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

By Matthew Rye, 09 March 2016

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“The folk-opera genre... gives plenty for a young and enthusiastic cast to do”

Reviewed at Ambika P3, London on 8 March 2016

Rimsky-Korsakov, May Night

Royal Academy Opera

Gareth Hancock, Conductor

Christopher Cowell, Director

Bridget Kimak, Set Designer, Costume Designer

Lorena Paz Nieto, Pannochka

Emma Stannard, Ganna

Claire Barnett-Jones, Mayor's sister-in-law

Martins Smaukstelis, Distiller

Mikhail Shepelenko, Levko

Henry Neill, Clerk

Philip Wilcox, Kalenik

Timothy Murphy, Village-Head (Mayor)

Royal Academy of Music Sinfonia

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Dominic Lowe, 18th November

Presenting a work like Carmen is a punchy move by a conservatoire. The Royal Academy of Music's production has conceptual weaknesses, but features some good singing.

***11

Royal Academy Opera stages a magical Zauberflöte

Mark Valencia, 18th March

A lyrical yet zesty account of Mozart's' adorable score, in a production that is on the nose and off the wall.

****1

A dystopian Hansel und Gretel at the RAM

Mark Valencia, 20th November

Jack Furness serves up an unappetising mess of Humperdinck's delicious masterpiece for Royal Academy Opera.

***11

Keeping it surreal: Martinů double-bill at the Royal Academy of Music

Dominic Lowe, 8th May

With typical spirit, the students at the Royal Academy of Music did an excellent job in bringing Martinů’s Comedy on the Bridge and Alexandre bis to life – two lesser-known pre-war surrealist gems.

***11

Unreal city: The Rake's Progress at the Royal Academy of Music

Benjamin Poore, 22nd November

Frederic Wake-Walker's realisation of the Hogarth-inspired opera is visually bracing and assuredly sung.

****1

Emotion and mayhem: a golden double bill from Royal Academy Opera

Stephen Pritchard, 18th March

Students triumph in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortilèges.

****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).