Queen's dating dilemma: Handel's Partenope at Iford

By Charlotte Valori, 05 July 2018

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“Averina’s strong, silken soprano is well up to the challenge of the title role”

Reviewed at Iford Manor, Bradford on Avon on 4 July 2018

Handel, Partenope (Sung in English)

Christopher Bucknall, Conductor

Christopher Cowell, Director

Galina Averina, Partenope

Beth Taylor, Rosmira

Jorge Navarro Colorado, Emilio

Brendan Collins, Ormonte

Thomas Scott-Cowell, Armindo

Alexander Simpson, Arsace

Sins of the fathers: Le Cid at Dorset Opera Festival

Dominic Lowe, 26th July

Dorset Opera Festival's bold decision to programme Massenet's obscure opera about a medieval Castilian hero proves to be a major success.

****1

Dorset Opera deals with the devil in Gounod's Faust

Dominic Lowe, 26th July

Dorset Opera's second opera of their season saw a fiendishly good performance from Mark S Doss as Méphistophélès supported by a strong cast in Christopher Cowell's economical production.

****1

A rite of spring: Rimsky-Korsakov's May Night

Matthew Rye, 8th March

A welcome revival of a Russian rarity from the student forces of the Royal Academy of Music.

****1

A Snow Maiden to melt the iciest of hearts

Mark Pullinger, 24th March

Weather forecasters would have a meteorological field day with Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Snow Maiden. Freezing temperatures have prevailed for sixteen years, and the immediate outlook in the Prologue is for further isolated snow showers, before a warm front eventually sweeps in from the south during Act IV.

****1

Massenet's Cendrillon at RAM

David Karlin, 18th November

Over the years, I’ve generally found performances at Royal Academy Opera to be enjoyable and straightforward. This production of Cendrillon went rather beyond that.

****1

Thelma makes her Debut with Surrey Opera

Katy S. Austin, 9th February

It had lain in the archives of the British Library since around 1986. Now, rediscovered by a PhD student and transcribed by Stephen Anthony-Brown, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s opera Thelma has at last received its world première in the capable hands of Surrey Opera.It’s a small miracle that Thelma, written between 1907 and 1909, came to be performed at all.

***11

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Charlotte Valori

Charlotte Valori read Classics at Christ Church, Oxford. As a classicist, her main interest is Greek tragedy and its reception by later cultures, which has led to a continuing passion for theatre and opera. Charlotte reviews for several online magazines, and won the Bachtrack Opera Award 2015 for Best Written English Review. Follow her on Twitter @operissima.