemarie Woods, Set Designer, Costume Designer

Paule Constable, Lighting Designer

English National Opera Orchestra

English National Opera Chorus

Akhila Krishnan, Video

Kate Lindsey, Offred

Emma Bell, Aunt Lydia

Robert Hayward, The Commander

Avery Amereau, Serena Joy

Frederick Ballentine, Nick

Rhian Lois, Janine/Ofwarren

Pumeza Matshikiza, Moira

Elin Pritchard, Ofglen

Madeleine Shaw, Rita

Alan Oke, The Doctor

Susan Bickley, Offred's mother

John Findon, Luke

Camille Cottin, Actor

Imogen Knight, Movement director

ENO’s Mahagonny: biting, bleak, brilliantly executed satire

David Karlin, 16th February

Never has Brecht and Weill’s satire on the inhumanity of man to man been render with such utter darkness; Simon O’Neill heads up a superb cast.

*****

Taken for a ride: an energetic revival of Così fan tutte at ENO

Dominic Lowe, 6th February

English National Opera's revival of Phelim McDermott’s popular production is a blend of spectacle with some first-class singing, with Lucy Crowe emphasising her Mozartian credentials.

****1

Cocteau-esque camp: Alden’s Partenope returns to ENO

Mark Valencia, 20th November

Christopher Alden’s Olivier Award-winning production of Handel’s Partenope returns to the Coliseum, but it's the singing that earns the plaudits.

****1

Dead Man Walking at English National Opera: a superb execution

David Karlin, 1st November

Anneliese Miskimmon's ENO production of Jake Heggie and Terence McNally's tale of crime, repentance, compassion and redemption compels from start to finish.

*****

Comedy falls flat in ENO's season opening Cinderella

Mark Valencia, 27th September

Julia Burbach and her designer, Herbert Murauer, are defeated by the wide canyons of the Coliseum stage in their modern-dress Cinderella.

**111

ENO gives Thea Musgrave's Mary, Queen of Scots a worthy performance

Nick Boston, 15th February

Musgrave's powerful depiction of a powerful woman at the mercy of male manipulation receives a strong staging from at ENO.

****1

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Matthew Rye

Matthew read music at Oxford and worked in music journalism for 30 years as a writer, critic and editor. He wrote numerous programme and CD booklet notes, spent 13 years as a Daily Telegraph critic, worked at BBC Music Magazine and was reviews editor of The Strad. He also wrote for The Wagner Journal and Opera and blogged at ferneklang.blogspot.co.uk. He was general editor of 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die (Cassell Illustrated, 2007) and was the author of a new series of eBooks, Masterpieces of Music (Erudition).