This is Shadric’s sixth GPO Programme Book. Born in Brighton, Shadric studied architecture at degree level but changed course when he realised his deeper love was the crafting of images.
Having lived in Germany, Edinburgh and London, in 2000 Shadric opened his Brighton graphic design studio. He creates images that combine collage and montage with drawing, painting, and digital techniques. His client list includes BBC, Glyndebourne, Penguin Books and OUP.
by a gift from
opposite MAY 2025
The Grand Opening of the Simon Freakley Treetop Studio, made possible
Jay Alix Clockwise from the top GPO chairman Simon Freakley & Jay Alix; Alexander Creswell paintings; Peter Hooley sunset; Dan Lemisch from Detroit; Mary, Dan & Jay’s wild floral décor
Rolex
Charles
Hurtigruten
Porta
Welcome to our 2025 summer season of opera and, for the first time, ballet. Simon Keenlyside kicks it off playing Simon Boccanegra. That makes for a lot of Simons, but you will love this Welsh National Opera production. It has been all over the world and Amanda Leathers’ loyal support has brought it to our opera house in Surrey.
The Houston family have been beyond generous in the commissioning of Taj Mahal. It is a chance to bathe in the enchanting thrumming of maestro sitarist/composer Nishat Khan, and see the transformation of a royal pearl into the moon into the Taj.
Our summer rarity is Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa with the orchestra of English National Opera in the pit. David Pountney tackles Pushkin’s tale of crazy love, betrayal and murder whilst Mazeppa fights for Ukrainian freedom. It feels very close to home. Natasha and Igor Tsukanov threw us a special Mazeppa party, going out of their way to create a syndicate.
Madama Butterfly, sponsored by the mysterious Theaux, hits us squarely in the heart. Die with honour or live with shame? There will not be a dry eye in the house. Sue Butcher has been invaluable in assembling our first ever ballet evening, with top artists from the Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and London City Ballet. We have further enhanced our opera house with a new level of dressing rooms and the epic Treetop Studio. In an act of extraordinary generosity, my business partner Jay Alix made a significant contribution and – as a complete surprise to me – specified that the Treetop
CHAIRMAN’S FOREWORD
SIMON FREAKLEY
Studio should carry my name. It was a wonderful gesture and I am hugely touched.
At Christmas we celebrated Joanna Lumley’s 12 years on the GPO board. It’s impossible to put into words the impact that Joanna has made. She was a key player in our move from Hampshire to Surrey. Tea and sausages at the Creswell’s with Bamber & Christina Gascoigne? That’s what clinched the deal. I’m convinced to this day that it was Joanna’s magic that made it all possible. She may be retiring from the board, but we’ve bestowed on Joanna the title Founding Patron, of what she describes as “the loveliest small opera house known to humanity“.
I am delighted to welcome three new trustees to the GPO board: Marie Veeder, President of our American Friends, George Meagher, our young digital marketing guru, and Sir Adam Constable.
George is the chair of our sister charity, Pimlico Opera and a few pages on he writes about the Primary Robins singing programme and our recent prison show, Made in Dagenham. I would encourage you all to attend the next production.
I have found it a humbling experience.
The spirit of our absent friend Michael Cowan continues to inspire us. He drove the founding of our legators group, The Immortals (listed on page 28) and his generous bequest is enabling us to stride forwards with The Ring Cycle and other ambitious repertoire.
You are warmly invited to the Union Club (69 th St / Park Ave) on 10 December to an evening I am co-hosting with Nabil & Samantha Chartouni for American Friends of GPO. Your music-loving NY friends would also be welcome.
Grange Park Opera’s journey has been hectic but exciting and I thank you for your continued support. Thanks to Wasfi, Helen, Bernard, Dec and the GPO team who make everything happen. And thanks to our loyal and steadfast trustees who back us every step of the way.
I am so excited by the summer programme and can’t wait to see you there.
“I’d have given it 6 stars if I could” V V V
TIMES
2025 Chairman’s Circle
The Chairman’s Circle celebrates major gifts for:
• the 2025 Summer Season
• Primary Robins: 100,000 hours of teaching during the year
• the work in prison
• the Bamber Legacy project.
For information contact Jack Rush jack@grangeparkopera.co.uk
Jeremy Abram & Diane Kenwood
Jackie & John Alexander
Jay Alix
John & Paula Attree
The Michael Bishop Foundation
Bob & Elisabeth Boas
Sarah & Tony Bolton
David & Molly Lowell Borthwick
Theaux
Sir Damon & Lady Buffini
Sue Butcher
Capital Group
Mark & Rosemary Carawan
David & Elizabeth Challen
Samantha & Nabil Chartouni
Jonathan & Jane Clarke
Colwinston Charitable Trust
Michael & Hilary Cowan
The de Laszlo Foundation
Peter & Manina Dicks
Noreen Doyle
Judith Lawless & Kevin Egan
Hamish & Sophie Forsyth
Deborah & Neil Franks
Simon & Meg Freakley
François Freyeisen & Shunichi Kubo
Ronnie & Beryl Frost & family
The Ethos Foundation
George Goulding
Kenneth & Susan Green
Julian Hardwick
Malcolm Herring
The Houston Family
Harry Hyman
The Ingram Trust
Evelyn & Wilhelm Jenckel
David & Clare Kershaw
Mat & Sam Kirk
David & Amanda Leathers
Peak Scientific
Dr Lee MacCormick
Charitable Foundation
The Mackintosh Foundation
Raphael & Marillyn Maklouf
Ruth Markland
The MILA Charitable Organisation
Peter & Poppity Nutting
Brian & Jennifer Ratner
Anonymous
Mr & Mrs Matthias Ruhland
Victoria & John Salkeld
The Linbury Trust
James & Sarah Sassoon
Richard Sharp
Ed & Lulu Siskind
Fiona Squire & Geoff Squire OBE
Hugh & Catherine Stevenson
Anthony & Carolyn Townsend
Natasha & Igor Tsukanov
Underwood Trust
Marie Veeder
Hilary & Mike Wagstaff
Mia & Graham Wrigley
Key Gifts to the 2025 season
The Houston Family
David & Molly Lowell Borthwick
John & Paula Attree
Theaux
Hamish & Sophie Forsyth
Natasha & Igor Tsukanov
David & Amanda Leathers
Sue Butcher
Peak Scientific
Ruth Markland
Victoria & John Salkeld
Sarah & James Sassoon
Hilary Cowan
Peter & Manina Dicks
David & Clare Kershaw
Jeremy Abram & Diane Kenwood
The Options Fund
Dr Lee MacCormick
Charitable Foundation
Nabil & Samantha Chartouni
Ronnie & Beryl Frost & family
Judith Lawless & Kevin Egan
Kenneth & Susan Green
Malcolm Herring
Harry Hyman
Peter & Poppity Nutting
Noreen Doyle
Hugh & Catherine Stevenson
Anthony & Carolyn Townsend
The de Laszlo Foundation
Brian & Jennifer Ratner
Hilary & Mike Wagstaff
Mia & Graham Wrigley
Marie Veeder
Prof Martin Brown & Dr Sue Brown
Deborah & Neil Franks
The Ethos Foundation
Stephen & Isobel Parkinson
Hilary & Mike Wagstaff
Woodward Charitable Trust
Nick & Lesley Dumbreck
Julian Hardwick
Tessa & John Manser
Francis & Amanda Norton
Barbara Yu Larsson
David & Lynneth Salisbury
The Allen Trust
Sarah & Tony Bolton
George Goulding
Raymonde Jay
Christopher & Anne Saul
John & Carol Wates
Ken & Fiona Costa
Marie & Etienne Deshormes
Michael & Isobel Holland
Jonathan Levy & Gabrielle Rifkind
Andrew & Jane Sutton
Lady Acher
Nerissa Guest
John Pearson & Valerie Beggs
Sir Adam & Lady Lucy Constable
The Sunderland Dogs: Bear, Tilly & Roly
Keith & Katy Weed
and three anonymous gifts
Listed elsewhere are gifts to the Bamber project and to the work in prisons and primary schools
BAMBER GASCOIGNE LEGACY PROJECT
A third floor of dressing rooms, a magnificent Treetop Studio and a bronze life-size statue of Bamber by Raphael Maklouf.
Lead Donors
Michael & Hilary Cowan
Simon Freakley Treetop Studio
made possible by a gift from Jay Alix
David & Molly Lowell Borthwick
A Golden Heart
Mark & Rosemary Carawan
Samantha & Nabil Chartouni
Colwinston Charitable Trust
François Freyeisen & Shunichi Kubo
Mat & Sam Kirk
David & Amanda Leathers
Mr & Mrs Matthias Ruhland
Sharp Foundation
Geoff & Fiona Squire Foundation
Fingers on buzzers
Anonymous
Judith Lawless & Kevin Egan
Ethos Foundation
Simon & Meg Freakley
Malcolm Herring
Tower Mint
Wilhelm & Evelyn Jenckel
William & Felicity Mather
Your starter for ten
Anonymous
Jeremy Abram & Diane Kenwood
Joanna & Stephen Barlow
Michael & Julia Calvey
Chris Carter & Stuart Donachie
Peter & Manina Dicks
Nick & Lesley Dumbreck
George Goulding
David & Clare Kershaw
Brian & Jennifer Ratner
John & Pit Rink
Hugh & Catherine Stevenson
Anthony & Carolyn Townsend
Hilary & Mike Wagstaff
Woodward Charitable Trust
I’ll
have to hurry you
Two anonymous dontions
29th May 1961 Charitable Trust
Tom & Alison Baigrie
Nan Brenninkmeyer
Paul Chivers
Jonathan & Jane Clarke
Aidan & Colette Clegg
Raymonde Jay
Peter & Poppity Nutting
In memory of Sir Michael Parker
Mike & Jessamy Reynolds
Sir John & Lady Sunderland
Andrew & Jane Sutton
Southampton Row Trust
Keith & Katy Weed
Clare Williams
University Challengers
Mr Anthony Ashplant
Dame Janet Baker CH
James Bernon
Mrs Margaret Bolam
Bill Bougourd & Judith Thomas
Mrs Roger Bradley
Prof Martin Brown & Dr Sue Brown
Iain & Kim Clarke
Lisa Curtlin
Michael & Allie Eaton
David & Virginia Essex
The Fischer Fund
Julian Hardwick & Cathie Tsoukkas
Angela & David Harvey
Lady Hunt & David John
David & Madi Laurence
Lady Lever
Susan & Ludi Lochner
Elizabeth & Martin Morgan
John & Carrie Naunton Davies
Mollie Norwich
Eleanor Cranmer & Nick Thomas
Christopher & Tineke Stewart
Carolyn Ward
John & Linde Wotton
Anonymous
No conferring 125 gifts
Step into adventure. Since 1896, HX Hurtigruten Expeditions has taken curious travellers beyond the horizon to discover the most remote regions of our world. Whether exploring awe-inspiring Antarctica, discovering Greenland’s fascinating coastline or journeying across the Galápagos, you’ll walk away with a deeper, richer love of the planet when you return home.
Change the way you see the world.
2026 season
Grange Park Opera is a family
Family members make the whole thing happen
They cherish culture for the good of all
The start of The Ring Cycle
Membership from £20 / month
Krishna JOHN TAVENER world première
Don Carlo VERDI
Il Barbiere di Siviglia ROSSINi
Das Rheingold WAGNER
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon
Keenlyside
Mazeppa
Sara Fulgoni
Mazeppa director
David Pountney conductor
Mark Shanahan
GLAD TIDINGS OF ELEVATION
We are going up in the world. We have an all-singing, all-dancing Treetop Studio and. just as the champagne corks started to pop at the opening, we discover that our cherished dream of a connecting lift is a dream no more. Picture the scene.
It is a balmy May day. Preparations are in full swing for 80 guests to sit down to the inaugural dinner in this exquisite Treetop Studio. The phone rings and I’m given the glad tidings that David and Molly Lowell Borthwick will be elevating us to Treetop heights in a glass–walled lift that looks out over the 350acre estate. So, three cheers for Molly and David. With a follow-on hip-hip to trustee John Attree, who ventured with me to Mersea Island to inspect said lift in all its splendour.
Spare a thought, though, for our trusty builder Martin Smith, enjoying his dinner, heaving a mighty sigh of relief at the completion of the Studio and the elegant second floor dressing rooms – only to have his evening ruined by the news that we now need to dig a big hole to explore existing drains, to create the lift’s foundations. Have another drink, Martin.
Completing the Studio took me back to the happy days of 2016, when we had to get out of the old place AND build a new opera house AND put on a season of operas in 2017. “Helen”, said I, “you are in charge of moving everything from Hampshire to Surrey”. It took 50+ truckloads. Bernard’s job was to put on the operas, complete with Die Walküre. We are mad. Dec’s task was installing the complicated stage machinery. “Martin – you build the building. You’ve got 11 months. And I’ll get the money together.” The spirit of GPO shone through. Together we did it.
Jay Alix has made a very generous gift to honour GPO chair Simon Freakley through the naming of the newly-finished Treetop Studio. Jay came over for the May dinner with his colleague Dan Lemisch, former Chief Prosecutor of Detroit. Best behaviour was the order of the day, so they arrived only one hour early.
There I was in filthy work clothes, doing my best to create miniature gardens for our two long tables. First we embraced – and then they embraced the central GPO policy: all hands on deck. After basic training they applied themselves to the hard graft of floral arrangement. Not half bad, either.
The year’s calendar is bigger and bolder than ever. Hamish & Sophie Forsyth hosted a Ring Cycle launch at Capital Group’s sensational offices in Paddington. There were Three Tenors at Wigmore Hall, a Hallowe’en Fete in the Clerkenwell House of Detention and a Chairman’s Gathering at Richard Sharp’s in Kensington.
An expedition to Palermo took in the ancient (Greek temples at Selinunte), the medieval (mosaics in the Palatine chapel) and baroque extravagance (the insanity of Villa Palagonia). Principessa Alliata hosted a gala dinner in her palace. She is currently palace hunting in Naples for our trip next spring. You can never have too many palaces.
I cannot thank enough all the people I have mentioned above. The support from all of you enables us to do our job. Helen Sennett has been with GPO for half a lifetime: I owe her gratitude beyond measure.
Two of our most treasured GPO people, Peter Nutting and Neil Donnan, are no longer with us. They made my world a better place. Culture makes the world a better place for everyone. It needs you.
Founding Members PIONEERS
Late in 2015 a £12m Appeal was launched to build the opera house; June 2016 building work starts; 8 June 2017 inaugural performance; 2018 Lavatorium Rotundum; 2019 Colonnade & piazza
LEAD DONORS
Michael & Hilary Cowan
The Williams family
HADRON COLLIDERS
Red Butterfly Foundation
Lord & Lady Spencer
Clore Duffield Foundation
Ronnie Frost & family
William Garrett
David & Amanda Leathers
Geoff & Fiona Squire Foundation
Martin & Lesley Smith
David & Linda Lloyd Jones
SPUTNIK
John L Pemberton
Simon & Meg Freakley
Hamish & Sophie Forsyth
Ruth Markland
William & Kathy Charnley
Stephen Gosztony & Sue Butcher
Sir Henry & The Hon Lady Keswick
Tony & Sarah Bolton
Jane & Jonathan Clarke
Mark & Louise Seligman
Unilever plc
The Sackler Trust
Mr & Mrs Matthias Ruhland
François Freyeisen & Shunichi Kubo
Nerissa Guest
The Kirby Laing Foundation
Theaux
Anthony & Carolyn Townsend
Buffini Chao Foundation
TURING
Anonymous
The Allen Trust
Joanna Barlow
Mr Quentin Black
Ms Karen Burgess
Michael & Julia Calvey
David & Elizabeth Challen
Samantha & Nabil Chartouni
Aidan & Colette Clegg
Adam & Lucy Constable
Peter & Annette Dart
Sir David Davies
David & Sara Delaney
Peter & Manina Dicks
Noreen Doyle
T V Drastik
Nick & Lesley Dumbreck
Judith Lawless & Kevin Egan
Niall, Ingrid & Gabriella FitzGerald
Alex & Alison Fortescue
Deborah & Neil Franks
Chris & Marjorie Gibson-Smith
Hilary Hart
Andrew & Sarah Hills
Harry Hyman
David & Clare Kershaw
The Kirk family
Lord & Lady Marks of Broughton
Rothschild & Co
Lord & Lady Sassoon
Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement
Ed & Lulu Siskind
Martin & Lucy Stapleton
Hugh & Catherine Stevenson
Hilary & Mike Wagstaff
Mr David & Mrs Alison Watson
Keith & Katy Weed
Anonymous
SOPWITH
Sir Gerald & Lady Acher
John & Jackie Alexander
Tom & Alison Baigrie
Vindi & Kamini Banga
David & Chris Beever
Steve & Sue Black
Simon & Sally Borrows
The Buckley family
Mr & Mrs Tony Bugg
Thank you for creating this opera house
Jane & Paul Chase-Gardener
Mrs Ann Clarke
Martin & Dani Clarke
Richard & Frances Clarke
Mr & Mrs Tim Cockroft
The John S Cohen Foundation
Anonymous
Mr & Mrs Leo A Daly III
The de Laszlo Foundation
Dolly Knowles Charitable Trust
The Ethos Foundation
David & Virginia Essex
The Ewins family
Jeremy & Rosemary Farr
Sir Rocco Forte
Christina & Bamber Gascoigne
Roger & Clare Gifford
The Gillmore Trust
George & Caroline Goulding
Tricia Grice
Charles & Maggie Hallatt
Julian Hardwick
The Hon Charles Harris
Malcolm Herring
Michael & Isobel Holland
Dr Jonathan Holliday & Dr Gwen Lewis
Charles Holloway
Richard & Pamela Jacobs
Raymonde Jay
Keith & Lucy Jones
The Justham Trust
Mr & Mrs Francis C Lang
Carole & Geoffrey Lawson
Moore Barlow Solicitors
Mark & Sophie Lewisohn
Oscar & Margaret Lewisohn
Richard & Alex Lewisohn
George John & Sheilah Livanos
Charitable Trust
Raphael & Marillyn Maklouf
Tessa & John Manser
Darcy & Alexander Munro
Bruce & Pamela Noble
Peter & Poppity Nutting
Norah & Patrick O’Dwyer
Winston & Julia Oh
Hamish Parker
Stephen & Isobel Parkinson
Cathy & Michael Pearman
Lord & Lady Phillimore
Neena & Mike Rees
Mike & Jessamy Reynolds
John & Pit Rink
Nigel & Viv Robson
Anne & Barry Rourke
Roland & Sophie Rudd
David & Lynneth Salisbury
Victoria & John Salkeld
Michael Sennett
Diane & Christopher Sheridan
Anonymous
Sir John & Lady Sunderland
Andrew & Jane Sutton
Christopher Swan
David & Fiona Taylor
Ian & Tina Taylor
Anonymous
Adam & Louise Tyrrell
Johnny & Marie Veeder
Jo Waldern
Rev John Wates OBE & Mrs Carol Wates
Anonymous
Edward & Mandy Weston
Linda Wilding
Jane & Andrew Winch
Mia & Graham Wrigley
Anonymous
Hobson Charity
John Coates Charitable Trust
Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation
and
The Circle of Virtuous Enterprise whose gifts totalled £1m
GRANGE PARK OPERA 2024 Janacek Katya Kabanova
opposite Thomas Atkins as Boris and Natalya Romaniw as Katya below Clive Bayley as Dikoj
Annual Members
THE DEPARTMENT OF REVELS 2025
Henry VIII's Department of Revels provided the King with pop-up entertainment here, there and everywhere. Elizabeth I inherited the Department. She stayed for a week at West Horsley Place in 1559 and the Department erected a theatre and staged entertainments. The Opera House has a predecessor
Five anonymous donors and
Mr & Mrs Jeremy Arnold
Mr John & Dr Jennifer Beechey
Mrs Michael Beresford-West
Nick & Sue Brougham
David Bruce
Mark & Rosemary Carawan
Shirley & Brian Carte
Chris Carter & Stuart Donachie
Peter & Irene Casey
Lucy Crawford
Helen Culleton
Mr Jerry & Mrs Jane del Missier
Neil & Olivia Donnan
Helen Dorey MBE & Markus Geisser
Mr Graham Elliott & Mrs Emma Crabtree
Ms Jillian Ede Gendron
Nicholas & Louisa Greenacre
Fiona & Peter Hare
Graham & Jayne Hetherington
Jennifer Hodgson
Lady Hunt & David John
Ms Jane Jenkins & Mr Oscar Harrison-Hall
Jonathan & Clarinda Kane
Milly & Brian Lacy
Mr & Mrs Peter Leaver
Mark & Sophie Lewisohn
Anthony & Fiona Littlejohn
Dr Kate Lloyd
Andrew Luff
William & Felicity Mather
Roger & Jackie Morris
Dame Jane Newell
Michael & Amanda Parker
Lady Parker
Javier Penino Viñas
Sir Desmond & Lady Pitcher
Dominic & Katherine Powell
David & Alex Rhodes
Ms Carolyn Saunders & Mr Richard Ford
Dr Anthony & Mrs Daphne Smoker
David Stephen & Caroline Keppel-Palmer
Eleanor Cranmer & Nick Thomas
Mr & Mrs Trayhurn
Carolyn Ward
Mr & Mrs G Wensley
THE SCHOOL OF HIPPOCRATES 2025
Hippocrates (c 400 BC) was contemporary of Pericles and a key figure in the history of medicine
Six anonymous donors and
Mr & Mrs Haydn Abbott
William & Charlie Allingham
Mr & Mrs F Barnaud
Mrs Sue Barr
Mrs Rupert Beaumont
Mrs Margaret Bolam
Pam Alexander & Roger Booker
Mrs Roger Bradley
Clive & Helena Butler
David & Julia Cade
Sir Bryan & Lady Carsberg
Dr J D H Chadwick
Mr Tim & Mrs Sara Clarke
Ben & Debbie Cooper
Jinny Crum-Jones & Ian Jones
Mr John Dale
Paul Drury & Anna McPherson
Neil & Gill Dunford
Michael & Allie Eaton
Ian & Janet Edmondson
Nicola Freshwater
Howard Gatiss
Dr Asher Giora
George Gordon
Mrs Kate Hancock
Michael & Sarah Hewett
Christopher Holdsworth Hunt
Peter & Marianne Hooley
Mr & Mrs H Houghton-Jones
Steve & Anne Howells-Clarke
Gay Huey-Evans
John & Gill Ingman
Angela & John Kessler
Mrs Tatyana Kim
A & Z Kurtz
Miles Laddie
Janey Langford
William Middleton-Smith
Hilary Kingsley & Peter Miller
David & Angela Moss
Pamela & Bruce Noble
Stephen & Isobel Parkinson
Dr Henry & Mrs Julia Pearson
Mrs Veronica Powell
Lady Purves
Sir Martin Read & Dr Marian Gilbart Read
Tineke Dales
David & Hilary Riddle
Mrs Helen Shepard
Nigel Silby
Christopher & Lucie Sims
The Siniscalco Family
Mr Alexander Smith
Mr Michael Smith
Anthony & Iris Spooner
Colin & Susan Stone
Michael Taylor
Mr A H Thomlinson
John & Jane
Mr & Mrs M Webb
Michael & Gillian Young
Ron & Pennie Zimmern
GRANGE PARK OPERA 2024
Donizetti
Daughter of the Regiment
right Nico Darmanin as Tonio
THE SCHOOL OF ARCHIMEDES 2025
Archimedes (c 250 BC), engineer, physicist, mathematician, inventor, astronomer was killed by a Roman soldier in the Siege of Syracuse
Nine anonymous donors and
Dr & Mrs M R Aish
Mark & Priscilla Austen
Claire & Edward Bailey
Robert Ballantyne
Stephen Barton
Paul & Janet Batchelor
Nicholas Berwin
David & Alison Boothby
Bill Bougourd & Judith Thomas
Julian & Maria Bower
Katie Bradford
Stephen & Margaret Brearley
Nicholas Browne & Frederika Adam
David Buchler
Mr Julian Callow
Jeffrey Calvert
Mr & Mrs N Carrington
Ben & Peck Carroll
Pam Clarke
Michael & Angela Clayton
Sir Anthony & Lady Cleaver
Jackie Colbran
Mrs Laurence Colchester
Mrs Liz Cooper-Mitchell
Mrs F Corben
Lin & Ken Craig
Lady Curtis
Camilla & Neil Curtis
Richard Czartoryski
Penelope Dash
Mr Sebastian Dawson-Bowling
Jennifer Ison & Daniel Dayan
Michael de Navarro
Mr Richard Deacon
David Dodd
Mrs Sarah Drury
Mr David Dutton & Ms Mave Turner
Andrew Dyke
Mrs Jill Dymock
Mr David & Mrs Caroline Edwards
Dr Julia P Ellis
Mr Vincent Emms
Martin & Maureen Farr
Rosie Faunch
Susan & Steven Fisher
Mr M J G Fletcher
Glynn & Liz Gardner
Steve Goldring & Cristina Dondi
Charles & Ann Gordon
Peter Granger
Andrea & Andrew Greystoke
Tom & Sarah Grillo
Mr Paul Guinery
Kay Hambrook
Susan Hammond
Dr A Harwood
Paul Henderson & Margaret Pelton
Mr Peter Hewett
Will & Janine Hillary
Mr & Mrs John Hitchins
Mr John Hockin
Mr R E Hofer
Sophie & Guy Holborn
Mrs S Holt
Cheryl & Jason Hood
Zmira & Rodney Hornstein
Miss Judith Ingham
Sir Barry & Lady Jackson
Mrs Julie Joy Jarman & Dr Jack Pickard
Dr Francis Matthey & Dr Lydia Jones
Mr Per Jonsson
Leonard Klahr
Fiona Layton
Christopher Leach
Jan Leigh & Janusz Rynkiewicz
Susan & Ludi Lochner
Elizabeth Lockhart-Mure
Angela Mackersie
Mr Alisdair & Mrs Jane Mann
Doug & Gill McGregor
Sarah & David Melville
Carol & Robin Michaelson
Chris & Hilary Mitchell
Martin & Elizabeth Morgan
Mr & Mrs S J & B L Morris
Paul & Russell
Mr William Murie
Barry & Baroness Noakes
Murray North
John & Dianne Norton
Mollie Norwich
Mrs Emma Ongley
Felicity Osborne
Jennifer Pearce
Mr & Mrs Tony Perei
Matthew Pintus & Joanna Ward
Dr & Mrs Francis Pocock
David & Mary Potter
Jan & Mike Potter
Mr Geoffrey & Mrs Carolyn Pye
Mala & Mike Rappolt
Miss Annie Robertson
Mr & Mrs R A Robinson
David & Sarah Rosier
Cat Sabben-Clare
Alex & So Scott-Barrett
Anne Sebba
Shepard Demwell
Joy & Patrick Sherrington
Caroline & Mark Silver
Andrew & Maggie Simmonds
Jeremy Lewis Simons
Ali Smith
David & Unni Spiller
Janis & Richard Stanhope
Christopher & Tineke Stewart
Andrew & Ingrid Strawson
Charlotte ter Haar
Alan & Fran Thomas
David & Christine Thorp
Mr David Turner
Mr & Mrs Vieten
Victoria Boyarsky & Nick Viner
Richard Wake
David & Margaret Walker
Heather & Andrew Wallis
Alexander & Becky Walsh
Katherine Watts
Mark & Vanessa Welling
Isobel Williams
Penelope Williams
Mr & Mrs Wilsdon
John & Linde Wotton
David Wurtzel & Robert Wilson
Christina Zandona
THE SCHOOL OF PLATO 2025
Plato (c 400 BC) believed in an Absolute Good and an Absolute Reality of which this world is but a shadow. He stated: ‘He was a wise man who invented beer’
Fifteen anonymous donors and
Mr Job & Mrs Belinda Curtis
Ms M E Adair
Dr Charles & Dr Anu Alessi
Professor & Mrs David Ames
Sebastian & Pornpan Anstruther
Jonathan & Sooty Asquith
Margaret Austen
Chris & Gillian Babbs
Helen Bach
Nick & Audrey Backhouse
Felicity Bagenal
Mr Michael & Dr Marie Bakowski
John & Liz Ball
Tim & Margaret Battcock
Mrs Jacqueline Bennett
Miss Elaine Best
Sharon Horwitz & Gary Blaker KC
Dr John Blowers
Mr & Mrs S Bobasch
Alan & Sandie Boylan
Carola & Malcolm Brinded
Alison & Michael Brown
Philip & Margaret Brown
Louise Abrams & George Browning
Richard Buxton
Mrs Michael Cash
Graham Cawsey
Iain & Kim Clark
Paul Clements
Mr & Mrs Colunga
Douglas & Midge Connell
Michael E Corby
Matthew Cornell
Stephen & Jo Cotton
Miss Maureen Cronin
Mr & Mrs Crouch
Dr William & Mrs Eileen Culling
Gavin Darlington
Antoni & Caroline Daszewski
Andrew Davidson &
Rosina Cottage
Mr David & Helen Davies
Ken & Diana Dent
Rosemary Derby
Caroline & Tony Doggart
Dr Roger Donbavand
Mrs Christine Douse
Nigel Duffin & Joni Timmins
Mr Mark Dvorak-Heholt
Mr. & Mrs. L.M. Eagles
Ann & David Edwards
David & Jane Elmer
Paul Elphick
Jean Evans
Ms Morfydd Evans
Ms Pam Evans
Ms Helen Everton
Steven F G Fachada
Mr Ernest Fasanya & Ms Jenny Stevens
The Fischer Fund
Victoria Franklin
Andrea Frears
Mr Timothy Frith
Dan & Mari Gardner
Christina & Bamber Gascoigne
Regis Gautier-Cochefert
Alan & Mary Gibbins
Simon Gilliat
Mr Nathan Goldblatt
Stuart Gordon & Julie Hall
Mrs Beatrice Gould
Mr Neil Graham
Mr & Mrs Anthony Green
Mr & Mrs Mervyn Greig
Mr M & Mrs N Grieve
Mike & Margaret Griffin
Mr David Gutman
Mr Peter Hackman
Mr Hugh Hallard
Mrs A J Halsey
Bruce & Muriel Hamilton
Peter & Mary Hardcastle
Benjamin Hargreaves
David Hargreaves
Mr Stephen Harrison
Tatiana Harrison
Robert & Judith Hart
Maureen & Peter Hazell
Arabella Heathcoat-Amory
Peter & Jacquie Homonko
Mr Michael Horigan
Dr S M Horsewood-Lee
Mr Peter & Mrs Ruth Howard
Allan & Rachel James
Harriet Jervis
Mr Martin Philip Johnson
Neil & Elizabeth Johnson
Douglas Jones
Robin & Nick Kadrnka
Dr Catherine Katzka & Dr Swen Hölder
Mr Graeme Kay
Judith Kelley
Professor Deirdre Kelly & Sir Ian Byatt
Oliver & Sally Kinsey
David & Hilary Lane
John Learmonth
Mrs Hilary Leek
Alice Lindsay
Charles & Sara Lowdell
Some volunteer gardeners
Simon Marsh
Jonathan Matheson MA
Jane Maycock
Mr James McAlister
Christopher & Clare McCann
Mr John McKechnie
Roger Mears & Joanie Speers
Joe & Jane Mercer
Sylvia Mills
Miss Gursharan Minhas
Miss Edith Monfries
Dr Roland Morley
Mrs Shiranee Murugason-Robinson
Craig & Jenni Myles
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Mr & Mrs Francis Neate
Ben & Sarah Newman
Emma Nolan
Mrs Gwenda Norbury
Mr Steve Norris
Miss Pamela M North
Berendina Norton MBE
William & Katherine Nye
Derek Nudd & Sue O'Connell
Valeria & Antonio C B Oliveira
Mr & Mrs J R Oliver
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Niki Parker
Witold Pawlak
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Placido Carrerotti
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Bryony & Jeremy Pett
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Sally Phillips & Tristan Wood
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Sabine & Greg Preston
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Dr Bill Robinson
Mr & Mrs Alan Roxburgh
George & Marie Rushton
Mr Alan Sainer
Ian G Salter
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Ms Dorothy Saul-Pooley
Mr Jens & Mrs Andrea Schulte-Bockum
Mr & Mrs A M Scott
Andrew Sesemann
Mary & Thoss Shearer
David Sheraton & Kate Stabb
Mr Steven Snowden KC
Dr Howard Sowerby
Peter William Stansfield
Mrs Lindsay Stead
Harold Sterne
Jeremy & Phyllida Stoke
Dr Brian Tempest
Mr Jeffrey Tetlow
Philip Tew
Elaine Thomas
Michael & Lucilla Thomas
Tony & Valerie Thompson
Professor David & Dr Hilary Thompson
Stewart Thomson
Mr Malcolm & Mrs Alison Thwaites
Matthew Tooth
Mr Glen & Dr Mary-Claire Travers
Dr & Mrs James Turtle
Mrs Joyce Twiston Davies
Hendrik van der Hoeven
Dr Phillip & Mrs Elizabeth Vessey
David Waters
Mr & Mrs P H Watkins
Mr Anthony Watt
Christian & Katie Wells
Mr David Weston
Mrs Margaret Westwood
Mr & Mrs Peter White
Mrs Sarah Wilkinson
Prof Leslie Willcocks
Louise Williams
Philip & Patricia Williams
Michael Wise
Mr William & Mrs Celia Witts
Mr & Mrs A Wood
Mr David Woodhead
Mr Roger & Mrs Katherine Woodward
Fiona & Nicholas Woolf
Fiona Yeomans
Legacies THE IMMORTALS and THE BELOVEDS
Whatever your view on what is inevitable . . . by including Grange Park Opera in your Will, you preserve the culture of music and opera. You are making a mark on the future.
In that way . . . you are Immortal.
The price of Immortality is not great – given what is on offer. We ask for a minimum pledge of £50k.
If you wish to leave a lesser amount, it will still help preserve the arts for future generations. You will be celebrated and be joined to . . . The Beloveds.
It is easy to write a Letter of Wishes to append to your Will at any time. Your gift will be deducted from Inheritance Tax (IHT) which is normally 40%. If you give 10% of your estate to charity, IHT is reduced to 36%.
CONTACT Jack Rush
73 73 73
GRANGE PARK OPERA 2024
Bryn Terfel plays the trickster Gianni Schicchi
Immortality assured
Anonymous
Joanna Lumley
Anonymous
Anonymous
Richard Berry
Bill Bougourd & Judith Thomas
Andrew & Fiona Brannon
Tony Bugg
Iain Burnside
Ben & Peck Carroll
William Charnley
Michael E Corby
Hilary Cowan
Kit Cowan
Ms Jacqueline Crawley
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Anonymous
David Dutton
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Niall FitzGerald
Family Freakley
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David & Jillian Gendron
Nerissa Guest
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Mr Julian Hardwick
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Michael Pearman
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Nick Thomas & Eleanor Cranmer
Georgina & Martin Van Tol
Mave Turner
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Anonymous
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Beloved
Alison & Tom Baigrie
David & Linda Lloyd Jones
In memory of my husband Bill
Julian & Maria Bower
Mrs Sheila Gay Bradley
Peter Rae Dixon
Neil & Debbie Franks
Annabel Larard
In memory of Patrick J Mill and two anonymous people
PIMLICO OPERA
GEORGE MEAGHER Chairman Pimlico Opera
When the first notes of music fill a prison sports hall or a school classroom, something extraordinary happens: barriers break down, confidence builds and people discover talents they never knew they had. Pimlico Opera makes this miraculous moment part of the routine for those who need it most.
Pimlico has been operating since 1987, and continually adapts to address the most pressing challenges in our communities. Work in prisons has been the backbone of the charity since 1989, whilst the work in primary schools (Primary Robins) has celebrated its 10th anniversary.
The remarkable production of Made in Dagenham at HMP Bronzefield last March was a triumphant vindication of a change in approach. Since January 2024 we have offered weekly music and dance classes to the Bronzefield residents, and thus the ladies honed their skills and built their confidence to prepare for the intensive 4 weeks of full–time rehearsals with the professional cast.
I attended rehearsals at the end of the first week, and was astonished to hear the quality of singing, including three-part harmony. This momentum carried through to the final sell-out show, and rave reviews.
Whilst these large-scale productions will take place every two years, we will continue to make music part of the weekly lives of residents, and ensure the lull after the last night isn’t so pronounced.
The stark reporting from this year’s Bromley Briefings highlights the gravity of the situation for women in prison; self-harming is eight times higher than the male estate. Purposeful activity on a regular basis is often lacking in our overcrowded prison system, and our classes help chip away at the challenge.
We have also been tinkering with the recipe for Primary Robins, which takes music into schools that otherwise have no music provision.
We are now giving over 6,600 children a weekly singing lesson, and we’re finding ways of deepening their connection with the programme. This has included end-of-term concerts (for Surrey schools, this happens in the Grange Park Opera House); orchestral workshops; and even spending a day in West Horsley Place, baking bread, dressing up, and making lifelong memories.
Running these programmes comes at significant cost. We are fortunate to have generous support from many and most notably the donors listed opposite. Whilst I naturally prefer these larger repeat donations, just £40 covers the singing classes for a Robin for an entire year. Or you could Build a Nest (£150). Or two nests.
I thank all the people who have made the last 12 months so successful. We receive no government funding and we want to bring more of these transformative musical moments to those who need them most.
Onwards!
GEORGE MEAGHER has been a part of the GPO / Pimlico family since 2013. He started his career in finance in Paris, before moving to Amazon in 2013. He now works for TikTok in their e-commerce division (TikTok Shop)
BUILDING CONFIDENCE THROUGH TEAMWORK, EDUCATION & MUSIC
PRIMARY ROBINS
100,000+ HOURS OF TEACHING / YEAR
ANNABEL LARARD Project Leader
The project began in September 2013 aiming to expand the outlook and enrich the lives of schoolchildren who have no exposure to music
PRIMARY ROBINS are disadvantaged children within disadvantaged communities. Their schools have low Key Stage 2 results, higherthan-average numbers of children receiving free school meals and NO MUSIC.
50 years ago, every primary school had children sitting around a piano learning songs. Today there are many schools with no music. These classes benefit both the children and their teachers – who learn how to teach music to their children.
Every week of the school year, Pimlico Opera gives 6,600 Robins a half-hour singing class. The Robins are spread nationwide: Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Lewisham, Manchester, Newcastle, Ripon, Staffordshire, Sheffield and Surrey.
It equates to more than 100,000 hours of teaching in a school year and costs £250k.
Primary Robins participate at no cost to either the schools or the parents.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The project is startling in its simplicity and in its effectiveness: classes gather every week and learn songs. Each term, Robins have a new specially prepared songbook of 10 songs, one of which is in another language. Songs are traditional (rather than pop), and often turn out to be familiar to Robins’ parents and grandparents. The songbook includes musical notation. It is not intended to teach the children to read music, but some see the pattern of what they sing and what the dots do.
Ruth Nutton-Jones Deputy Head, Medlock Primary, Manchester “Thank you . . . the children have learnt so much, and the development of their musical understanding and vocabulary has been particularly clear. There has also been a clear improvement in their performance and teamwork skills.”
Victoria Collier Deputy Head, Old Moat Primary, Manchester “Our school is in an area of high deprivation. We simply can’t afford to buy in music tuition. Something really special happens when a real musician works with children. Now we can’t imagine school life without your teacher Ed Robinson. Staff and children look forward to his visits. The impact on the mood is palpable as the children’s voices fill the air, singing with more confidence than we have ever seen at Old Moat.”
PRINCIPAL DONORS to PRIMARY ROBINS
MILA Charitable Organisation
An anonymous gift
Buffini Chao Foundation
The Linbury Trust
Capital Group
Big Give
Underwood Trust
Sir Graham & Lady Wrigley
Seastock Trust
Ethos Foundation
Mrs Margaret Bolam
Neil & Olivia Donnan
Julian Hardwick
Ed & Lulu Siskind
The de Laszlo Foundation
The Geoff & Fiona Squire Foundation
Jeremy & Rosemary Farr
Wed 5 - Sun 9 March 2025
BRONZEFIELD PRISON NEAR HEATHROW – NOT DAGENHAM
Helen Sennett leads the prison work, in collaboration with Tanvir Hynes, Head of Learning & Skills at HMP Bronzefield
More than 1,600 people saw Made in Dagenham. Two performances were for other prisoners. Prisoner families attended with the paying public.
Helen’s work on these big musicals starts more than a year in advance. Besides the normal tasks involved with putting on a production (contracts, schedules and so on) Helen must keep track of every item that is taken into the prison – props, tools and half a Ford Cortina.
The four full weeks of rehearsal – all day, every weekday is challenging. Most prisoners have never been to the theatre, some cannot read, for some English is a second language.
The final technical rehearsals take place in the gym, which is transformed into a theatre with a
lighting rig, raked seating and orchestra. Sodexo opened HMP Bronzefield in 2004. It is the largest female prison in Europe, accommodating up to 570 women from a catchment area of more than 80 courts. There is a 12-bed mother and baby unit.
5% of the prison population are women and they are often imprisoned a long way from home, with their children taken into care.
Women require a different set of rehabilitative goals which may include being responsible for managing the home and issues involving domestic violence.
These joint productions have an immense impact on the lives of the women who take part, their families and other prisoners. It is the first time that society has applauded them.
It gives them faith that, on release, they can make and sustain a fresh start.
WWWWW
“Forget the London Palladium, the Garrick and the Gielgud, the place to see theatre at its most inspiring last week was at a 280-seater pop-up in the gymnasium of Europe’s biggest all-women prison not far from Heathrow.” Musical Theatre Review
Supporters of the Project
Costing around £200k, the project receives no government funding. 1/3 comes from ticket sales, 1/3 charitable trusts, 1/3 kind individuals.
TRUSTS
Michael Bishop Foundation
Capital Group
Linbury Trust
Ingram Trust
Mackintosh Foundation
Childwick Trust
Dischma Charitable Trust
De Laszlo Foundation
Andrew Sutton Trust
Brewster Maude Charitable Trust
EHB Trust
The Tansy Trust
Mageni Trust
Noel Buxton Trust
The Foxley Trust
HOUSE OF LORDS
Mr & Mrs Jonathan Boyes
Mark & Rosemary Carawan
Dr Roger Donbavand
Amanda Leathers
Ruth Markland
James & Sarah Sassoon
Hugh & Catherine Stevenson
The Tschanz family in memory of Stephen Gotsztony
HOME SECRETARIES
Bill Bougourd & Judith Thomas
John Derrick & Preben Oeye
Ray & Vida Godson
Ian & Clare Maurice
Mr George Meagher
Mr John C Pearson
Ali Smith
Fiona Squire
JUDGES
Sir Gerald & Lady Acher
Mr Jasper Barnes
Mrs Margaret Bolam
Marie & Etienne Deshormes
Audrey & Stephen Hofmeyr
Mr & Mrs Joshua
William & Felicity Mather
Lady Parker
Ed & Sarah Peppiatt
The Percy family
Viv & Nigel Robson
Victoria & John Salkeld
John & Maxine Samuels
Carolyn Saunders &
Richard Ford
Richard & Helen Sheldon
David & Margaret Walker
GOVERNORS
Christopher & Molly Beazley
Mr & Mrs Boothby
Riccardo Calzavara
Mr Austin Erwin
Alastair Gillies
Will & Janine Hillary
Sophie & Guy Holborn
Madi & David Laurence
Sarah & David Melville
Nina & Gary Moss
Sara Nathan & Malcolm Singer
Mr Cedric Pierce
Katherine & Dominic Powell
David Stanton
Maria & Julian Sturdy-Morton
John & Carol Wates
Peter & Tessa Watkins
Tom & Elaine Yeo
and two anonymous donors
JAILBIRDS
Abu Khamis
Charles & Rhona Atterton
Stephanie Bamford & Dr Mark Wilkinson
Yuki & Tom Beardmore-Gray
Lorraine Bell
Francis Carpenter
Sue Clark
Tom Clementi
Please support the work in prison
Eleanor Cranmer & Nick Thomas
Ms Julie Devonshire
Philippa Drew
Mrs Claire Durtnall
Mr Campbell Edgar
Dr Julia Ellis
Leila Ettehadieh
Ismay Forsyth
Nigel & Bernie Foster
Alex Freeman
In memory of Glenys
Dr Rosalind Given-Wilson & Prof Paul Collinson
Michael Gordon
Ms Angela Hakim
Alastair & Vanessa Hammerton
Richard Hanson-James
Mr Andrew Hine
Clare Hoskins
Marion Howells
Alister La Bella
Jenny & Mike Lavin
Charles & Sue Marshall
Alison & Chris Mason
Mrs Sarah Matthews
Eloy & Letitia Michotte
Martin & Marion Motz
Isabella Murray
Kathy Mylrea
Pamela & Bruce Noble
Ms C C Paddock
Judy Perry
Jan & Mike Potter
Sabine Preston
Mr & Mrs G Pye
Michael Ross & Jennifer Kelly
The Scoones Family
Mark & Louise Seligman
David & Jane Shalders
Mr Ashley V Silverton
Mr & Mrs Teague
Paul & Wendy Tobia
Miss Mave Turner
In memory of Johnny Veeder QC
Sue Waldman
Lady Walker
Justine Wall
Gabrielle de Wardener
Katie & Christian Wells and five anonymous donors
A LONG STRETCH
1991 HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Sweeney Todd
1992 HMP Wandsworth, West Side Story
1993 HMP Wandsworth, Guys & Dolls
1995HMP Wandsworth, West Side Story
1996 Mountjoy Prison, Ireland, West Side Story
1997 HMP Bullingdon, Oxfordshire, West Side Story
1999 HMP Downview, Surrey, 3d Opera
2001 HMP Winchester, 3d Opera
2002 HMP Winchester, West Side Story
2003 HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Guys & Dolls
2004 HMP Ashwell, Leicestershire, Assassins
2005 HMP Coldingley, Surrey, Assassins
2006 HMP Bronzefield, Chicago
2007 HMP Wandsworth, Les Misérables
2008 HMP Kingston, Sweeney Todd (cancelled)
2009 HMP Wandsworth, West Side Story
2010 HMP Wandsworth, Carmen the Musical
2011 HMP Send, Surrey, Sugar
2012 HMP Erlestoke, Wiltshire, Les Misérables
2013 HMP Erlestoke, Wiltshire, West Side Story
2014 HMP Bronzefield, Sister Act
2015 HMP ISIS, Our House
2017 HMP High Down, Les Misérables
2018 HMP Bronzefield, Sweet Charity
2020 HMP Bronzefield, Hairspray
2022 HMP Bronzefield, Betty Blue Eyes
2025 HMP Bronzefield, Made in Dagenham
“Thank you so very much for giving my little sister the chance to perform in the show. I haven’t seen her so happy, healthy and focused as I did last night, and was overcome with pride and emotion all night, I still am this morning!
Again thank you for all the hard work you all do, it truly is amazing. Never forget the difference you make to someone’s life”
“What makes a great artist is a combination of great talent and great humility and you showed us both. Thank you” Marlena , prisoner
“What an experience. It has changed my life for sure” Cast member
“I’ll treasure this forever” Brenda , prisoner
“Humbling” Audience member
“Just to say I am out now. I took part in Les Misérables as the leader of the Revolution, Enjoras. As a lifer, you gave me hope and acceptance. Thank you.”
Garry, HMP Erlestoke, Wiltshire
RICHARD MORRISON The Times (extract)
What I saw during my afternoon inside was reassuring. Apart from the locked doors to every corridor, the bright and airy education and business studies floor looked and felt like a well-run sixth-form college.
And the atmosphere in the rehearsals for Made in Dagenham was electrifying. The level of concentration and commitment matched anything I’ve seen inside professional rehearsal spaces.
“My cellmate has a small part, ” one inmate in a bikerepairing workshop told me. “Going through her lines and songs with her, I think I know the whole show backwards as well.”
And there was something else: a feeling that strikes me every time I go to one of these prison shows (and which is captured very well in the recent movie Sing Sing, about a theatre project in the notorious New York state prison). It’s a sense that these people are performing as if their very lives depend on it. Which perhaps they do.
One of Bronzefield’s education team says projects such as Made in Dagenham may offer just a temporary flicker of joy and hope — but a flicker is better than nothing.
PIMLICO OPERA 2025
Left: top to bottom Jack Beaty & Jodie Jacobs (Eddie & Rita O’Grady); Christopher Howell (Harold Wilson), Chris Jenkins & Dale Baxter; the Ford factory
Above Steven Serlin (US Ford executive)
SIMON BOCCANEGRA
MUSIC Giuseppe Verdi
LIBRETTO
Francesco Maria Piave (1st version)
based on the play by Antonio García Gutiérrez
Arrigo Boito (2nd version)
SUPPORTED BY
David & Amanda Leathers, Peak Scientific, Woodward Charitable Trust and
Hamish & Sophie Forsyth
DAVID POUNTNEY director
Peter & Poppity Nutting
GIANLUCA MARCIANO conductor
Christopher & Anne Saul
RALPH KOLTAI set design
Ruth Markland ∙ SIMON BOCCANEGRA
Judith Lawless & Kevin Egan FIESCO
Noreen Doyle AMELIA
Harry Hyman ∙ ADORNO
Peter & Manina Dicks ∙ PAOLO ALBIANI
Julian Hardwick PIETRO
Nerissa Guest ∙ THE MAID
Nick & Lesley Dumbreck
Come in quest’ora bruna
Marie & Etienne Deshormes
Nell'ora soave
A thick penny (denaro grosso) from the time of Simone Boccanegra d. 1363
CONDUCTOR ∙ GIANLUCA MARCIANO
MARK SHANAHAN (11 July)
REVIVAL DIRECTOR ∙ ROBIN TEBBUTT
ORIGINAL DIRECTOR ∙ SIR DAVID POUNTNEY
ORIGINAL SET DESIGN ∙ RALPH KOLTAI
ORIGINAL COSTUME DESIGN ∙ SUE WILLMINGTON
LIGHTING DESIGNER ∙ TIM MITCHELL
SIMON BOCCANEGRA ∙ SIR SIMON KEENLYSIDE
JACOPO FIESCO, a nobleman ∙ JAMES CRESWELL
AMELIA GRIMALDI, his daughter ∙ ELIN PRITCHARD
GABRIELE ADORNO, a gentleman ∙ OTAR JORJIKIA
PAOLO ALBIANI, the Doge’s friend ∙ JOLYON LOY
PIETRO, a popular leader ∙ DAVID SHIPLEY
MAID ∙ ROSA SPARKS
CAPTAIN ∙ SAM UTLEY
THE GASCOIGNE ORCHESTRA leader ROBERT SALTER
This production originates from Welsh National Opera, May 1997
Sung in Italian with English surtitles
First performance 1st version 12 March 1857, La Fenice, Venice
First performance 2nd version 24 March 1881, La Scala, Milan
UK première 2nd version 1948, Sadler’s Wells
SYNOPSIS
Simon Boccanegra and Maria Fiesco have had an illegitimate daughter. The child lived with Boccanegra but at some point vanished.
Prologue: Genoa
Paolo and Pietro, commoners, vie to end aristocratic rule. They persuade Simon Boccanegra to stand for election as Doge. A former pirate, Boccanegra hopes that as Doge he would be allowed to wed his beloved Maria, daughter of the aristocrat Jacopo Fiesco.
Fiesco conceals the news that Maria has died. He insists Boccanegra return the child to the maternal home; he learns that the child has vanished. On entering Fiesco’s palace, Boccanegra discovers Maria’s corpse. The crowds hail him Doge – an office held for life.
Act 1 – 25 years later
Fiesco takes on the pseudonym Andrea Grimaldi and plots revenge. He is guardian to Amelia, the adoptive heiress of the Grimaldi fortune.
No one knows that she is the long-lost daughter of Boccanegra and Fiesco’s granddaughter.
Amelia is in love with a nobleman Gabriele Adorno who is Boccanegra’s enemy. Boccanegra himself plans to marry her off to his friend, Paolo.
Fiesco blesses Amelia’s union with Adorno who has no idea that she is Fiesco's granddaughter.
The Doge (Boccanegra), in conversation with her, realises from a set of portraits that this is his daughter. He abandons the idea of her marriage to Paolo. Paolo is furious.
Amelia is kidnapped.
A crowd rushes in, chasing Adorno who has killed the kidnapper. Adorno believes the Doge is behind it, but it is Paolo who has organised the kidnapping.
The Doge calls on the people – including Paolo – to swear vengeance on the kidnapper. Amelia must be found.
Long Dining Interval
Act 2
Paolo has taken Fiesco captive and plans to get rid of the Doge. He is poisoning Boccanegra’s water and asks Fiesco and Adorno to join the plot. They refuse.
Paolo spreads a rumour that Amelia is Boccanegra’s mistress. Adorno is about to stab the sleeping Doge when Amelia intervenes, telling him Boccanegra is her father.
Paolo is stirring up a rebellion. Boccanegra will allow Adorno to marry Amelia only if he can crush the rebels.
Act 3
The rebellion has been crushed and Paolo will be hanged. On his way to the gallows, he brags to Fiesco about the poison.
Close to death, Boccanegra realises Grimaldi is his old enemy, Fiesco, and tells him that Amelia is his granddaughter. The pair are reconciled and Boccanegra declares Adorno his successor.
PETRARCH TO THE DOGE OF GENOA from Avignon 1 November 1352
Therefore, recall that time when you were the happiest of all Italic peoples. I was then an infant, and I can remember, as if in a dream, when that shoreline of your gulf that looks both eastward and westward used to appear a heavenly and not an earthly dwelling, such as poets describe in the Elysian fields with their hilltops full of delightful pathways, gr n valleys, and blessed souls in the valleys. Who would not marvel from on high at the towers and palaces, and at nature so artfully subdued, at the stern hills covered with cedars, vines, and olive tr s, and under the high cli s marble villas equal to any royal palace and worthy of any city?
Who could behold without astonishment those delightful recesses where amidst the cli s stood courtyards with gilded roofs?
Resounding with the heavy waves of the sea and wet from stormy rains, these would attract seafarers’ attention because of their beauty and would cause the sailor struck by the view’s novelty to abandon his oar.
From: Francesco Petrarch, Letters on Familiar Matters [Rerum familiarum libri], translated by Aldo S. Bernardo, 3 volumes (New York: Italica Press, 2005); Book XIV, Letter V: in volume 2, pages 237-242.
FRANCESCO
IT WAS TOO GOOD TO WASTE
Rupert Christiansen recounts how Verdi, for the revised Boccanegra, turned to Petrarch to create a work of immense beauty and power, profoundly haunting and glowing with spiritual idealism
Of all great opera composers, Verdi travelled the longest musical journey, spanning more than half a century from the rum-ti-tum naiveté of Oberto in 1839, to the mercurial sophistication of Falstaff in 1893. Relentlessly self-critical, with a stubborn tenacity inherited from his peasant background, he never ceased improving his compositional technique, each new work in some respect addressing shortcomings in what had proceeded it. He wasn’t content to repeat himself; he always felt he could do better.
Simon Boccanegra marks a particularly complex and fascinating staging post along this road. It exists in two versions: the first composed in 1857 and generally considered unsuccessful, including by Verdi himself; the second, dating from 1881 (performed at GPO), being a radical revision of the original, made in collaboration with librettist Arrigo Boito, who would go on to inspire his two final Shakespeare-based masterpieces Otello and Falstaff.
There are also Shakespearean echoes in Boccanegra – the tragedy of a stern dictatorial father and innocent motherless daughter, at the end of which bitter enemies are reconciled – but its immediate source is a play by the 19 th century Spanish dramatist Antonio Garcia Gutiérrez, who had provided Verdi with the text of Il Trovatore a few years previously.
CONFIRMATION
of the FRANCISCAN RULE
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448–1494)
Cappella Sassetti , Florence ca. 1483
Quite how or why Verdi was so drawn to Gutiérrez is baffling – his plays had to be laboriously translated into Italian before Verdi could read them and their convoluted plots and elaborate diction needed a lot of unravelling. Working this material into a coherent text was a struggle: Verdi was dissatisfied with the efforts of his experienced regular librettist Francesco Piave and sneakily introduced another writer, Giuseppe Montanelli, to iron out some of the problems. But Montanelli only made matters worse, and the result remains fatally flawed, to the point that explaining precisely what happens off-stage or years back in Boccanegra is a challenge that has defeated even the most dogged. One of the opera’s earliest critics, Abramo Basevi, loudly complained 'I had to read the libretto no fewer than SIX TIMES, attentively, before I understood – or thought
I understood – any of it.' As if to prove the point, he then goes on to give a synopsis that is in several respects palpably inaccurate.
Yet even if its libretto wins no prizes, Boccanegra ’s score is an admirable thing. It was composed shortly after a trilogy of triumphs with Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Il Trovatore between 1851 and 1853 marked the conclusion of a phase in Verdi’s artistic progress and perhaps the doom of a certain exhausted idiom of Italian opera too. His next work, Les Vêpres Siciliennes, would be commissioned for Paris, where the taste was for much looser, more grandly scaled opera, in which the aria was less rigidly defined, the chorus and orchestra were more dominant and the subject matter was rooted in historical fact. These parameters would leave their mark on what followed in 1856-7, the first version of Boccanegra: aside from arias for Amelia and Adorno, there are few isolated applausebegging highlights, and Boccanegra himself never stops for a song. Yet passages of empty virtuosity and noisy bravado erupt too, relics from Verdi’s callow youth that he wasn’t quite ready to abandon.
Critics and the public didn’t take kindly to this
clash of styles, and the opera’s première at La Fenice in Venice was something of 'a fiasco' according to Verdi, with 'obscurity', 'severity', 'mournful' and 'strange comings and goings without rhyme or reason' among the keywords emerging in reviews. Subsequent productions in Naples and Rome were received more politely, but the opera flopped again at La Scala, Milan, and then petered out of circulation in the early 1860s. Verdi moved swiftly on, as he always did, having learnt some important lessons. His next opera Un Ballo in Maschera would be notable for its narrative clarity and scintillating wit – neither of which can be counted among Boccanegra ’s virtues.
But another of Verdi’s peasant virtues was his reluctance to let anything good go to waste.
Thus in 1880, after the creation of Don Carlos, Aida and the Requiem had further enhanced his artistry, gently goaded by his shrewd publisher Giulio Ricordi, he took another hard look at Simon Boccanegra. It was 'too sad, too depressing' as it stood, he thought, as he identified the need for 'more contrast and variety, more life.' To that end he rejected cheap notions of inserting a scene showing a 'hunt' or a 'battle with African pirates' . Instead he decided to use passages from letters written by
CALLING of the APOSTLES detail
Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448–1494)
Cappella Sistina, Rome. 1481
the poet Petrarch to the historical Boccanegra, urging Genoa to end its hostility towards Venice in the name of pan-Italian brotherhood. Here was a stirring message that could enhance an impression of Boccanegra’s moral authority (Petrarch’s words transferred to his mouth), as well as playing to the sensibilities of a recently united nation still swollen with patriotic pride as it emerged from the Risorgimento
Verdi’s newly acquired colleague Boito agreed to overhaul the text. At first he wasn’t encouraging, frankly comparing the existing libretto to a rickety table of which only one leg, the Prologue, stood firm. Some of his more drastic suggestions, including a full-blown scene of violent revolution, were thrown out, but as well as trimming and tweaking, he had the inspired idea of framing Petrarch’s exhortations in the form of a completely new scene taking place in Genoa’s Council Chamber scene, where Boccanegra outfaces a hostile mob and
THE COURT of the GONZAGA
Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506)
Camera degli Sposi, Castel San Giorgio, Mantua ca. 1470
thrillingly calls upon Amelia’s kidnapper Paolo to curse himself.
This magnificent climax occurs, oddly, about halfway through an opera that opens without fanfare in hushed conspiratorial mutterings and closes in muted funereal solemnity. This sets the overall tone: nothing Verdi wrote for the theatre radiates such consistent gravitas or takes such little heed of the merely brilliant or playful as this opera, and an unusually high percentage of the score moves round minor keys. Much from the 1857 score and text is incorporated – the best of it including Fiesco’s brief but warmly noble lament for his lost daughter, Il lacerato spirito, in the Prologue – but the melodramatic flourishes become less explosively obvious. Small adjustments make the dialogues between the principal characters more smoothly conversational, while the old-fashioned cabalettas (the conventional fast, excitable conclusions to arias or duets) of 1857 are eliminated. The orchestration becomes more subtly textured and chromatically harmonised, with often strikingly original effect, as when flutes, clarinets and piccolos are combined to evoke the lapping and scintillation of the waves in the accompaniment to Amelia’s aria. Verdi’s mature artistry is evident in innumerable small touches.
The première of this revamped Boccanegra took place in 1881 at La Scala, where the reception was broadly positive. Verdi expressed pleasure at what he heard and saw. 'It’s sad because it has to be sad,' he wrote, 'but it’s gripping’. Productions in Vienna and Paris followed, but despite Boito’s best efforts, the plot’s intricacies remained a barrier to wider appeal, and the opera soon faded away again, only returning to wider public attention when it was revived in the 1930s at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as a showcase for the great American baritone Lawrence Tibbett in the
title-role. In Europe it caught on slowly during the post-war period, its first British performance taking place at Sadler’s Wells in 1948, before Covent Garden took it up in 1965 in a production by Tito Gobbi, who also took the title role. A particularly memorable staging, marked by a gauzy dream-like atmosphere, was that directed by Giorgio Strehler, first seen at La Scala, Milan in 1971 and revived almost every year of the ensuing decade with a superb cast led by Piero Cappuccilli, Mirella Freni and Nicolai Ghiaurov, conducted by Claudio Abbado (and peerlessly recorded on Deutsche Grammophon). Today, in an age in which complexities of tone are readily valued, every major opera house will feel bound to feature Simon Boccanegra in its repertory. Since the 1990s, there have also been several revisitings of the 1857 version, the intrinsic merits of which have been increasingly recognised.
Even in its revised form, Simon Boccanegra retains a few of its original imperfections – the table may no longer be rickety, but some of the joins between the two versions still leave an audible trace. Nor is it ever destined to be a popular favourite: it lacks the instant dazzle and hit tunes of Rigoletto or La Traviata. Its mood is darker, its rhythm slower, and the motivations of the characters aren’t always easy to understand. But it is a work of immense beauty and power, profoundly haunting rather than superficially catchy, glowing with spiritual idealism and richly rewarding of an audience’s attention.
RUPERT CHRISTIANSEN was opera critic for The Telegraph for 25 years. He is dance critic for The Spectator and teaches English Literature at Keble College, Oxford. He has written extensively on 19 th –century Paris. His latest book is Diaghilev’s Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World (Faber).
È NOSTRA PATRIA GENOVA
Genoa real, Genoa imagined. Rob Wyke considers the role that the city of Genoa and some of its people played in Verdi’s life and in his art
The history and beauty of Genoa, the loss of loved ones, the perils of disunity, the power of the sea, and the shame of illegitimacy haunted Verdi’s imagination from his early maturity onwards and would surface in both versions of Simon Boccanegra.
Verdi did not fall instantly in love with Genoa when he first went there in late 1840 to stage his opera Oberto at the Teatro Carlo Felice. He was irritated by the Genoese audience’s failure to appreciate his work – and they applauded in the wrong places. Verdi was notoriously hard to please; but he was also low with grief: within the space of two years, 1838-1840, he had lost his two children and his wife.
In 1840 Italy was a concept rather than a country. It consisted of a number of separate states. Genoa, for instance, belonged to the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, ruled by Austria since 1815; Busseto, near Verdi’s birthplace, was in the Duchy of Parma. Even within a state, cities might be at odds with one another or with themselves. Verdi would play his part in the Risorgimento, the movement which longed for Italian liberation and unification, finally achieved in 1871 when Rome became the capital.
Genoa no longer controlled a maritime empire reaching as far as the shores of the Black Sea, but it was still commercially important and topographically beguiling: old palaces graced its medieval centre; the drama of its harbour
VENUS VAN CYTHERA detail
Jan Matsys (1510–1575) depicts the port of Genoa ca. 1561.
The white building, bottom right, is the Palazzo Doria, where Verdi rented an apartment
and the sea was never-ending. Divided Italy lacked a comprehensive railway network; so when Verdi’s career began to take him to Rome and Naples, Genoa was his obvious point of embarkation for the sea routes to the south.
Verdi met the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi in 1841. They soon became lovers but remained unmarried until 1859. Strepponi had already had at least three illegitimate children (none of them stayed with her) and the couple may have had an illegitimate daughter. Verdi’s relatives and Busseto in general were appalled by the couple’s conduct; they shunned Strepponi. Verdi in turn became alienated from his family.
Verdi had bought Palazzo Cavalli in Busseto in 1845, and soon after the house and farm at nearby Sant’Agata. Sant’Agata would eventually be Verdi’s working refuge from Busseto’s hostility and from publicity and fame, but in all the turmoil of 1850-51 he was denied use of that refuge because his estranged parents were living there. Verdi earned further local disapproval when he tried to have them evicted. A settlement was reached; Verdi and Strepponi moved into Sant’Agata in May 1851.
It was against this disturbed background that Verdi produced the dozen or so operas that led to the triumph of Rigoletto in 1851. One agreeable constant was Genoa where Verdi and Strepponi found themselves from time to time. Verdi had made a great friend there: Angelo Mariani, a brilliant violinist and one of Italy’s first professional conductors. He was dazzingly handsome – even Rossini praised his large and beautiful eyes.
Verdi and Mariani probably first met in 1846. They shared many interests, ranging from reading to shooting quail. Given Mariani’s many dalliances it would not have crossed his mind to make Verdi and Strepponi feel awkward about the status of their own relationship. The Genoese in general respected the famous
man’s privacy as no other Italian city had done; and besides seeing much of Mariani, Verdi and Strepponi made friends there with practical people such as the engineer, Giuseppe De Amicis. Verdi felt kinship with such competent practical people: one can imagine him sharing with them the pleasure of his hands-on management at Sant’Agata: the lands, buildings and workers.
The 1857 première of Boccanegra in Venice was not a great success, and a few months later came Aroldo, a reworking of Stiffelio (1850).
Mariani conducted the première and he and Verdi became even closer friends.
Mariani had visited Sant’Agata and knew that in autumn and winter it could be preternaturally wet, muddy and cold. He knew, too, that during the ruthless Austrian invasion of 1859 Verdi and Strepponi had been in grave danger near the front line. He therefore encouraged them to try wintering in Genoa, which they first did in early 1860, staying at the Hotel Croce di Malta with its view of the harbour across a wide terrace.
At this stage of their friendship Verdi confided freely in Mariani. For example, in a letter of August 1862, a heartbroken Verdi tells his friend that the beloved Maltese terrier, Loulou, has just died at Sant’Agata; Loulou was 'the true friend, the faithful inseparable companion in almost six years of our life! So affectionate, so handsome!'
The Maestro's private recreation. Look at the little scene! The little dog of a Genovese baron fraternises with Lulù 1858 Melchiorre Delfico (1825–1895)
He might almost be describing Mariani himself. Yet the relationship was not one of equals. Mariani worshipped Verdi; Verdi accepted Mariani’s devotion and exploited it, continually enjoining the busy conductor to carry out bureaucratic missions in Genoa and to acquire all sorts of things for Sant’Agata, from magnolia saplings to guns.
Mariani, set on finding them proper winter quarters in Genoa, and in 1866 lit upon a suitable large apartment on the piano nobile of Palazzo Sauli in the old city. Verdi took it. He and Strepponi departed immediately for Paris, leaving Mariani with the job of preparing the apartment. Mariani himself sublet some rooms from Verdi. He felt curiously honoured to inhabit a small part his hero’s Genoese base.
Verdi and Strepponi spent a good deal of time and nearly every winter in Genoa but about this time, tensions arose in the Verdis’ marriage and therefore in the lives of the people around them.
Mariani remained devoted to Verdi but was not always able to oblige him as Verdi thought he should; he did not, for example, participate in Verdi’s scheme to create a collaborative requiem mass for Rossini; whenever Mariani faltered, Verdi fumed. Strepponi, egged on by her manipulative crony Mauro Corticelli, now took strongly against Mariani: she disapproved of his love affairs and she did not believe that he was genuinely ill with the disease that would kill him; indeed, she became shockingly sarcastic about the state of his bladder. The arrival into the Verdi circle of the soprano Teresa Stolz, at one point engaged to Mariani, made matters even more complicated – and would continue to do so in the years ahead. A mystified Mariani’s attempts at reconciliation were in vain. Verdi himself contributed to the vilification of Mariani, though he conceded more than once that there was no better conductor.
In November 1871 Mariani went to Bologna to
THE PORT AT GENOA 1880 The view from Verdi's apartment
conduct Lohengrin. On the 19 th he went to the station to meet someone, but he encountered Verdi alone on the platform. Verdi had come to hear the Wagner. Mariani told a friend: 'I went to greet [Verdi] and tried to relieve him of the burden of his case, but he wouldn’t allow me. I realized that he was not pleased that I had seen him arrive'. The two men parted and probably never saw one another again.
A year later the Verdis decided to evict Mariani from his rooms in Palazzo Sauli. Though still conducting, Mariani was spending more and more time in agony and became too ill to move. He died in Palazzo Sauli on 13 June 1873.
In 1874 the Verdis left Palazzo Sauli and took an apartment on the top floor of the 16th -century Palazzo Doria (Villa del Principe) situated next to the relatively new Piazza Principe station. After unification, the Italian railway network had developed quickly. It was no longer necessary to voyage to Naples and Rome by sea. Verdi, that inveterate traveller, now lived just round the corner from the train that could get him from Genoa to Milan, say, in a little over eight hours.
In 1875 Strepponi tried to persuade Verdi that they should abandon Genoa for Milan, but their only move came in 1877: down from the second floor of Palazzo Doria to the piano nobile, overlooking the garden and Genoa’s
THE YOUNG WIDOW 1879
Tomba Pienovi
The monumental Staglieno cemetery just outside Genoa
Hundreds of life-size monuments of operatic intensity
ever-expanding port. They would keep this apartment until the ends of their lives.
After his falling out with Mariani, Verdi, now very wealthy, concentrated on performances of Aida and the Requiem, on the development of Sant’Agata and on sojourns in Genoa. He appeared to be ruling out the possibility of undertaking any major compositions or revisions of older works.
However, Giulio Ricordi, Verdi’s publisher, had other plans. He probably knew that Verdi retained a high regard for Simon Boccanegra (not performed since 1859). Ricordi had proposed that Verdi should re-work the score for La Scala; Verdi had rejected the suggestion because he felt that the great singing actors that Boccanegra required could not be found.
Ricordi also divined that Verdi, despite his protestations, might just be willing to compose a completely new opera and hoped that that opera would be based on Shakespeare’s Othello. Ricordi would have to be able to assure Verdi that his work would be properly staged and that the right librettist could be found: as Verdi had remarked in 1865, 'Everything finally depends on a libretto. A libretto, a libretto, and the opera is done!' Ricordi was prepared.
Verdi first met Arrigo Boito in Paris in 1862. He commissioned the 20-year-old to produce the
words for the Inno delle nazioni (Hymn of the nations) which Verdi composed for the 1862 International Exhibition in London. Verdi had doubts about Boito’s abilities as a composer, but he came to admire his skill as a poet and noted appreciatively Boito’s wish to serve him as librettist (as reported to him by Ricordi). The two met again by chance at the time of Verdi’s snubbing of Mariani in 1871: Boito (with his friend, the conductor Franco Faccio) was also in Bologna to see Lohengrin
In 1879 things at last began to go Ricordi’s way. In March, the Verdis saw Boito’s Mefistofele in Genoa. Encouraged by Ricordi, Boito immediately paid Verdi a visit at Palazzo Doria, but he was too nervous that day to propose collaboration on a new opera. In May, Ricordi sent a package containing the score of the old Boccanegra to Verdi at Sant’Agata. Verdi realised what the package must be and told Ricordi that he wouldn’t open it. Ricordi shelved his Boccanegra idea for the moment and turned again to Othello
In late June, Verdi was in Milan and invited Ricordi and Franco Faccio to dinner.
Conversation turned to di Salsa's libretto for Rossini’s Otello. In a letter to Ricordi that September (like all the others quoted hereafter, edited and translated by Hans Busch in 1988), Verdi recalled: 'There was talk of ‘Otello’, of Sheaspeare [sic], of Boito. The following day Faccio came with Boito to my hotel. Three days later Boito brought me the sketch of ‘Otello’, which I read and found good. Write the poetry, I told him; it will always be good for you, for me, for someone else…'.
Verdi declined to meet Boito again until he could read and judge the finished libretto. Boito worked on it all summer, re-working it and re-working it, unsure that Verdi would ever compose the score. The portions of the libretto that Verdi saw during that autumn impressed him. Boito’s complete first draft reached
Sant’Agata on 18 November 1879, a day or two before the Verdis set out for Milan where Verdi and Boito met again at last. Verdi bought the rights to the libretto before going on to Genoa for the winter. He then put it in his briefcase with Antonio Somma’s libretto for Re Lear which had been in that briefcase for a good twenty years.
Busy with other things, Verdi did very little about Otello until he sent some structural thoughts to Boito nearly a year later. Boito replied in a long, thoughtful letter. At last Boito and Verdi were corresponding as fellow professionals; they shared a sophisticated sense of the psychological structure of Shakespeare’s play and how this might shape their opera.
But before they could make progress on Otello, suddenly in November 1880 Giulio Ricordi wrote to Verdi: “The management of La Scala insistently request ‘Simon Boccanegra’ from us for next season”.
Really, though, Boito wanted to press on with Otello and raised immediate doubts about Boccanegra: “The drama that we are working with is lopsided, like a table that wobbles, but no one knows which leg is the cause, and whatever is done to it, it still wobbles”. He thought that Boccanegra lacked the structure needed to generate tragic power. But he would bow to Verdi’s wishes. Practical Verdi took the point about the wobbly table, but he knew that as men of the theatre he and Boito could steady it. Reminding Boito that La Scala needed the opera, Verdi told him not to let aiming for perfection in Otello deter him from stabilising Boccanegra. Boito bowed.
Once Verdi began to attend to the music in early January 1881, his requests for small adjustments to the libretto multiplied. Verdi warned Boito that they wouldn’t finish work until the dress rehearsal (if they got that far). They each joked more than once that “We’ve not finished yet!”
in a vortex of proposed contracts for new operas 1860 Melchiorre Delfico (1825–1895)
of Amelia and Adorno should open Act III: the drop-curtain at the back of the set, seen through openings in the drop in front of it 'represents the city of Genoa and the port'. A variety of footlights would illuminate the palaces, the ships and the sea. These lights would be gradually extinguished during the duet between Fiesco and the dying Boccanegra.
The revised Simon Boccanegra enjoyed several successful runs. Two triumphant collaborations between Verdi, Boito and Shakespeare were to come: Otello in 1887 and Falstaff in 1893. Victor Maurel would be the first Iago and the first Falstaff; Francesco Tamagno (the 1881 Adorno) the first Otello. In the Verdis’ later years, Boito was nearly always with them in Genoa at Christmas and New Year, no doubt eating his share of the enormous panettoni provided by Ricordi.
Verdi
Jules Massenet visited Verdi in Genoa in 1894. Before Massenet left Palazzo Doria, the 81-year-old Verdi led him from the grand interior to the terrace. Massenet remembered:
'I shall always see him bareheaded and upright beneath the scorching sun, showing me the iridescent town and the golden sea beneath us, with a gesture as proud as his genius and as simple as his beautiful artist’s soul. It was almost an evocation of one of the great Doges of the past, stretching over Genoa his powerful and beneficent hand'.
Verdi died on 27 January 1901 – in Milan.
ROBERT WYKE chairs the Laurence Sterne Trust at Shandy Hall, Coxwold, North Yorkshire. Until 2015 he was a teacher; he brought many of his pupils to GPO, often for their first experience of opera. He has written for the programme book since 2023 in succession to his and GPO’s old friend Michael Fontes. He is indebted in his article to the scholarship of Aldo S. Bernardo, Julian Budden, Hans Busch, Charles Osborne, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz and Andrew Porter; and the translations he quotes are by one or other of those writers. He thanks Professor Kenneth Clarke and Tim Gates for their advice.
Verdi letters edited and translated by Hans Busch in 1988.
GARDEN OF HARMONY 1870s
Henry Emy dit Telory 66 composers of which 38 are living in the Garden of Harmony Offenbach plays the organ in the center, Verdi is on a bicycle, Rossini shows a tuning fork to Wagner
MADAMA BUTTERFLY
MUSIC Giacomo Puccini
LIBRETTO Luigi Illica & Giuseppe Giacosa
based on Madame Chrysanthème (1887) a novel by Pierre Loti
Madame Butterfly (1898) a short story by John Luther Long
Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan (1900) a play by David Belasco
SUPPORTED BY Theaux, Ethos Foundation and
David & Clare Kershaw CIO-CIO-SAN
Anthony & Carolyn Townsend SUZUKI
Hugh & Catherine Stevenson B F PINKERTON
Prof Martin Brown & Dr Sue Brown
The Humming Chorus
Hilary & Mike Wagstaff GORO
Neil & Debbie Franks · PRINCE YAMADORI
David & Lynneth Salisbury SHARPLESS
Tessa & John Manser Tu, tu piccolo
Barbara Yu Larsson
STEPHEN BARLOW conductor
John & Carol Wates · Addio, fiorito asil
Lady Acher Butterfly's fan
Sir Adam & Lady Constable
IMPERIAL COMMISSIONER
Keith & Katy Weed THE BONZE
CONDUCTOR · STEPHEN BARLOW
DIRECTOR & DESIGNER · JOHN DOYLE
LIGHTING DESIGNER · TIM MITCHELL
CIO-CIO-SAN, MADAMA BUTTERFLY · HYE-YOUN LEE
SUZUKI, her maid · KITTY WHATELY
B F PINKERTON, Lt in the US Navy · LUIS GOMES
SHARPLESS, US consul at Nagasaki · ROSS RAMGOBIN
GORO, a matchmaker · ADRIAN THOMPSON
THE BONZE, Cio-Cio-San’s uncle · JIHOON KIM
YAKUSIDE, Cio-Cio-San’s uncle · HENRY GRANT KERSWELL
KATE PINKERTON · ROSA SPARKS
PRINCE YAMADORI · TIM BAGLEY
THE IMPERIAL COMMISSIONER · ADAM JARMAN
THE OFFICIAL REGISTRAR · HARRY BOOKES-OWEN
CIO-CIO-SAN'S MOTHER · ALISON DUNNE
THE AUNT · HASMIK HARUTYUNYAN
THE COUSIN · HANNAH O’BRIEN
SORROW · CHARLES WILSON JACKSON
THE GASCOIGNE ORCHESTRA leader ROBERT SALTER
Sung in Italian with English surtitles
First performance 17 February 1904, La Scala, Milan
UK première 10 July 1905, Covent Garden
SYNOPSIS
For 200 years, Japan has been closed for trade. In 1853 the U.S. Navy sends four warships threatening to attack if Japan does not open her riches to the West.
Act 1 Nagasaki
Goro, a marriage broker, has arranged for naval officer Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton to ‘marry’ Cio-Cio-San – known as Butterfly. Pinkerton inspects the house and his bride's entourage.
With the American Consul, Sharpless, he drinks a toast to the USA. Sharpless, fearful for Butterfly, tries to dissuade Pinkerton saying that one day Pinkerton will have a ‘real’ American wife.
Butterfly tells Sharpless how her family fell on hard times and the women became geishas. Her mother will come to the wedding but her father is dead. Butterfly shows Pinkerton her possessions – except for the most sacred one: her father's dagger. It was a gift from the Mikado and was an order to commit suicide.
For Pinkerton's sake, Butterfly has become a Christian, but she has not told her family. The couple are married. Her uncle, the Bonze, and her family berate her. Pinkerton orders everyone to leave.
Pinkerton comforts his bride and, as night falls, he leads her into the house.
Long Dining Interval
Act 2 Three years later
Pinkerton has been recalled to America. Butterfly and her maid, Suzuki, have little money but Butterfly refuses to believe that Pinkerton has deserted her. One day he will return.
Sharpless and Goro arrive with news: Pinkerton’s ship will arrive in Nagasaki that very day. Butterfly is ecstatic. Sharpless cannot bring himself to tell her any more. Over the years, Goro has been trying to marry Butterfly off to
various suitors but she refuses them.
Sharpless tries again to deliver the rest of Pinkerton’s letter and presses Butterfly to accept Yamadori who is rich. She brings in her child — Pinkerton’s child. They are shocked. Sharpless promises to tell Pinkerton.
Goro has spread rumours that Butterfly has a fatherless child. She hears the harbour cannon signalling the ship's arrival of a ship and tells Suzuki to decorate the house. She puts on her wedding dress, waiting for her husband.
Dawn the following day
Butterfly has kept an all-night vigil.
Sharpless arrives with Pinkerton and his American wife. Sharpless wants Suzuki to help break the news to Butterfly that Pinkerton is married. Pinkerton cannot pluck up the courage to face Butterfly. They leave it to Suzuki to tell her the truth.
Kate Pinkerton asks whether she may take the child away.
Butterfly maintains her dignity. If Pinkerton returns to the house in half an hour, she will give him the answer.
She dismisses everyone and prepares herself for a ceremonial suicide.
1880s
Nagasaki's principal productions are tobacco, jinrikishas, unripe plums, ships’ chandlers, bow-legged Custom House officials, water melons, bankrupts, intoxicated sailors, tortoiseshell bracelets, grog-shops, mosquitoes, stagnation, commission agents.
Prevalent epidemics are dysentry and insolvency.
1904
For it has well been said that the most wonderful aesthetic products of Japan are not its ivories, nor its bronzes, nor its porcelains, nor its swords, nor any of its marvels in metal or lacquer — but its women.
Postcards by Leopoldo Metlicovitz for the revised version Madame Butterfly in Brescia, May 1904
The Milan première had taken place in February
A SELF-DISSOLVING MARRIAGE
Nagasaki had always been an easy come, easy go sort of place. It was one of the first ports opened for foreign trade and was soon famed for the rowdiness of its gay quarter and its amiable desire to keep visiting sailors happy.
Awesterner needed no more than a little money and an introduction to a Japanese ‘go-between’ who took him along to a certain tea-house where numbers of pretty girls tripped gaily about. And eventually (there was no hurry) he chose the one who most appealed to him and said he would marry her. The marriage — a perfectly legal union, signed and sealed in the nearby police office — was arranged by the go-between, a quite indispensable person who could usually suggest a house to rent also. Here, the foreigner could install the girl and live with her just as long as he wanted — during a five-year tour of duty perhaps, or for a couple of years, or until he got bored or a baby was due, whatever was the most convenient. And when he went away the marriage just dissolved itself; the girl returned to her family or the tea-house, or, in some cases, she then married a man of her own race and lived happily ever after. Temporary liaisons such as these were common in all the treaty ports (. . . )
In 1860 when Bishop George Smith of Hong Kong visited Yokohama, he expressed his outrage at the number of foreign bachelors in the port who had native ‘wives’. Local Japanese officials often acted as go-betweens. As more foreign bachelors — junior clerks, shopkeepers, commercial agents, engineers and military men — came to the treaty ports, so the procedure became more organised. The owners of some bars and tea-houses, a few strategically placed flower-sellers, bath-house keepers and even laundry-men took over the role of procurers and certain houses were rented again and again for these brief partnerships. The women were not accepted in the wider social life of the foreign community but mixed with other couples on the same footing. Nevertheless, the practice was tacitly allowed as a convenient solution in a society where there were not enough unmarried western women to go round and where pressures of convention and finance often prevented a young man from making a ‘respectable’ marriage until he had attained a sufficiently high economic and social status.
Long before the Butterfly story was written down, Nagasaki was the most notorious for this particular business, its girls were supposed to be the prettiest and the easiest to live with; arrangement were cheap and made with a minimum of fuss.
From The Deer Cry Pavilion, Westerners in Japan, 1868-1905 by Pat Barr
JAPAN COMES TO PARIS 1867
The Shogun's brother with 28 officials brought the glories of Japan to the Paris Exposition Universelle.
The Shogunate and the two provinces of Satsuma and Hizen mounted small-scale displays
Paintings, ukiyo-e prints, folding screens, swords, ceramics, sculptures and other artistic crafts were exhibited for Europe to see
Above THE JAPANESE DELEGATION
Left JAPANESE SATSUMA PAVILION
Below FOR AMUSEMENT
DIE WITH HONOUR OR LIVE WITH SHAME
Puccini’s score is a miracle of economy. Its celestial melodies seep into the soul. Its Japanese inflections are of a flavour that retains Puccini’s own glowing Italianate romanticism
Although Puccini spoke little English, it was in London, seeing the young girl’s patience in waiting for the return of her lover in David Belasco’s one–act play Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan (1900) that inspired him to write his own version of the Butterfly story.
The play was on at the Duke of York's, St Martin's Lane, and Puccini was in town for the première of Tosca at Covent Garden in summer 1900. Butterfly's patience was dramatised by Belasco in a 14-minute silent vigil. With the curtain still raised, there were elaborate sound and lighting effects and Puccini could not resist. Belasco based his play on the short story of Madame Butterfly (1898) by John Luther Long and Pierre Loti’s 1887 French novel Madame Chrysanthème. Long had heard the story of the poor teahouse girl abandoned by her Western lover from his sister Jennie, who was the wife of a Methodist Episcopal missionary in Japan. In 1931, she gave a series of talks on the real Madame Butterfly:
On the hill opposite ours lived a little tea-house girl; her name was Chô-san, Miss Butterfly. She was so sweet and delicate that everybody was in love with her. In time we learned that she had a lover. That was not so strange, for all tea-house girls have lovers, if they can get and hold them. Chô-san's young man was quite nice, but very temperamental, of a moody, lonely disposition. One evening there was quite a sensation when it was learned that poor little Chô-san and her baby, had been deserted. The man promised to return at a certain time; had even arranged a signal so that Chôsan would know when his ship had come in; but the little girl-wife awaited that signal in vain. . . . He never returned.”
Back in Italy Puccini immediately contacted his publisher Ricordi. The first performance of Madama Butterfly in 1904 at La Scala, Milan was an unmitigated disaster: under–rehearsed and too long. An impolite and excited audience erupted in noisy catcalls right from the beginning of the evening. Things got worse when the Butterfly’s Kimono accidentally billowed up and the public shouted
Below PAINTED HANDSCROLL by Nishiyama Kan'ei (1854-1868) British Museum
The lives of pleasure-loving inhabitants of Osaka in spring: people in the streets; progress of a high-ranking courtesan through Shinmachi pleasure quarter; pleasure boats in estuary of Ajikawa river and a party at a tea house on bank
out that soprano Rosina Storchio was pregnant by her lover, the conductor Arturo Toscanini. Despite what he described as a “lynching”, Puccini was undeterred. He split his two acts into three, divided by the Humming Chorus. He would revise the work five times before getting to the 1907 version generally used today.
Puccini was assiduous in his research into Japanese music, and some scholars have found up to ten authentic folk melodies in the score. For the wedding of Pinkerton and CioCio-San he used the Japanese national anthem Kimigayo and received some recordings from Tokyo. Puccini also made contact with the wife of the Japanese minister in Rome, Mrs Hisako Oyama, who was herself an amateur musician:
“She told me so many interesting things, sang me some native songs and promised to send me some music from her country . . . She is very intelligent and, although plain, is attractive.”
He made use of pentatonic and whole tone scales which Western musicians frequently used at the time to evoke the exotic Orient, but what he was looking for was an atmosphere, in much the same way as Sullivan did in The Mikado (a score in Puccini's library). He transformed his authentic sources into his own Romantic counterpoint and a style which remained entirely his own, and quintessentially Italian in its glowing romanticism.
It was after treaties with Japan in the 1850s that trade and cultural links were opened up across the world, particularly in Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Japanese arts and crafts became the trending fashion with displays at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867. In his painting La Japonaise Monet showed his wife wearing a
red kimono and carrying a fan, while Japanese homes influenced the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The French term japonisme was used to describe this discovery of a different culture, and the last word in fashion was an oriental note of style.
It remained a time of temporary marriage, the signing of quaint agreements which were not considered legally binding. The role of the geishas as a courtesans providing entertainment for men was a norm and involved sexual exploitation. Often forced
LA JAPONAISE (1876) Claude Monet (1840–1926)
by poverty, prostitution was not uncommon. Puccini’s Butterfly is set apart by her unbending faith in Pinkerton. Asked to describe Butterfly in one word, the great soprano Raina Kabaivanska said that she was “a believer.” Abandoning family and religion, it is her unflagging belief in love which is behind our emotional response to the opera.
It is hard not to empathise with a promise of love which is not kept. It is impossible to sympathise with Pinkerton exalting American values and amused by all things Japanese. He is unaware of Cio-Cio-San’s deep belief in his words and promises; he shows no guilt in the final act. A less harsh view is expressed by the soprano Renata Scotto, a great interpreter of the role:
“I like Pinkerton. He is the symbol of youth and the man who doesn’t know that he is doing something bad. He just wants to have fun and have a good time.”
Illicit pleasure was a feature of Puccini’s lifestyle, with a love of hunting, fast cars and pretty girls. Many of his operas explore almost voyeuristic female suffering. Mimi, Tosca and Minnie all face overwhelming challenges and so does Cio-Cio-San – a child bride of doll–like beauty - bimba dagli occhi pieni di malìa (a child with eyes full of seduction). Puccini surely must have been aware that no girl of 15 was ever likely to sing the role of Butterfly, but the image of a submissive young girl oppressed by a sophisticated coloniser was no doubt in the composer’s mind.
ROSENBAUM HOUSE, ALABAMA (1939)
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959)
Times change and our knowledge of other cultures has become more sophisticated. Recently soprano Angel Blue withdrew from her Verona performances of La Traviata because their Visconti production of Aida used black face makeup. It is a problem for many Romantic operas which often use exotic settings and races. It would be impossible for any opera house to cast and produce these operas with total authenticity. Imperialism and Colonialism are periods of history which do not sit well in our modern society. It would be a mistake to imagine that there is anything rigorously authentic about Japanese society in Madama Butterfly, and the exploitation of a 15-year-old girl. La Fanciulla del West does not provide an accurate portrayal of life in the Far West, nor does Turandot provide an insight into Chinese culture. The reason for the popularity and beauty of these works lies in the emotional truth to be found in the characters, and Puccini‘s musical portrayal of the struggle and tragedy of doomed love.
Listening to soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan (known as Maggie from Mayo), whom Puccini considered his favourite Cio-Cio-San, I am reminded that Madama Butterfly was the first opera I ever saw and was a defining moment in the life of a 10-year-old. My grandmother covered my eyes with a newspaper as Cio-CioSan makes her desperate decision.
More than half a century later, my tears prove that Puccini never loses his power.
STEPHEN MUDGE Having trained and worked as a tenor, Stephen was a principal correspondent for Opera News in Europe for over 25 years. He writes and interviews for Opera magazine in France and divides his time between Devon and Paris, whose interiors he chronicles in Paris Rooms
LEOPOLDO METLICOVITZ (1868
– 1944)
One of the fathers of Italian poster art Leopoldo Metlicovitz began as an apprentice in a printing house in Udine where he learned the technique of lithography. He was noticed by Giulio Ricordi who invited him to Milan to complete his training and by 1893 Leopoldo was Ricordi's technical director.
Initially Metlicovitz transposed the works of famous poster artists (Hohenstein, Mataloni) and, without any formal training, began creating his own designs for Ricordi composers – Mascagni, Zandonai, Puccini.
Thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of Giulio Ricordi, Metlicovitz' genius was applied to diverse product promotional campaigns including the Fernet-Branca trademark that is still in use.
Aged 70, he ended the collaboration with Casa Ricordi and concentrated on painting.
1900 Metlicovitz (32) far right with Verdi (87) whose portrait he painted
MADAMA BUTTERFLY
SIMON BOCCANEGRA
TAJ MAHAL
The Gascoigne Orchestra first played at Grange Park Opera in 2021. For 26 years (1993–2018) it was resident at Garsington Opera as the Garsington Opera Orchestra, performing over 75 operas. They are named in honour of Bamber & Christina Gascoigne who have given so much to the arts.
VIOLIN 1
Robert Salter
Simon Lewis
Nicoline Kraamwinkel
Leo Payne
Jake Rea
Joana Ly
Malcolm Allison
Lizzie McConkey
Victoria Barnes
Amanda Woods
VIOLIN 2
Clare Hoffman
Jane Carwardine
Karen James
Robert Bilson
Chris Windass
Nancy Taylor
Rosie Henbest
VIOLA D’AMORE
Rachel Stott
VIOLA
Vanessa McNaught
Chris Pitsillides
Nathalie Green-Buckley
Chris Beckett
Louise Hawker
CELLO
Jane Fenton
Helena Binney
Philippa Schofield
Penny Bradshaw
Amy Goodwin
DOUBLE BASS
Markus van Horn
Caroline Harding
Yijia Cui
FLUTE
Julian Sperry
Sirius Chau
PICCOLO
Clare Jefferis
OBOE
Emma Feilding
Helen Barker
Clare Hoskins
COR ANGLAIS
Clare Hoskins
CLARINET
Peter Sparks
Helen Paskins
BASS CLARINET
Rob Ault
BASSOON
Philip Gibbon
Damian Brasington
HORN
Caroline O’Connell
Alexia Cammish
Alex Carr
Richard Stroud
Clare Lintott
TRUMPET
Martin Rockall
Simon Munday
Simon Gabriel
Oliver Preece
TROMBONE
Ruth Molins
Jeremy Gough
Jonny Watkins
BASS TROMBONE
Ian Fasham
CIMBASSO
Martin Knowles
TIMPANI
Matthew Rich
PERCUSSION
Cameron Sinclair
Austin Beattie
Chris Terian
Mark Taylor
HARP
Sue Blair
MISSING
THE MONGOLS WERE EVERYWHERE
Despite bashing up Japan, Ukraine, India (where our operas are set) the Mongols promoted peaceful tariff-free trade from Japan to Genoa
1206 Genghis Khan (1162–1227) is ruler of the Mongols. At the time of his death, his empire was twice the size of the Roman Empire. It is estimated that 50 million people were killed by the Mongols. The population of China (120 million) fell by half during their 50 year rule
ca. 1220 India The Mongols progress into India and reach the outskirts of Delhi
ca. 1237 Russia The Mongols burn cities in Russia; they move west into Poland and Hungary 1274 & 1281 Japan Kublai Khan leads a Mongol invasion of Japan. They are repelled by a typhoon. Gunpowder (from China) is used
The Mongols weren’t all bad. They established the Silk Routes and free movement of goods from East Asia to the West, from Japan to Genoa, from the land of Cio-Cio-San to Boccanegra’s city via India
The word Mughal is the Indo-Persian form of Mongol. The Mughals were mostly ethnic Turks –and not Mongolians. However, Simon Boccanegra’s contemporary in India, Timur, was Turco-Mongolian
Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147–1199)
1227 Genghis falls from his horse whilst hunting and dies
1260 Mongols bashing up Polish Dominicans
left
first shogun of the Kamakura dynasty
from left clockwise Timur, Ivan the Terrible, Elizabeth I, Akbar, Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada
1339 Dec 23 Genoa Simon Boccanegra (r 1339–1345) elected Doge for life. He extends Genoese control to the French and Italian Rivieras, with the exception of the Grimaldi holdings in Monaco and Ventimiglia
1370 The reign of Timur (r 1370–1405); a conqueror and patron of the arts and architecture. Known also as Timur the Lame (Tamerlane) he was great-great-great grandfather of Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire. Babur was great-great grandfather of Shah Jahan. They kept it in the family
1451 Genoa Columbus born. With three ships, he sails the ocean blue and in two months makes landfall in the Americas
1500s The Mughal dynasty rules most of northern India
1543 Japan Portugese sailors are the first Europeans to arrive in Japan. Nagasaki Bay was deemed the ideal harbour
1547 Russia The reign of Ivan the Terrible (r. 1547–1584)
1556 India The reign of Akbar (r. 1556–1605)
1558 England The reign of Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603). Ivan corresponds with her (through her merchants) on topics ranging from a military alliance to marriage and the request for asylum, if needed. She agreed to the latter on the condition that he pay for himself
1565 Agra Akbar builds the massive Agra fort in eight years. Why did it take 18 months+ to repair Kentish Town Station?
1588 Nov London Explorer Thomas Cavendish arrives with loot from a Spanish ship captured off the coast of what is now Mexico. The booty includes two Japanese slaves. Christopher, 20, and Cosmus, 17, are fluent in English and Japanese. They meet Queen Elizabeth when she dines on Cavendish’s boat
1600 Elizabeth I grants to a group of 125 shareholders a monopoly on trade to Asia. The East India Company (EIC) is born
Goa Japanese merchants and Portuguese ships trade Japanese slaves
1602 Dutch East India company (VOC) have a monopoly of spices (nutmeg, mace, cloves), selling in Europe and India at 14–17 times the price paid in Indonesia. Its charter empowers it to build forts, maintain armies. Accounts are submitted every decade
1614 Tokugawa Hidetada bans Christianity 1615 James I sends Sir Thomas Roe to make a trade treaty with Jahangir (r.1605–1627) that gives the EIC exclusive rights to reside and create factories
ca. 1600 Nanban Screen showing harmonious interaction with Europeans, depicted as exotic, but not forbidding
1665 Dutch VOC factory at Hugli-Chuchura, Bengal
1628 Coronation of Shah Jahan
1631 Mumtaz dies 1632–1648 Building of Taj Mahal
1634 Shah Jahan allows EIC trade in rich Bengal
1635 Japanese who travel abroad may never return 1639 All Westerners except the Dutch (restricted to Dejima, a small artificial island — and thus, not true Japanese soil — in Nagasaki’s harbor) are prohibited from entering Japan
1657 Edo Great Fire of Meireki destroys most of the city. The fire is said to have been started accidentally by a priest cremating a cursed kimono that had been owned in succession by three teenage girls who all died before ever wearing it. A gust of wind ignited the wooden temple
1658 India The reign of Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707)
1666 Great Fire of London
1669 VOC, richest private company ever seen: 150+ merchant ships, 40 warships, 50k employees, a private army of 10k soldiers, a dividend payment of 40% on the original investment
1687 July 25 Ivan Mazeppa born
1698 Peter the Great (who will fight Mazeppa at Potava) visits William III at Kensington Palace (11 Jan - 21 Apr), on a fact-finding tour of advanced countries. His focus is shipbuilding
Before the trees were felled
ca. 1680 Aurangzeb
1700s
1707 Mount Fuji erupts. Ash fall results in starvation
1707 Aurangzeb dies. There is anarchy and EIC steps in 1709 July 8 Battle of Poltava
1756 Salzburg Mozart born
1756 Calcultta Conflict arises when EIC continues to extend Fort William with its infamous Black Hole - a dungeon
1790s Vienna Haydn is teaching Beethoven and refers to his haughty pupil as “The Grand Mogul”
1792 Hokkaidō Lieutenant Adam Laxman is one of the first Russians to set foot in Japan. Ostensibly returning two Japanese castaways, his goal is trade. He fails 1800s
1813 Wagner and Verdi born 1813 EIC trade monopoly with India abolished
1819 Byron’s poem Mazeppa
1828 Paris Food Show Englishman John Osborn wins with his invention Patum Peperium
1828 Pushkin’s narrative poem Poltava
ca. 1830 The Agra Scroll (Taj Mahal editorial) depicts the riverfront in its heyday
1837 The reign of Bahadur Shaf Zafar (r. 1837–1857)
1837 Madras First Indian railway: 20km
1837 St Petersburg First Russian railway: 27km
1839 Naples First Italian railway: 7.25km
1840 Votkinsk Tchaikovsky born
1843 Gutiérrez play Simon Boccanegra
1853 Commodore Matthew Perry leads four US ships into Edo harbor, Tokyo Bay, forcing an end to 220 years of isolation and opening Japan to US trade
1707 Fuji eruption
1792 Daikokuya Kōdayū and Isokichi Japanese castaways
1778 The East Offering its Riches to Britannia Ceiling in East India House, London
Japanese depiction of Perry’s Black Ships
1857 March Venice First version of Simon Boccanegra
1857 May Meerut Indian Rebellion
1858 India 4 am on 7 October The last Mughal Emperor departs, exiled to Rangoon, Burma
1858 EIC nationalised
1859 Naples Italy’s Risorgimento adopts the slogan Viva Verdi, an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D’Italia (Long live Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy). After Italy was unified (1861) many of Verdi’s early operas were re-interpreted as Risorgimento works
1861 Russia Emancipation of serfs
1872 Japan First railway: Shiodome–Yokohama 32km
1876 Queen Victoria is Empress of India
1881 March Milan 2nd version of Boccanegra
1882 Nov 10 Kamenka Tchaikovsky to Taneyev : Mazeppa is coming along at a snail’s pace. At first I thought it was that general decline of powers which
1880 Fantasy cross-section of
Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar
the Baths of Diocletian Edmond Paulin
goes with old age. I’ve become more severe with myself, - a bit I could once have orchestrated in a single day I now orchestrate in three or four.
1882 Nov 15 Kamenka to Nadezhda von Meck
Even if God prolongs my days I shall not, under any c1rcumstances, compose more operas. Because it unites within itself so many different elements serving one end, opera is perhaps the richest of musical forms. But for all that, I feel I am personally more inclined to the symphonic genre - not to submitting to the demands and conditions of the stage. He wrote four more operas including Queen of Spades
1883 Feb 13 Venice Wagner dies (69)
1884 Feb 15 Moscow Mazeppa
1885 Feb 15 Burma Abdication of the last King of Burma, Thibaw. He is shipped off to India (whereas the last Emperor of India was shipped to Burma)
1889 Star–spangled banner adopted by US Navy. It is quoted by Puccini in Madama Butterfly
1889 April London Tchaikovsky to Ethel Smyth: Dear, kind, and most respected Miss Smyths!!!
I have retained the most agreeable recollection of you and I would very much like to make use of your so kind invitation! But, dear Mademoiselle, I am leaving tomorrow at 8:20 am and it is simply impossible for me to come to see you at your house. Let us hope that I shall have better luck the next time I come to London. Although, to be honest, I doubt very much that I shall come back, given that there is no way of doing things properly when one has no more than two rehearsals, and when the [resident] conductor hardly has any time to do his duty with regard to the other pieces on the programme!
Tomorrow I am leaving for Marseilles, where I shall take the steamship which goes directly to the Caucasus. It will be a sea-crossing of 15 days!!
A month ago in Hamburg I spent a whole day with your idol Johannes BRAHMS!! He was delightful towards me, a very agreeable man, even though my appreciation of his talent does not square with yours!
I hope that you have composed some really fine things, and I wish you every possible happiness. 1891 Trans-S iberian railway threatens Japan 1891 New York Tchaikovsky visits to conduct at the opening of Andrew Carnegie’s new Music Hall
1893 May Cambridge Honorary doctorate 1893 Nov Tchaikovsky dies. Was he poisoned?
1885 King Thibaw and his wives, half-sisters Supayalat and Supayalay
1891 Tchaikovsky in Cambridge wearing his doctoral regalia
1894 G&S get back together for Utopia Ltd. at the Savoy Theatre. Modified rapture. However, Richard D’Oyly Carte’s property empire grows: Simpson’s-inthe-Strand, Claridge’s and builds the Savoy Hotel
1898 John Luther Long, short story Madame Butterfly 1899 Guccio Gucci (b. 1881) is a bell hop at the new Savoy Hotel. Inspired by the elegant luggage, he returns to Florence to make his own
1901 Verdi dies
1904 Feb 17 La Scala, Milan Butterfly
1921 Florence Gucci opens his first shop at 7 Via della Vigna Nuova
1938 The Shinjuku Station yard
Refugees 1957 Dame Phyllida Barlow (1944–2023)
“This charcoal drawing was done by my sister in January 1957. She was 12 years old. It was her response to the horrific, unprovoked invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union two months previously, in November 1956.”.
LIBRETTO Victor Burenin based on Pushkin’s poem Poltava
SUPPORTED BY
The Tsukanov Family with Julia Vasilieva , The Paseniuk Family and The Options Fund
MARK SHANAHAN conductor
Marie Veeder · DAVID POUNTNEY director
Victoria & John Salkeld MAZEPPA
Jeremy Abram & Diane Kenwood
Mazeppa's fight for Ukraine
James & Sarah Sassoon KOCHUBEY
Malcolm Herring · MARIYA
George Goulding · Mariya's arioso
Brian & Jennifer Ratner
· LYUBOV & THE DRUNKEN COSSACK
Francis & Amanda Norton ANDREI
Raymonde Jay ORLIK
The Allen Trust · ISKRA
Andrew & Jane Sutton Mariya's lullaby
Ken & Fiona Costa · Lyubov's lament
Anonymous Gopak dance
BEAR, TILLY & ROLY The Fighter Jet
CONDUCTOR MARK SHANAHAN
DIRECTOR · DAVID POUNTNEY
DESIGNER · FRANCIS O'CONNOR
CHOREOGRAPHER · LYNNE HOCKNEY
LIGHTING DESIGNER · TIM MITCHELL
MAZEPPA, Hetman of Ukraine · DAVID STOUT
KOCHUBEY, a landed gentleman · LUCIANO BATINI Ć
LYUBOV, his wife · SARA FULGONI
MARIYA, their daughter · RACHEL NICHOLLS
ANDREI, her childhood friend · JOHN FINDON
ORLIK, Mazeppa’s henchman · ANDREAS JANKOWITSCH
ISKRA, a friend of Kochubey · SAM UTLEY
DRUNKEN COSSACK · BENJIE DEL ROSARIO
DANCERS ANDREW ASHTON, MALACHI BRIANT
ASHTON B. HALL, DOMINIC LAMB
THE ORCHESTRA OF ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA
Sung in Russian with English surtitles
First performance 15 February 1884, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow
UK première 6 August 1888, Liverpool
SYNOPSIS
Mazeppa, Hetman of the Ukraine, is a trusted ally of Tsar Peter the Great.
Peter wishes to extend his empire into Europe. Mazeppa wants to marry his own goddaughter, the young Maria. Her family are opposed to this.
jAct One
Kochubey's estate
Maria, Kochubey’s daughter, refuses to join the other girls because Mazeppa is visiting her father. She is infatuated with Mazeppa – even though he is older than her. She has no feelings for her young Cossack admirer, Andrei.
Mazeppa takes his host aside to ask permission to marry Maria. Kochubey is affronted that this older man should want this. Their quarrel develops into a furious uproar and Maria intervenes.
Mazeppa invites Maria to choose between him and her parents. To everyone's astonishment, she chooses Mazeppa.
A Gopak depicts Mazeppa and Maria’s exhilarated flight.
Lyubov, Maria's mother, urges Kochubey to avenge this insult by murdering Mazeppa. Instead Kochubey will betrayal him. He will disclose to the Tsar Mazeppa's treasonous dealings with King Charles of Sweden. Andrei agrees to take the information to Moscow.
Act Two Mazeppa's headquarters Kochubey's plan misfired.
The Tsar did not believe Andrei and has arrested Kochubey and handed him over
to Mazeppa. Orlik, Mazeppa’s henchman, demands to know where Kochubey has hidden his treasure. Kochubey refuses to co-operate and is tortured.
Long Dining Interval
Mazeppa orders Orlik to go ahead with Kochubey’s execution but is tormented; he hasn’t told Maria.
Maria reproaches Mazeppa for neglecting her, and he reveals his plan for a Ukraine independent of Warsaw and Moscow by joining forces with the Swedes. Maria promises to stay by his side in victory or defeat but Mazeppa still has not told her of her father’s imminent execution.
Lyubov begs Maria to stop the execution. Maria is stunned to hear of it.
A crowd has gathered for the execution. Maria and her mother arrive too late to prevent it.
Act Three
The battle of Poltava. Mazeppa's Cossacks, in alliance with the Swedes, fight Peter the Great. The Russians win.
Andrei was unable to confront Mazeppa on the battlefield, and has returned to Maria’s former home. He hides when he hears Mazeppa and Orlik escaping from their disastrous defeat. Andrei attempts to kill Mazeppa and is shot.
Maria appears. She is mad. Mazeppa tries to reason with her but Orlik says they must make their escape. Maria finds Andrei’s body and sings a lullaby to the corpse.
MAZEPPA'S FALL
A sketch of Mazeppa before the disaster of the Battle of Poltava (1709) and after. In Tsar Peter's eyes, death was not enough.
In 1700 Ivan Mazeppa was nearing his 60th year, full of energy having one amorous affair after another –sometimes several simultaneously. The Hetman would be accompanied on his travels by a seraglio of adoring ladies. In the Baturin palace he led a life surrounded by luxurious carpets, mirrors, heavy gilt furniture, table silver and even books; Mazeppa liked reading. He was proud of his knowledge of the Latin classics; when he visited the Kiev Academy he answered the welcoming speech of the Rector, Theophanes Prokopovich, in Latin.
The Tsar, Peter I, petted and spoiled his old Hetman with costly presents – robes of cloth of gold, sables, yards of satins and velvets, barrels of Rhine wine; he even sent him baskets of lemons – a great delicacy.
This was a sincere affection. The Tsar admired his shrewd intelligence, domineering character, his leaning towards reading and his European ways. And Mazeppa showed great finesse in his understanding of Peter's insatiable curiosity. Mazeppa would always show Peter something new.
jMazeppa died in October 1709 and was buried in the Orthodox Church of Tighin, but his remains were later taken to the monastery of St George at Galatz.
A year earlier in Glukhov, the Tsar himself oversaw a state burial of Mazeppa which Peter named Mazeppa’s Speeding to Hell. An effigy in Hetman's dress and medals, hanging from a gallows, was pulled down and dragged into the cathedral. The same Prokopovich, former eulogist of Mazeppa's learning, pronounced a curse. All of the Tsar's letters addressed to the Hetman were shredded and the medals torn from the effigy. Clergy and choir, clad in black and carrying black candles, intoned curses spluttering black wax over the Mazeppa. Finally, Prokopovich hit the Hetman with his episcopal staff, pronounced excommunication ('anathema') before the effigy was hung and burnt.
"Anathema on Mazeppa, False Dmitri and Stenka Razin, who attempted to shake the foundations of the Muscovite state" continued to be proclaimed every year in every church of the Russian Empire.
Extract from W E D ALLEN History of Ukraine, Cambridge University Press 1940
PETER THE GREAT, TSAR OF RUSSIA (1672–1725) Gottfried Kneller (1646 –1723) Kensington Palace, 1698
MAZEPPA'S PLACE IN HISTORY
Philip Bullock presents an outline of Ukrainian history and the political world in which Mazeppa found himself around 1700.
The battle lost by Mazeppa is the battle fought today by Zelensky.
Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa makes for an exhilarating evening in the opera house, but its claims to historical truth are altogether slighter.
Tchaikovsky's problem begins squarely with Alexander Pushkin, whose narrative poem Poltava is the basis of the opera. Written in 1828, Pushkin was seeking to ingratiate himself with Nicholas I, who had condescended to authorise his return to St Petersburg after six years of internal exile on account of his youthful flirtation with radical politics. Now Pushkin was keen to show himself a loyal subject. Poltava was ideal subject matter allowing him to present Peter the Great’s victory not just as his personal triumph, but as a decisive turning point in his ambition of territorial expansion.
When first published, Pushkin's preface justified his interpretation of events: "The Battle of Poltava is one of the most important and happiest events in the reign of Peter the Great. It rid him of his most dangerous enemy; consolidated Russian dominion over the South; established new institutions in the North . . .".
Pushkin’s poem was centred, though, not on Peter, but on the Ukrainian Hetman, Mazeppa, and his fateful decision to side with the Swedes in the hope of securing autonomy for his people. Previous writers had depicted Mazeppa as a heroic fighter for freedom and Pushkin himself had once been drawn to the liberal ideals of the French Revolution. But in Mazeppa, he showed himself to be altogether more sympathetic to autocracy: "Some writers have wanted to turn him [Mazeppa] into a hero of freedom, but history reveals him to have been an ambitious man, inveterate in his perfidy and atrocities. He destroyed the father of his unfortunate lover, turned against Peter on the eve of his victory, betrayed Charles after his defeat. His memory, declared anathema by the church, cannot but earn the damnation of all humanity."
But who was the real Mazeppa?
Ivan Mazeppa was born into a noble family on 20 March 1639 in Mazepyntsi, 50 miles southwest of Kyiv where his education began. After further study at the Jesuit College in Warsaw, he became a page of King Jan Casimir of Poland, who sent him to study in Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands. By the early 1660s, he had established himself in the Polish court. The most famous anecdote relating to this time deals with his affair with Madame Falbowska, the wife of a neighbour. When her husband discovered, he had his rival bound naked to the back of an unbroken stallion which was loosed at a gallop.
Appealing as this episode is, it gives little sense of just how astutely
HETMAN BOHDAN KHMELNYTSKY 1595–1657
who declared an independent Hetmanate using his big club right Mazeppa's signature
Mazeppa was able to navigate his political world.
A cursory outline of Ukrainian history will give a sense of what was at stake. Kyiv had emerged powerful in the 9 th and 10th centuries in a confederation of East Slavic city states stretching north to south, from the White Sea to the Black. With the coming of the Mongols in the 13th century the territories were divided.
300 years later, the Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland were united (1569), and within sat Ukraine, slowly growing in status and looking for independence. The Cossacks, an Orthodox militia – originally nomadic –instigated uprisings against their Polish overlords. in 1649, their elected Hetman, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, entered Kyiv as his people's liberator declaring an independent Hetmanate.
Keen to build strategic alliances, Khmelnytsky signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav (1654) with Moscow, believing it would deliver freedom from Polish control and guarantee autonomy with the protection of the Tsar. The interpretation of the treaty would be disputed for centuries, with Russian nationalists citing it to justify Muscovite supremacy, and Ukrainians claiming it underlies their self-rule.
Khmelnytsky’s death in 1657 robbed the Cossacks of their leader, and in 1667, the Treaty of Andrusovo divided Ukraine into Polish and Russian spheres of influence – a partition reaffirmed in the ironically named Treaty of Perpetual Peace (1686). The territory to the west – the right bank of the River Dnipro – reverted to Polish rule. Its left bank, the east, was claimed by Moscow to whom the Cossack Hetmanate was explicitly subjugated.
The 30 years after Khmelnytsky’s death are sometimes referred to as the ruin – a period of confusion with various Hetmans vying for leadership on both sides of the river. Then emerged Ivan Mazeppa, a Hetman who might finally liberate Ukraine from both Polish and Russian rule.
Mazeppa’s early career was primarily in west Ukraine serving Hetman Doroshenko. During an embassy to Crimea (part of the Ottoman Empire), he was captured and delivered into the hands of the governors of east Ukraine. Mazeppa soon ingratiated himself with his new masters and was entrusted with regular diplomatic missions to Muscovy.
In 1687, Mazeppa's moment came. With the Tsar's approval, he had himself elected Hetman of the east and set about reforming the finances, education and constructed churches in the Baroque style. He even found time to write some verse of his own.
In the western part, resentment against Polish rule lingered and by 1704, Mazeppa had become Hetman of west-bank Ukraine, reuniting the divided people.
At this point, Mazeppa seems not to have felt any contradiction between his aspirations for his people and the fealty he owed to Peter the Great. Both were
of wide European education, and the Cossacks had always interpreted the Treaty of Pereyaslav as a token of their sovereignty rather than as a symbol of their subjugation. However, Mazeppa witnessed cherished Cossack privileges eroded under Peter’s increasingly centralised administration. He must also have known that Peter’s ambitions to take Polish and Swedish territory would be at Ukraine's expense. The Cossacks themselves became more and more aggrieved as they found themselves forced to support Peter’s military ambitions, rather than defending their own people. Within Ukraine, some resented Mazeppa’s power and dominance. Others even wondered on whose side he really was.
Thus, around 1706, Mazeppa began to engage in negotiations with the Swedish king, whom he hoped would promote Ukrainian statehood. When Peter was informed of Mazeppa’s manoeuvrings, he refused to believe them and had his accusers – Vasyl Kochubey and Ivan Iskra – executed. Eventually, when the armies of Russia and Sweden met at Poltava in June 1709, Mazeppa chose to side with Charles XII rather
than the Tsar. Mazeppa lacked the support of many of his countrymen and when the Swedish forces were defeated, Mazeppa fled to Bender – then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Moldova. He died on 21 September 1709.
Incensed by Mazeppa’s actions, Peter instigated violent reprisals against the Cossacks, torturing, executing, or exiling those who had sided with the Swedes. The Orthodox Church pronounced Mazeppa’s name anathema and condemned his followers to eternal damnation.
And what of Mazeppa's love for Maria? Their relationship predates the Battle of Poltava. In 1704, Mazeppa had asked for the hand of Motrya Kochubey, daughter of a high-ranking Cossack official. She was 50 years his junior. His dozen surviving letters to her attest to the sincerity of his emotions, and the eloquence of his suit.
As Motrya’s godfather, Mazeppa's marriage to her would have been deemed incestuous by the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, Motrya chose Mazeppa – who duly returned
left THE BATTLE OF POLTAVA 1709
Pierre–Denis Martin (1663-1742)
Commissioned by Peter the Great He never saw the painting It arrived in Russia after his death
the young girl to her father's care. There was no illicit affair.
Though vilified by nationalist Russian historians, Mazeppa's demise was not quite the end of the Hetmanate. It survived, albeit it in ever more attenuated form, for several decades. Mazeppa’s successors were more and more bound to the Russian state.
The last Cossack Hetman, Kyrylo Rozumovsky, served until 1764, when Catherine the Great abolished the Hetmanate for good.
Musicians are perhaps more familiar with the name of his son, Andrey Razumovsky, Russian Ambassador to the Hapsburg Court in Vienna. It was Andrey who commissioned the three string quartets Op.59 from Beethoven,
stipulating that these should include Russian national themes. By this time, the Russian Empire had expanded west into Poland, east into Central Asia, south to the Black Sea and the Caucasus, and had its eye on the Balkans, the Bosporus, and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Mazeppa’s dream of a free and independent Ukraine would not become reality until 1991.
PHILIP ROSS BULLOCK is Professor of Russian Literature and Music at the University of Oxford, and Fellow and Tutor at Wadham College, Oxford. He is the author of Pyotr Tchaikovsky (London, 2016)
below KARL XII AND MAZEPPA AFTER THE BATTLE OF POLTAVA Gustaf Cederström (1845–1933)
PUSHKIN AT THE OPERA
Pushkin’s directness of speech and range of subject matter – from the Tsar’s chamber to a peasant cottage, via a soldier’s barracks on the Ukrainian steppe – triggered a flowering of Russian literature and music
To regard Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) as "the Russian Shakespeare" tells only half the story. Shakespeare was a slow burn, reaching international pre-eminence from the 18th century onwards. Pushkin was like a bomb which rocked the Russian literary cosmos during his lifetime and changed everything. His large and brilliant body of texts produced in so few years drew comparison with Mozart who died at more or less the same age. Pushkin transformed Russian poetry, banishing the high-flown rhetoric of the 18th century, injecting everyday speech and idioms into the fabric of his verse, as with Wordsworth, some of whose works he knew and admired. This new directness of speech, covering an expanded range of subject matter, from the Tsar’s chamber to a peasant cottage, via a soldier’s barracks on the Ukrainian steppe, transformed Russian literary life, leading the way to Gogol, Dostoevsky, Leskov, Tolstoy and beyond. In his highly nuanced language, Pushkin created webs of complexity, with underlying ironies and resonances, often using a detached, satirical narrator.
Jane Austen did something similar in her novels, though to different effect. Such is the intricacy of Pushkin’s verse novel Eugene Onegin, a mere 100 pages in length, that Vladimir Nabokov’s annotated translation and commentary appeared in four thick volumes.
Despite several writers’ attempts to link Onegin and Mr Darcy, it is unlikely that Pushkin knew the works of Jane Austen. But the influence of the slightly older Lord Byron pervades much of Pushkin’s earlier writing, in style and subject matter. Pushkin’s social conscience and political radicalism were underpinned by his admiration for the English lord, as in the Ode to Liberty, a viscerally direct challenge to the tsars and previous tyrants, which achieved talismanic status amongst Pushkin’s revolutionary contemporaries, leading to the poet’s banishment. Byron’s Ode to Napoleon
Buonaparte, written on similar lines, though longer and more pointed, shows many similarities with Pushkin’s polemic. Lord Byron’s narrative poem Mazeppa published in 1819 was certainly known to Pushkin in French translation. Pushkin’s poem Poltava contains an epigraph from Byron. The garrulous, insensitive and largely unsympathetic character of Mazeppa is cut from the same cloth by both poets.
Pushkin’s Russian historical dramas, folk tales, romances and poems triggered the flowering of Russian opera in the 19 th century, particularly among the nationalist composers, the kuchka, or Mighty Handful, led by Balakirev. Thus, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, RimskyKorsakov’s Tsar Saltan, The Golden Cockerel and Mozart and Salieri, are all based on Pushkin models. Two of Rachmaninoff’s three operas, including Aleko, as well as Dvorak’s Rusalka were also based on Pushkin texts. In the 20th century Stravinsky’s The Nightingale and Mavra take their inspiration from tales of Pushkin. Of all the great composers, only Prokofiev seems to have resisted setting texts by Russia’s greatest poet, although even he made a juvenile, uncompleted operatic setting of Pushkin’s play A Feast in the Time of Plague
Although many of Pushkin’s works were published in his lifetime, only one of the major plays, Mozart and Salieri, was staged. Its nonpolitical subject matter caused fewer problems for the censor than his devastating royal drama, Boris Godunov, showing revolution, murder and the tsar at bay, published in 1831. It was passed for performance by the censor only in 1866 and premiered in 1870, nearly a quarter of a century after the author’s death. Mussorgsky’s operatic version appeared in 1874.
With one or two exceptions, most opera adaptations of Pushkin were accepted for performance long after the composer was dead. Alexander Dargomyshky worked on his opera Poltava (Mazeppa) during Pushkin’s life,
PUSHKIN'S FAREWELL TO THE SEA 1877
Ilya Repin (1844–1930) and Ilya Aivazovsky (1817–1900)
though it remained unfinished. And Glinka, regarded as the father of Russian opera, worked with Pushkin on the libretto of Ruslan und Lyudmila, a collaboration curtailed by the poet’s death. The completed work stands as one of the most important early Russian operas and is performed today in Russia at least.
jPyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, born three years after Pushkin’s death, belonged to a later generation of musicians. Many of the texts unavailable to his predecessors could now be set for the stage.
Tchaikovsky began early. At some point during his years of study, he wrote music to accompany the fountain scene in Boris Godunov, an effort that is sadly lost. From more or less the same time he made a settings of Zemfira’s song from The Gypsies, and even considered an opera from the same poem in the 1880s. He contemplated an opera based on the novella The Captain’s Daughter around the same time. His later symphonic ballad, The Voyevoda Op.78 was completed in 1891, taking its inspiration from Pushkin’s translation of a poem by the Polish master Adam Mickiewicz. But Pushkin was the inspiration for three of Tchaikovsky’s eleven operas: Eugene Onegin, Mazeppa and The Queen of Spades, all magnificent works; the first and last ever secure in the repertory, Mazeppa, a welcome addition to it, and for some, Tchaikovsky’s most appealing opera.
Tchaikovsky adored Pushkin’s work and revered him highly as a poet and literary stylist. His first major setting is Eugene Onegin (1877–1881). It is also the most controversial: some Pushkin
scholars and purists were alienated from the moment the opera was premiered. Pushkin’s text is largely written in the third person, the anonymous narrator freely commenting on the events as they take place. Tchaikovsky’s selection of scenes from the verse novel cannot accommodate the narrator’s role. Tchaikovsky’s choice of scenes disturbs the structure and character of the original and alters the nature and trajectory of the story: it is no longer a witty satire on the mœurs de province but becomes a more conventional tale of spurned love and rejection. Tchaikovsky personally identified with the plight of Tatiana and the letter scene and its aftermath have a greater importance in the opera than the novel. In the composer’s hands, the final rejection of Onegin by Tatiana seems genuinely tragic. Tragedy is far from Pushkin’s concept. Worse still from the point of view of
the detractors, Tchaikovsky’s librettist Shilovsky altered Pushkin’s lines, a sacrilege to some. The opera no longer had "the divine details" and "verbal dazzle" as outlined by Nabokov. Though it is hardly surprising that the Pushkin acolytes were appalled, a composer and librettist have to make choices to make the work musically and dramatically coherent, and Tchaikovsky succeeds in magnificently creating, in Richard Taruskin’s words: "a chef d’oeuvre of stylised operatic realism: the Russian counterpart to Traviata or Manon".
Tchaikovsky was not discouraged by the Pushkin critics. He was on surer ground with The Queen of Spades, regarded by some as the peak of the composer’s operatic writing. The opera is based on a short story, the plot of which Tchaikovsky alters substantially. As with Onegin, the characters are more sympathetic; Hermann, the driven antihero, is not the cynical intriguer of Pushkin’s work. Though Tchaikovsky altered and indeed added his own lyrics to Pushkin’s text, fewer hackles were raised amongst contemporary critics.
Mazeppa is based on a condensing of certain sections of Pushkin’s long narrative poem Poltava, containing the historical characters of Mazeppa and Kochubey. The poem is once again largely written in the third person, and the creation of the libretto was a particularly long and arduous process. Tchaikovsky and librettist Victor Burenin had many disagreements over the text, disagreements which lasted until the
early performances. Tchaikovsky attempted to alter the text by cramming in more of Pushkin’s lines and changing the ending.
The composer follows Pushkin omitting any reference to Mazeppa’s celebrated Ride, which is the main feature of Byron’s poem. As a punishment the errant hero is tied naked to a horse which gallops over the icy steppe. After many mishaps, Mazeppa survives, though the horse does not. This Romantic image, depicted on canvas by Géricault, was taken up by Liszt in various related works, not least his symphonic poem, Mazeppa, which opens with a thrilling gallop. For Pushkin, the romantic ride is an irrelevance. His account lays more emphasis on Mazeppa’s betrayal of Peter the Great. For Byron, the treachery is carried out in the name of freeing the Ukrainian people from Russian tyranny, a perspective denied to Pushkin and Tchaikovsky.
Until recent times, Pushkin’s portrait of Mazeppa has been taken as historical in Slavic countries. However, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine, Mazeppa has been rehabilitated in his native land. He is now regarded as a hero. Statues of him have been re-erected and his portrait appears on Ukrainian banknotes.
Mazeppa, hero or anti-hero? Decide for yourselves with Tchaikovsky’s marvellous score, after Pushkin.
STEPHEN ROE New York, January 2025
MAZEPPA AND THE WOLVES
Horace Vernet (1789-1863)
Musée Calvet, Avignon
VIOLIN 1
David Adams leader
Richard Blayden co- leader
Marciana Buta
Simon Jackson
Jeremy Allen
Margaret Roseberry
Joanna Watts
VIOLIN 2
Claire Sterling
Elizabeth-Anne Neil
Sophie Kostecki
Jonathan Newton
Glen Sheldon
Claire-Louise Sankey
VIOLA
Rebecca Chambers
Delyth John
Terry Nettle
Mark Gibbs
Penelope Thompson
CELLO
David Newby
Gillian Bragg
Gabriella Swallow
Joy Hawley
DOUBLE BASS
Rupert Ring
Ben Havinden-Williams
Daniel Vassallo
THE ORCHESTRA OF ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA
FLUTE
Claire Wickes
Hannah Grayson
Clare Jefferis
OBOE
Rosie Staniforth
Emma Fielding
Helen Vigurs
CLARINET
Peter Sparks
Richard Russell
BASSOON
Joshua Wilson
Laura Vincent
HORN
Tim Ellis
Andy Sutton
Joel Ashford
David Horwich
CORNET
David McCallum
William O’Sullivan
TRUMPET
Tom Watts
David Ward
TROMBONE
Ryan Hume
Beth Calderbank
BASS TROMBONE
Dan West
TUBA
Edward Leech
TIMPANI
Dominic Hackett
PERCUSSION
Michael Doran
Giles Harrison
Christopher Goody
HARP
Catrin Meek
MUSIC Nishat Khan
LIBRETTO Kit Hesketh–Harvey
SUPPORTED BY The Houston Family
CONDUCTOR ∙ GEORGE JACKSON
DIRECTOR ∙ STEPHEN MEDCALF
DESIGNER ∙ YANNIS THAVORIS
VIDEO DESIGNER ∙ HAYLEY EGAN
MOVEMENT ∙ SEETA PATEL
LIGHTING DESIGNER ∙ TIM MITCHELL
SITAR NARRATION ∙ NISHAT KHAN TABLA ∙ HANIF KHAN
JAHANGIR, 4th Mughal emperor ∙ ROSS RAMGOBIN
NUR JAHAN, his consort ∙ VICTORIA SIMMONDS
SHAH JAHAN, Jahangir's son, 5th Mughal emperor ∙ CASPAR SINGH
MUMTAZ MAHAL, his chief consort ∙ JULIA SITKOVETSKY
JAHANARA, their daughter ∙ ELIZABETH KARANI
AURANGZEB, their son, 6th Mughal emperor ∙ ROSS RAMGOBIN
KHUSRO, Shah Jahan’s brother ∙ HENRY GRANT KERSWELL
DAWAR ∙ SAM UTLEY
SHEHRYAR ∙ PHIL CLIEVE
MESSENGER ∙ CERI HEDDWYN DAVIES
ASAF KHAN ∙ TIGRAN KAKHVEJYAN
ARCHITECT ∙ JAMES SCHOUTEN
DARA, Aurangzeb's brother ∙ SAM BRITNER
THE GASCOIGNE ORCHESTRA leader ROBERT SALTER
Sung in English with surtitles
First performance 10 July 2025, Grange Park Opera, Surrey
SYNOPSIS
The distraught Emperor Shah Jahan mourns his wife, Mumtaz. The transformative power of their love has been captured for eternity in the white marble of the Taj Mahal.
Agra Fort, 1665
Old and dying Shah Jahan, held captive by his son Aurangzeb who has seized the throne, can see the Taj Mahal from his prison.
In a Mughal odyssey of cruelty and courage, we venture back and forth in time.
Act 1
Remembering . . . 1604 – 1607
Shah Jahan’s father Jahangir is Emperor. Two royal elephants do battle. Jahangir’s elephant wounds his son Prince Khusro.
In the Agra fort, noble women pretend to sell jewels and trinkets to Emperor Jahangir and his powerful wife Nur Jahan. The young Shah Jahan woos the Persian princess Arjumand Banu (Mumtaz). Their love defies the cynicism and corruption of the Moghul court.
Some time later
Shah Jahan is anointed by his father as successor and presented with a pearl necklace. His stepmother, Nur Jahan, has other ideas.
Shah Jahan and Mumtaz are in Burhanpur away from court. Their bond is unbreakable.. When a civil war breaks out, Mumtaz brings about peace.
Jahangir dies of his excesses. There is a struggle for succession and the winner, Shah Jahan, dispatches his rivals. He ascends the Peacock Throne and is hailed ‘Conqueror and ruler of the world’.
Long Dining Interval Act 2
Following Mumtaz’s death, Shah Jahan and his architect are discussing the monument: its physical form and its symbolism.
Agra Fort, 1665
Shah Jahan’s daughter, Jahanara, looks after him. Aurangzeb, his son and now Emperor, demands the pearl necklace. Shah Jahan refuses.
Remembering . . . 1631 Burhanpur
Mumtaz has given birth to a still-born infant and is weak. She has a dream of perfection: a palace surrounded by water, a garden where she will walk with her husband. He promises to maintain concord between their children. She dies.
Two sons, Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb visit Mumtaz’s shrouded body. They argue over their father’s favour.
Aurangzeb must defeat all his brothers to become Emperor. He murders them.
Remembering . . . 1659
Aurangzeb delivers the head of Dara to to the captive Shah Jahan.
The pearl necklace breaks. Jahanara raises one of the scattered pearls to become a moon. A trio of reconciliation acknowledges the futility of conflict and the example of Mumtaz.
The white marble of the moon itself transforms into a vision of the Taj Mahal.
Shah Jahan dies in 1666
‘From Earth into Heaven, both exit and portal, a tomb and a cradle, from man to immortal.
Out of dissonance, harmony, disjunct connection, from rancour comes concord, from chaos perfection’
PRINCE KHURRAM (the future Shah Jahan)
Manohar ca. 1615
AGRA & THE RIVERFRONT
The riverfront at Agra once formed one of the great sights of Mughal India. Besides the fort and the Taj Mahal, both banks of the River Yamuna were lined with great mansions, tombs and imperial gardens.
Babur (reigned 1526-30), founder of the Mughal dynasty, was the first to build a garden at Agra. Its site was almost opposite where the Taj Mahal would be built. Determined to establish his government at Agra, Babur was almost dissuaded by the desolate appearance of the region.
"I had intended, wherever I might fix my residence, to construct water-wheels, to produce an artificial stream, and to lay out an elegant and regularly planned pleasure ground. Shortly after coming to Agra I passed the Yamuna with this object in view, and examined the country to pitch upon a fit spot for a garden. The whole was so ugly and detestable that I repassed the river quite repulsed and disgusted. In consequence of the want of beauty and of the disagreeable aspect of the country, I gave up my intention of making a charbagh (garden house). But as no better situation presented itself near Agra, I was finally compelled to make the best of this same spot . . . In every corner I planted suitable gardens, in every garden I sowed roses and narcissus regularly, and in beds corresponding to each other. We were annoyed by three things in Hindustan; one was its heat, another the strong winds, and the third its dust. Baths were the means of removing all three inconveniences." Baburnama
It was Akbar (r. 1556–1605) whose great buildings included the Agra Fort on the Yamuna's right bank, creating a city of brilliance, culturally and economically. By the time of his death, Agra had become one of the biggest cities in the East, with huge amounts of trade and commerce happening through its bazaars.
Ralph Fitch, an English traveller, wrote in 1585:
"Agra is a very great city, and populous, built with stone, having fair and large streets with a fair river running by it . . . much greater than London. Between Agra and Fatehpur are twelve miles and all the way is a market of victuals and other things as full as though a man were still in a town, and so many people"
Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) further embellished Agra.
"The habitable part of Agra extends on both sides of the river . . . in the number of its buildings it is equal to several cities of Iraq, Khurasan and Trans-Oxiana put together. Many persons have erected buildings of three or four storeys in it. The mass of the people is so great that moving about in the lanes and bazaars is difficult."
Tuzk-e-Jahangiri (Autobiography)
The royal family built great mansions, tombs and imperial gardens along the Agra riverfront but emperors also gave land to the nobles –the mansabdari – whose numerical ranking indicated their status, their pay and the size of their contingent of soldiers. The emperor's own sons were not exempt from this ranking.
After his death, a mansabdar's land could be reclaimed by the emperor unless it was a tomb; thus a mansabdar would often build his own tomb while he was alive.
Jahangir's powerful wife, Nur Jahan (left), granted her relations land on the riverfront.
Her niece, Mumtaz, married Jahangir's third son (Shah Jahan), and her daughter by her first marriage, Banu, married Jahangir's fifth son, Shahryar Mirza. Upon Jahangir's death in 1627, Nur Jahan conspired and failed to create Shahryar the next emperor. Shah Jahan succeeded and had her shipped her off to Lahore from whence she supervised
EUROPEANS BRING GIFTS TO SHAH JAHAN
the completion of the famed tomb of her father I’timad ud-Daula.
The reign of Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58) marked the zenith of Mughal architectural and cultural achievements. With the Taj Mahal completed, Shah Jahan moved his Mughal capital to Delhi in 1648.
Agra lost her shine and was repeatedly sacked by Afghan invaders and local marauders (Jats, Rohillas, Marathas). In 1803 the East India Company arrived.
During the Uprising of 1857, swathes of the city near the fort were demolished to afford a clear field of fire and the remains of all the nearby mansions were blown up. Through the gardens that remained on the right bank, roads were built. Bridges were constructed across the Yamuna for rail and road, and gardens turned to agriculture.
Above MUMTAZ MAHAL
Below AGRA 1905
The scroll overleaf ignores the bends in the river
UPSTREAM
LEFT BANK
RIGHT BANK
THE AGRA SCROLL
The 7.5m scroll in the British Library, probably drawn between 1827-35, depicts all the buildings both sides of the river. The scroll runs right to left, depicting the left bank upside down. The symbol � indicates information on the following pages. Start at Then point B joins point C
KHULEELHiswife Shah RAJGHATHospiceforHindupilgrims
opposite the Taj Mahal MAHTAB GARDEN (Moonlight Garden) was laid out as a char bagh (divided by paths & canals into four) and an octagonal pool reflected the Taj Mahal. The scroll's scribe continues the mistaken tradition that Shah Jahan wished to be buried there.
WORTHY OF CLOSER INSPECTION WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS
THE CHAR BAGH The place of the Eleven Steps Stone (a step well). ’Emperor Babur constructed it, and they also call it the Flower-Spreading Garden'
MOTI BAGH (Pearl Garden) 'Moti Begum, who was Emperor Shah Jahan’s wet-nurse, constructed it as her grave.’
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE RIGHT BANK
Start at Then point B joins point C.
from right to left.
Upstream of the fort, should be the Great Gun of Agra, which was depicted in all panoramic views, until it was blown up for its scrap value in 1833 (see the present author’s essay on the Great Gun in the BLJ in 1989).
KHAN ALAM'S GARDEN , Jahangir’s falconer retired to this garden, debilitated through a love of opium. His mansion was immediately upstream of the Taj Mahal.
KHAN DAURAN'S HOUSE Chief commander of Shah Jahan, he was renowned for his cruelty. The tahkhana below is depicted. The corner tower and wall still exist.
MAJOR TAYLOR’S GARDEN occupied a prime site downstream of the Taj. Besides this garden, Joseph Taylor (d. 1835) had apartments in the Fort and a suite of rooms at the Taj Mahal
CAbove Upstream of the Fort
I`TIQAD KHAN'S GARDEN Nur Jahan's brother.
TOMB OF JAFAR KHAN (d. 1670) This is two-storey depiction of Jafar Khan's tomb resembles that of his grandfather I’timad al-Daula across the river.
JAFAR KHAN married his cousin Farzana. Thus he was: (a) nephew to Asaf Khan and Nur Jahan (b) cousin of Mumtaz Mahal (c) Shah Jahan’s brother-in-law. His house was downstream nearer to the Fort and to his uncle Asaf Khan. See previous page Downstream from the Fort were the mansions of some of the great officers of state: Islam Khan Mashhadi, A’zam Khan (son-in-law to Asaf Khan), Mahabat Khan (Jahangir’s thuggish general), Raja Man Singh of Amber (who owned land in Agra including the site of the Taj Mahal, which he agreed to exchange for four other mansions in Agra).
Upstream of the Taj Mahal is Khan Alam's garden
TAJ MAHAL 1631 – 1653
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE LEFT BANK
runs from left to right.
Start at Then point B joins point C.
UPSTREAM
THE TIRPOLIYA built by Nur Jahan as a resting place for the gardeners.
RAM BAGH: NUR JAHAN’S GARDEN
Nur Jahan laid out this garden around 1611 after her wedding to Jahangir. Two pavilions end on to the river consist of alternate open verandas and enclosed rooms. They face each other across a pool on an elevated terrace, with a tahkhana beneath.
TOMB OF WAZIR KHAN one of Shah Jahan's most esteemed nobles, governor of the Punjab 1631-41 and renowned for his patronage of architecture in Lahore. Only the two corner towers now survive, the central pavilion and its tahkhana are ruinous, and the rest of the garden has been built over.
JAHANARA’S GARDEN Jahanara (d. 1681)
was the eldest child of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal who began this garden, one of the largest on the riverfront, during Jahangir’s reign. Jahanara ran her father's household when her mother died. Only one of the corner towers survives and the large pavilion fronting the river has now gone.
BTOMB OF AFZAL KHAN SHIRAZI (d. 1639)
(known as the the China tomb) Shirazi was finance minister under Shah Jahan. He died at Lahore and his body was brought back to Agra to be buried in the tomb he had built in his lifetime. It is decorated outside with the coloured tiles (a speciality of Lahore, as seen on the walls of the Lahore fort and of the mosque of Wazir Khan), and with painted decorations inside. The tomb survives but its original decoration is largely gone and the interior has been repainted.
TOMB OF SULTAN PARVIZ , Jahangir’s second son, who died of drink in 1626 aged 37
TOMB OF I’TIMAD-UD-DAULA (d. 1622)
Jahangir’s vizier and father of Nur Jahan who was allowed to convert her parent's garden into the first of the great Agra tombs. Downstream of I’timad-ud-Daula's tomb, this left bank was largely occupied by imperial gardens.
SUNDAY 13 JULY 2025 is a first for Grange Park Opera: an evening of pure artistry from dancers, famed for their ability to transcend the technical, drawing you close into their stories. The program presents gems that have influenced and shaped British ballet from MacMillan, Ashton, Wheeldon and other masters of this craft. The evening's repertoire is on the website.
DIRECTOR
JUSTIN MEISSNER
ARTISTIC COORDINATOR
LAURA MORERA
Francesca Hayward Cesar Corrales Annette Buvoli Harris Bell
Erina Takahashi James Streeter
Daniel McCormick Francesca Velicu
Jimin Kim Arthur Wille
Joseph Taylor
Pilar Ortega
Ellie Young Alejandro Virelles
“JASPER
ANKLE STOOD ALL NIGHT IN A DRIZZLE TO BUY A THIRD-GALLERY TICKET FOR LA VENGEANCE POSTHUME“
So begins The Blue Aspic, the little book in which American writer and illustrator Edward Gorey expertly parodies and celebrates the world of opera. Gorey would have been 100 years old this year. Rob Wyke tells us more about him and The Blue Aspic
Edward Gorey published his first book in 1953: The Unstrung Harp; or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel. Sending a copy to a friend, Graham Greene remarked: “I think The Unstrung Harp is the best novel ever written about a novelist and I ought to know”. Quite an endorsement.
“Part of me is genuinely eccentric, part of me is a bit of a put on. But I know what I am doing”
EDWARD ST. JOHN GOREY
1925 – 2000
In his 50-year career, Gorey created more than 100 original works. They take various forms, but most of them are little volumes (Edmund Wilson called them albums) whose economical texts and delicate images tell unsettling stories. Each album can be read in a few minutes – and then re-read many times. Gorey also produced work to commission many ephemera and creations for the theatre.
One theatrical creation was Gorey himself. William Targ described Gorey as he looked in Manhattan in about 1970: “Gorey is a tall, lean man, addicted to a full beard, ankle-length fur coats (I believe he has a total of sixteen), a large heavy ring on each finger, and other jewelry which, I suspect, is worn more to protect him from muggers than as ornamentation. He is one of America’s foremost balletomanes, film critics, and authorities on the Victorian era. He is immensely opinionated, immensely likable, and about as close to genius as it is possible to be without being insufferable”.
Gorey’s enthusiasms ranged from The Tale of Genji through Jane Austen and European silent films to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But his artistic god was George Balanchine. Gorey attended a lot of performances of the New York City Ballet from 1956 until Balanchine died in 1983, at which point Gorey moved from Manhattan to Cape Cod.
In 1966 he published a ballet book called The Gilded Bat This sold well so someone “asked me to do an opera book to go along with [it]. I said, ‘I don’t know anything about opera, but I’ll give it a whirl’ ”. Unable simply to write to order, Gorey then “sat down and concentrated on opera . . .
The actual idea for the book, what it was to be about, had to come to me. I couldn’t sit there and construct it. Once the basic idea had come, I could sit and write the book”. Text established, drawings followed.
The Blue Aspic duly appeared in 1968. It’s classic Gorey. We’re taken to an imagined world of about 1910. Disaster is never far away. Gorey claimed that he just “made up a stereotypical opera plot” : a penurious operagoer called Jasper Ankle becomes obsessed with the singer Ortenzia Caviglia (“caviglia” is Italian for “ankle”) when he hears her as replacement for Gertrúdis Callosidad (who has been poisoned in her dressing room) in La vengeance posthume; as Caviglia triumphs in role after role, Jasper’s life collapses: his obsession costs him his health, job, home, gramophone, records and sanity. The story ends in tragic violence.
AUDIENCE LEFT WALL
AUDIENCE RIGHT WALL
These were reproduced as large, 8-foot panels that flanked the stage of the 1992 production of Amphigorey by the Philadelphia Plays & Players Theatre
Shortly before his death, Gorey sold the artwork
The narrative is carried by 30 illustrated panels, each 4” x 5½”, printed one to every right-hand page; a brief, hand-written text appears on the page opposite. Gorey’s compositions are beguiling, his handling of pen and ink exquisite. For Caviglia, Gorey creates a world of luxury inhabited by moustachioed men in beautiful evening clothes (or fur coats) and by women in extravagant gowns and flamboyant headdresses. Their surroundings on and off the opera stage are magnificent: intricately patterned carpets and wallpapers, stone walls in which every block is carefully drawn, festooning curtains, marble staircases, a splendidly rococo opera box. Caviglia quickly becomes a celebrity: she stars in many productions; she does a little advertising work; she’s painted by a Russian society portraitist; she has a series of protectors: Baron von
Knöchel (another Ankle, or Knuckle), the Duke of Whaup, yachtowning Basil Zaribaydjian and the Maharajah of Eschnapur. Rivals are murdered. Caviglia’s first manager falls down a lift shaft. Whaup is killed during the second interval of Amable Tastu. It’s a typical diva’s career.
Jasper Ankle, on the other hand, lives in bleak circumstances which become steadily bleaker. Gorey’s drawings make you share the wetness of the drizzle, rain and snow that poor fans queue in for cheap tickets. You sense the dinginess of Jasper’s rooms, and the grey hideousness of the asylum to which he’s consigned and from which he escapes. His only comforts are his press clippings about Caviglia, his beautiful gramophone with its decorated horn, and his Caviglia records: he loses them all as he declines.
But Gorey devises more than a “stereotypical opera plot”. For him, the loopier, goofier and dippier (his words) a plot, the better. He despised works which explained everything; hence The Blue Aspic ’s occasional loose thread. Does Ambroglio Rigaglie [anglice Giblets] fall down the lift shaft accidentally or is he pushed? Who drops the statue that kills the Duke of Whaup? Who plants the skewer on which a member of a (rival?) claque is impaled during a performance of Gomiti di rammarico [The Elbows of Remorse] ?
Below ANOTHER NINETEENTH-CENTURY MOMENT MUSICAL Look magazine, 1970s
Above HAUNTED AMERICA (1990)
And what does the book’s title refer to? Well, the front cover shows a singing woman in an operatic blue dress and ornate headgear bearing a huge three-tiered blue jelly with a man’s head embedded in it: this is Der traurige Zwölfpfünder [The unhappy twelve-pounder]. Jasper Ankle appears on the back cover standing on the singer’s train with a record for a halo.
Gorey’s droll sense of humour and his vast learning stoked his gift for parody and his rejuvenation of operatic clichés. After her unexpected appearance in La vengeance posthume, Caviglia stars in such famous works as Gli occhielli, Lizzia Bordena, La reine des iguanes, Julietta di Lavenza, Die Chinesische Brille, The Dubious Errand, Amable Tastu and L’avvelenatrice di Glasgovia. Some of these titles are plain invention; some are based on actual operas such as Donizetti’s Emilia di Liverpool. Otherwise, Gorey uses the names of real people (Amable Tastu, Lizzie Borden), or the title of a little-known novel (Julietta di Lavenza 1841), one of more than 400 books by Mary Martha Sherwood), or the title of a silent film from 1909 (Louis Feuillade’s La vengeance posthume du docteur William). Gorey was also a dab hand at the first lines of arias: ‘Vide le cercueil, vide mon coeur ’ [‘Empty is the coffin, empty is my heart’], ‘Ah, paese dei bovini hispidi! ’ [Ah, land of shaggy cattle ’]…
Gorey the inveterate borrower couldn’t always remember his sources: “I guess The Blue Aspic…is filled with all sorts of private jokes. There was one I couldn’t even figure out myself when I was
SON OF THE MARTINI COOKBOOK (1967)
It was seven slow years and three months-to the day
When I last looked at our sundial It read HALF PAST MAY 1966
reading it again. Then, a few years later, I was reading a book about Fritz Lang and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s where I got this!’ Fritz Lang was another of my great influences”. I’ve found at least three allusions to Lang films in The Blue Aspic; I’ll keep looking.
At one point in the book, Gorey invents an opera called Elagabalo whose “triple-wedding scene” is so suggestive that the curtain has to be rung down on it. No doubt Gorey knew his Roman emperors, but perhaps he had also heard of Cavalli’s Eliogabalo (1667): the opera was not performed anywhere until 1999; ten years later Grange Park Opera gave the UK première.
Gorey’s further involvement with opera was limited. He produced beautiful designs for Peter Sellars’s first crack at Don Giovanni in 1980. He did the same for a university production of The Mikado in 1983. During the later 1980s Gorey images appeared on a variety of Metropolitan Opera merchandise, from glass tumblers to clothing: there are nightshirts depicting the principal characters of The Magic Flute and the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor. In 1998 Gorey created for puppets a somewhat old-fashioned parody, without music, of Madama Butterfly. His 40-minute “opera seria for hand puppets”, The White Canoe (music by Daniel J. Wolf), was put on after his death in 2000.
If this article and Graham Greene’s praises don’t convince you, here is Alfred Brendel:
“My
favourite authors are Shakespeare and Edward Gorey and my favourite artists are Leonardo and Edward Gorey”.
ROB WYKE , who collects the work of Edward Gorey, is gratefully indebted to the informative interviews reprinted in Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey, selected and edited by Karen Wilkin (2001).
Rob retired as Second Master of Winchester College in 2015.
THE EDWARD GOREY HOUSE in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts became a museum in 2002 and looks like a lot of fun.
https://edwardgoreyhouse.org
THE TREE The New Yorker, 1992
PAPERING
STEPHEN BARLOW
Conductor Butterfly
At GPO Katya Kabanova, Tristan & Isolde, Gioconda, Bohème, The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko, Porgy & Bess, Romeo et Juliette, Walküre‚ Fanciulla del West‚ Capriccio‚ Rusalka‚ Tristan & Isolde‚ Pique Dame‚ Dialogues des Carmélites‚ Grimes‚ Falstaff
Born Seven Kings Studied Trinity‚ Cambridge, GSMD Appearances Artistic Director at Buxton Festival (2011– 2018): Macbeth‚ Leonora‚ Lucia di Lammermoor‚ Louise‚ Jacobin‚ Alzira, La Princesse Jaune‚ La Colombe‚ Intermezzo, Barber of Baghdad Stephen was co-founder of Opera 80. He has appeared at Glyndebourne, ROH, ENO, Opera
Northern Ireland, Scottish Opera and Opera North. Other appearances Alice’s Adventures (Opera Collective Ireland), Cenerentola (Staatsoper‚ Stuttgart), Medeé, Koanga (Wexford), Contes d’Hoffmann (Beijing), Otello (Birmingham Opera), Rape of Lucretia‚ Owen Wingrave (Irish Youth Opera), Midsummer Night’s Dream (GSMD), Rake’s Progress (Reisopera), Carmen, Faust, Nabucco (Australia), Bluebeard’s Castle (Auckland Philharmonia), and his own opera King (Canterbury Cathedral). With his wife‚ Joanna Lumley‚ he presents a podcast Joanna and the Maestro and, with Joanna as narrator, recorded his own composition Rainbow Bear Interests Cricket, wine, cars, railways (he inherited his grandfather’s railway library).
LUCIANO BATINIĆ
Kochubey Mazeppa Grange Park Opera début Born Split Studied dental medicine, later singing, in Croatia Appearances
Pimen Boris Godunov, Fiesco Boccanegra, Commendatore Giovanni, Basilio Barbiere, Escamillo Carmen, Sparafucile Rigoletto, Alidoro Cenerentola, Colline Boheme, Ramphis Aida, Kochubey Mazeppa, Basilio Nozze di Figaro, Scarpia Tosca, Arkel Pelléas et Mélisande, Gremin Onegin (Croatian National Theatre), Basilio Barbiere, Bartolo Nozze di Figaro ( La Scala Milan), Boris Godunov, Raimondo Lucia di Lammermoor (Moldova), Commendatore Giovanni, Dalland Hollander (Bern), Dalland Hollander (Split), Filippo Don Carlo (Vilnius) Interests Luciano has had Airedale Terriers for 20 years. This year he also has a Russian Black Terrier and a West Highland Terrier which he likes to train and exhibit. He also enjoys motorcycling.
MARTYN BRABBINS
Conductor Mazeppa
At GPO Tristan & Isolde, Eugene Onegin
Born Midlands Studied Goldsmiths Recent & upcoming engagements
Martyn begins appointments as Chief Conductor of the Malmö Symphony and Symphony Orchestra of India In 2025/26 season. He was ENO Music Director 2016-2023, has appeared with Concertgebouw, San Francisco Symphony, DSO Berlin, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, BBC Symphony and conducted hundreds of world premières. He is a popular figure at the BBC Proms, who in 2019 commissioned 14 living composers to write a birthday tribute to him. He has recorded nearly 150 CDs, including operas by Korngold, Birtwistle and Harvey. In 2023 he received the RPS Conductor Award Interests Cooking for his family, tapestry to his own designs, walking in the countryside with poodle Lupin.
JAMES CRESWELL
Jacopo Fiesco Boccanegra
Grange Park Opera début
Born Washington Studied
Yale University School of Music Roles Bartolo Marriage of Figaro (Opéra National de Paris), Daland Flying Dutchman (Irish National Opera), Vodnik Rusalka, Caronte Orfeo (Santa Fe), Marchese Calatrava Forza del Destino (Royal Opera House), Sarastro Magic Flute (Metropolitan Opera NY), Fafner Das Rheingold (English National Opera), Rocco Fidelio (Dutch National Opera).
Interests Building and playing guitars, carpentry, mountain biking
JOHN DOYLE
Director & Designer Butterfly
At GPO Daughter of the Regiment, Werther, Dialogues des Camelites, Butterfly
Born Inverness Recent & forthcoming engagements
Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Theatre Royal, Bath), The Color Purple (London, Broadway and US National Tour), The Visit and Company (Broadway), Sweeney Todd (West End & Broadway), Gondoliers (West End), Carmen Jones, Pacific Overtures and Assassins (Off Broadway), Road Show (NY Public Theatre and Menier Chocolate Factory), Mack and Mabel (West End), Oklahoma! (Chichester Festival), The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony (Los Angeles Opera), Peter Grimes (NY Metropolitan Opera), Lucia di Lammermoor (Scottish Opera, Houston Grand
Opera, La Fenice, Sydney Opera House), Tailor’s Daughter (WNO), Porgy & Bess (Royal Danish Opera), The 12 (Goodspeed Opera House). Interests Tennis, reading, being an educator.
HAYLEY EGAN
Video Designer Taj Mahal
Grange Park Opera début
Born Tralee, Ireland Recent work includes Ruination for Lost Dog (Royal Ballet), Luna (Birmingham Royal Ballet), London Tide, The Boy with Two Hearts (National Theatre), Cinders!, The Scandal at Mayerling (Scottish Ballet), Boy Parts (Soho Theatre), The Sound of Music, Mom – How did you meet The Beatles? (Chichester), Tomorrow (Gala at Old Vic), Everyday (Deafinitely Theatre), WITCH (Royal Academy of Music), The Child In The Snow (Wilton’s Music Hall), The Language of Kindness (Wayward Productions), I’ll Take You to Mrs Cole! (Complicité), Freedom Season (Welsh National Opera). Recent associate credits include Mnemonic (Complicité), People, Places and Things West End, Handmaid’s Tale (Royal Danish Opera), Coppélia (Scottish Ballet). Interests Cycling, cooking Sichuan food, learning to play the bodhrán.
JOHN FINDON
Andrei Mazeppa
Grange Park Opera début
Born Manchester Studied Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, GSMD Recent & upcoming engagements
Title role Peter Grimes (Dutch National Opera and cover Teatro dell’Opera di Rome), Bacchus Ariadne auf Naxos (Opéra de Rouen), Narraboth Salome (San Carlo, Naples), Don José Carmen, Melot Tristan und Isolde, 1st Armed man/2nd Priest Magic Flute (Glyndebourne Festival), Don José Carmen, Steva Jenufa (ENO), Nono’s Canti di vita e d’amore (BBC Symphony), Dvorak Stabat mater (Ulster Orchestra), Dream of Gerontius (Helsinki Radio Symphony). Interests Cooking, playing squash.
SARA FULGONI
Lyubov Mazeppa
At GPO Aleko, Gianni Schicchi, Falstaff, Norma, Walküre, Tristan & Isolde, Samson et Dalila, Don Quichotte, Dialogues des Carmelites, Gianni Schicchi (film), Suor Angelica (film)
project), Auntie Peter Grimes (La Fenice), Marfa Khovanshchina (WNO), Duchess of York Richard III (La Fenice), Beroe Die Bassariden (Orquesta Nacional de España, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma), Forester’s Wife Cunning Little Vixen (La Monnaie), Ulrica Ballo in Maschera (WNO), The Mother Il Prigioniero (WNO), Fricka Walküre Interests Furniture, gardening, slow food.
LUIS GOMES
Pinkerton Butterfly
At GPO Aleko, Gianni Schicchi, Island of Dreams, Falstaff, Gianni Schicchi (film)
Born Portugal. Studied
Jette Parker at ROH Recent engagements Alfredo Traviata (Lisbon, Glyndebourne tour, Prague), Faust (Valladolid), Nemorino L’Elisir (Den Norske Opera), Edoardo Giorno di Regno (Chelsea Opera Group), Rodolfo Bohème (Dusseldorf, WNO, Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona), Nadir Pêcheurs (Oviedo), Don José Carmen (Prague), Rinnuccio Gianni Schicchi (Copenhagen Festival), Edmondo Manon Lescaut (Monte Carlo), Duca Rigoletto (San Sebastian), Pinkerton Butterfly, Edgardo Lucia (Lisbon), tenor staged Verdi Requiem (Finnish National Opera), Rudolph Rupert Lurline (Dublin). Interests Cooking, football, painting, drawing.
LYNNE HOCKNEY
Movement Mazeppa
Born London Studied RNCM Recent & upcoming engagements Portrait (recording with Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Ludwigshafen, Orchester Wiener Akademie Beethoven Resound
At GPO Aleko, Broucek, Otello, Don Carlos, Bohème, Litvinenko, Ballo in Maschera, Romeo & Juliette, Onegin, Don Quichotte, Katya Kabanova Born Iserlohn, Germany. Trained Royal Ballet School Recent & upcoming engagements Broucek (Poznan), Mask of Night (Opera North), Katya (Scottish Opera, Magdeburg), Peter Grimes (Magdeburg). As director Dead Man Walking (Royal Danish Theatre, Den Norske), Midsummer Night’s Dream (Malmö, revival director, Glyndebourne), Boccanegra (Latvia), Billy Budd (Opera North), Enfants Terribles (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), Lucia (Oldenburg). Other work Rusalka, Traviata, Vie Parisienne (Magdeburg), Cenerentola, Giulio Cesare (Erfurt), Rosenkavalier (Bolshoi Theatre), Otello (Korea), Don Quichotte (Nederlandse Opera), Tancredi‚ Iolanta‚ Francesca da Rimini, Orfeo ed Euridice (Theater an der Wien), Otello, William Tell (Graz), Maiden in the Tower (Buxton), Jenufa (Glyndebourne), Jenufa, Bohème, Fiddler on the Roof, Little Night Music (Malmö), Onegin (Opera de Lyon). Film credits Titanic‚ The Village‚ True Lies‚ Town & Country‚ Wild Wild West, Rocky & Bullwinkle Interests Gardening, drawing, reading.
GEORGE JACKSON
Conductor Taj Mahal
At GPO Island of Dreams Gods of the Game, Excursions of Mr Broucek, Hansel & Gretel
Born Hammersmith
George’s work embraces opera, symphonic repertoire and contemporary scores. Recent appearances Bohème, Nozze di Figaro (Opera Holland Park), Barbiere (Theater an der Wien). With Ensemble Intercontemporain, world premiere recording of Steve Reich’s Reich/Richter on Nonesuch Records, and appearances at Paris Festival Présences and Tokyo Spring Festival. With Collegium Novum Zürich he conducted Isabel Mundry’s Noli me tangere, and with Brussels Philharmonic he led the world première of ClaireMélanie Sinnhuber’s Chahut Interests Cooking tagine, griddling the perfect fillet steak.
ANDREAS JANKOWITSCH
Orlik Mazeppa
At GPO Island of Dreams
ELIZABETH KARANI
Jahanara Taj Mahal
Grange Park Opera début
Born Greenwich Studied RNCM, GSMD National Opera Studio Recent & upcoming engagements
Musetta Bohème, Galatea Acis & Galatea, Amy Little Women, Susanna Figaro (Opera Holland Park), Gismonda Ottone, Drusilla L’incoronazione di Poppea (ETO), Nanna/Embla Monstrous Child (ROH), Gretel Hansel & Gretel (ENO/Regent’s Park), Norina Pasquale, Rosalinde Fledermaus, Berta Barbiere (Diva Opera), Tatyana Onegin (Mid Wales Opera), Isabella L’inganno felice (West Green), Rutilia Lucio Papirio Dittatore (Buxton /La Serenissima). Interests Baking, musical theatre and her two small children.
NISHAT KHAN
Born Vienna Roles include Buonafede Mondo della Luna (Graz), Sharpless Butterfly, Jochanaan Salome, Leporello Giovanni (Bregenz), Mephisto Faust (Baden), Golaud Pelléas (Antwerp, Bergen), Krushina Bartered Bride, Alfonso Cosi, Bartolo Barbiere, title role Wolfgang Mitterer’s comic opera Baron Munchhausen (Vienna), Baculus Der Wildschütz (Landestheater Salzburg), Basilio Barbiere (Undine), Kaspar Freischütz, (Gars am Kamp). His virtuoso performances in mono–operas include Grigori Frid’s Letters of van Gogh, Wolfram Wagner´s Endlich Schluß and Tsippi Fleischer´s Cain & Abel. Interests Soccer, arts, travelling.
OTAR JORJIKIA
Gabriele Adorno Boccanegra
At GPO Tosca
Born Tbilisi Recent / current engagements Adorno Boccanegra, Ismaele Nabucco (Opernhaus Zurich), Adorno Boccanegra (Opera de Rouen, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden), title role Don Carlos (Frankfurt Opera), Pinkerton Butterfly (Bregenzer Festspiele, Wroclaw Opera, Warsaw, Basel), Cavaradossi Tosca (Teatro alla Scala, Opera Sassari), Afredo Traviata, Don Jose Carmen (Tbilisi Opera), Opera Australia), Riccardo Ballo in Maschera (Teatro Regio di Parma, Opernhaus Zurich), Duke Rigoletto (Warsaw). Nemorino L’elisir d’amore (Toulouse).
Composer / sitarist Taj Mahal
Born Kolkata From eight generations of sitarists, Nishat started playing aged three gaving his first concert at seven. He has lived and toured all over the world since the age of 13. He was Visiting Professor at University of California and California State University at Long Beach. Collaborations include Philip Glass, Evelynn Glennie, Paco Peña, Eric Clapton, Pavarotti, John McLaughlin, Vanessa May, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and has written film music for Bollywood, Ismail Merchant and Bernardo Bertolucci. Recent appearances include Lugano Opera House, Seattle Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Aldeburgh Festival, Theatre de la Ville, Paris, Royal Opera House, Muscat, Festival Dijon, Carnegie Hall and Royal Festival Hall. Nishat has played at BBC Proms, Suntory Hall in Tokyo for the Japanese Parliament. and played for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.
JIHOON KIM
The Bonze Butterfly At GPO Fanciulla, Don Carlo, Tosca
Otar appeared at the Mariinsky Theater as Rodolfo Bohème, Alfredo Traviata and Adorno Boccanegra with Placido Domingo. Interests Cars, motorbikes.
Born Korea Studied Seoul University, Milan, Jette Parker at ROH Recent engagements Basilio Barbiere (Israeli Opera, Opera Holland Park), Colline Boheme (ROH, WNO), Flemish Deputy Don Carlo (ROH), Silva Ernani (QEH), Pietro Boccanegra (ROH, Israeli Opera), Ferrando Trovatore (Cadogan Hall), Old Hebrew Samson et Dalila (Valencia), Timur Roi de Lahore (QEH), Doctor Traviata (ROH), Bass solo Verdi Collection (Scottish Opera), Timur Turandot (Cambridge Phil). Interests Countryside, creating gardens, breeding Egyptian Arabian horses.
SIMON KEENLYSIDE
Simon Boccanegra
Boccanegra
At GPO Otello, Oliver!, concert appearances
Born London Appearances
Simon has a close association with the Metropolitan Opera NY, ROH Covent Garden and the Bayerische and Wiener Staatsopers, where roles include Posa Don Carlo, Golaud Pelléas et Mélisande, Giorgio Germont Traviata, Ford Falstaff, Balstrode Peter Grimes, Papageno Magic Flute, Almaviva Figaro, Prospero in Adès’ The Tempest (Best Opera Recording Grammy Awards 2013 and Music DVD Recording of the Year Echo Klassik Awards 2014). Title roles include Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Wozzeck, Billy Budd, Hamlet, Macbeth and Rigoletto Discography includes Britten War Requiem (LSO under Noseda), Mendelssohn Elijah (McCreesh), Das Knaben Wunderhorn (Rattle), title role Don Giovanni (Abbado), title role Billy Budd (Hickox), Papageno Magic Flute (Mackerras), Almaviva Figaro (Jacobs, winning a Grammy award), and four recital discs with Malcolm Martineau (Schubert, Strauss, Brahms and an English song disc, winning a 2012 Gramophone Award). Simon received a knighthood in the 2018 Birthday Honours. Interests Nature, being outdoors, time with his family.
HYE-YOUN LEE
Butterfly Butterfly At GPO Bohème, Idomeneo, Carmélites
JOLYON LOY
Paulo Albiani Boccanegra
Grange Park Opera début
Born Birmingham Studied French & Italian at Magdalen, Oxford,Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Royal Academy of Music, Glyndebourne New Generation Artist at National Opera Studio and an alumnus of Verbier Festival Atelier Lyrique Recent & upcoming engagements . Earl of Morton Mary Queen of Scots (ENO), Schaunard Bohème (Royal Opera Covent Garden), Marullo Rigoletto (Tiroler Festspiele Erl). Recordings include Apollo in John Eccle’s Semele with Academy of Ancient Music (nominated for a Gramophone Award) and Faust in Song on Champs-Hill Records Interests Tennis, skiing.
GIANLUCA MARCIANO
Conductor Boccanegra
Born South Korea Studied Berlin, Jeunes Voix du Rhin, Strasbourg and L’Atelier Lyrique at L’Opéra National de Paris Engagements title role Lucia (Opéra National du Rhin), Mimi Bohème (Trieste, St Gallen, Scottish), Musetta Bohème (Opera Holland Park), Donna Anna Giovanni (Bergen, Scottish Opera), Violetta Traviata (Opera North, Scottish Opera), Desdemona Rossini’s Otello (Al Bustan Festival), Lisette Rondine (Finnish National Opera), title role Butterfly (Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Scottish Opera, Magdeburg, Plovdiv State Opera, Ireland, Icelandic Opera, Finnish National Opera), Madame Mao Nixon in China, Micaëla Carmen (Scottish Opera), Title role Daphne (Scottish Opera), Liù Turandot (Cambridge Phil). Interests Nature, parenting, cooking.
At GPO Aleko / Gianni Schicchi, Otello, Falstaff, Don Carlo, Ballo in Maschera, Tosca, Samson et Dalila, Onegin, Traviata, Queen of Spades, Puritani Born La Spezia Recent & upcoming engagements Turandot (Teatro de la Maestranza Seville), Aida (Opera de Oviedo, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari), Forza del Destino (Teatre Principal de Palma), Andrea Chenier (Chelsea Opera Group), Tosca (Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville and Festival Pucciniano, Torre del Lago), Tosca, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Nabucco (SNG Opera Ljubljana), Andrea Chénier, Turandot, Nabucco, Ballo in maschera (Opera de Oviedo), Traviata, Butterfly, Bohème (Lithuanian National Opera), Fledermaus, Tosca (Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus, Minsk), Edgar (Scottish Opera), Tosca, Andrea Chénier (Spendiarian Theatre, Yerevan), Olimpiade (Teatro di San Carlo). Marcianò is Artistic Director of the Al Bustan Festival in Beirut, Founder & Artistic Director of the Festival Suoni dal Golfo, Lerici Interests Good food and wine and, as every Italian, clothes and shoes.
Born Farnham Common Recent & forthcoming engagements Carmen (Bari, Torino), Flight (Opera Collective Ireland), Elisir, Ariodante (Passau), Donizetti Viva la Diva (Salzburg State Theatre, Buxton Festival), Land of Smiles (Budapest
Operetta Theatre, Passau), Entführung (ETO)
Notable credits Queen of Spades (La Scala), Ariadne auf Naxos (Salzburg Festspielhaus), Norma (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari), Manon Lescaut (Parma, Bari, Valencia, Bilbao), Entführung (Ancona, Cagliari, Palermo, Thessaloniki), Zauberflöte (Parma, Ferrara, Valencia, Cagliari, Amsterdam), Death in Venice (Salzburg State Theatre), Cristina Regina di Svezia (Wexford Festival). UK credits Aida (Albert Hall), Figaro (Glyndebourne), Fliegender Hollander (Opera North). With young artists Stephen was ETO’s Director of Productions (1991-1997), Resident Producer at GSMD (1991-2004), and has taught at the Verona Opera Academy and RNCM. Interests Walking in the Surrey Hills, watching his children make music.
TIM MITCHELL
Lighting Designer
2025 Season
At GPO Aleko/Gianni Schicchi, Katya Kabanova, Daughter of the Regiment, Island of Dreams Tristan & Isolde, Tosca, Otello, The Excursions of Mr Broucek, Gioconda Born Barry, South Wales where his childhood was spent messing about in boats. With a tap–dancing mother, he was surrounded by music and theatre. At 16, Tim’s first job was at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff. He is an Associate Artist for RSC, received a Knight of Illumination Award 2015 for Taken at Midnight (Chichester), an Olivier nomination for Henry IV Part 1 and 2 (RSC) and Critics Award for Theatre for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Royal Lyceum). Theatre credits Over 50 productions for RSC, West End, Broadway and regional theatre including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Leeds Playhouse), Sister Act (UK Tour). Opera credits
HMS Pinafore, Force of Destiny, Fidelio, Iolanthe (ENO), Magic Flute (RCM), Così, Return of Ulysses, Pagliacci (Longborough Festival), Vin herbé, Moses und Aron, Nabucco, Bohème (WNO), Fall of the House of Usher (San Francisco), Elektra (Opéra de Nice), Trittico (Den Norske Opera).
RACHEL NICHOLLS
Mariya Mazeppa
At GPO Tristan & Isolde, Fliegende Holländer
Born Bedford Studied Dame
Anne Evans Recent & future engagements Isolde Tristan & Isolde (Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Rome, Turin, Karlsruhe, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra), title role Elektra (Basel, Karlsruhe, Munster), Brünnhilde Siegfried in concert and CD (Hallé), Brünnhilde Götterdämmerung (Taiwan), Brünnhilde Walküre (ENO), Fidelio (Opera North,
Lithuanian Opera), Guinevere Gawain (BBC SO), Lady Macbeth Macbeth (Karlsruhe, NI Opera), Eva Meistersinger (Karlsruhe, ENO), Marie/Marietta Die tote Stadt (Seoul). Interests Fell running, hiking and cycling. She is happiest when covered in mud from a good day out on the hills.
FRANCIS O’CONNOR
Designer Mazeppa At GPO 15 productions including Tosca, Gioconda Ivan the Terrible, Porgy & Bess, Romeo et Juliette, Oklahoma!
Born Middlesbrough Current & recent musical / opera / Galatea et Polifemo ( Handel Festival), Flying Dutchman, Faust, Fidelio (Irish National Opera), Street Scene (Opera North), Parade (Châtelet, Paris), Billy Elliot (Maag Zurich), Gypsy (Royal Exchange, Manchester), Deborence and Bluebeard (Biel, Switzerland), Fantasio (Garsington), Entführung (Monte Carlo), Kiss Me Kate (Bonn), Figaro (Wexford), Magic Flute (Ekaterinburg, Russia). Awards include Three Irish Times Awards, Boston Globe and Critics Circle Awards, nomination for Germany’s Der Faust Prize for the opera Pinocchio Current & recent theatre includes Druid O’Casey ,The Seagull, Boland – A Poet’s Journey, Cherry Orchard (Druid, Galway & Dublin), Once Before I Go (Gate, Dublin), What’s in a Name? (national tour), Country Girls (Abbey, Dublin), The Tell-Tale Heart (National Theatre), Richard III (Druid, Galway, Dublin, & New York), Beauty Queen of Leenane (Ireland, Los Angeles, New York), Waiting For Godot (Edinburgh Festival and US tour). Interests Francis is a fervent gardener who is often disappointed. Cuttings welcome.
SEETA PATEL
Movement Taj Mahal At GPO Island of Dreams
Born London Recent work Bharatanatyam version of Rite of Spring (Sadler’s Wells and tour), Not Today’s Yesterday (Adelaide Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, India, Italy and Australia). Seeta has produced / presented solo and ensemble works at the Purcell Room and ROH2. She works with Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance professionals and has toured with companies including DV8 Physical Theatre, Shobana Jeyasingh, Gandini Juggling, David Hughes Dance Company and Mavin Khoo Dance. Film, TV and theatre includes The Art of Defining Me (film), The House of In Between (Theatre Royal Stratford East). Seeta was a judge for the inaugural BBC Young Dancer Competition.
DAVID POUNTNEY
Director Boccanegra, Mazeppa
At GPO Island of Dreams, Excursions of Mr Broucek, Ivan the Terrible, A Feast in the Time of Plague, Anything Goes
Born Oxford Study David was a chorister at St John’s, Cambridge, a trumpeter in National Youth Orchestra, and directed nine operas whilst studying (notionally) History and English Literature at Cambridge Work He joined Scottish Opera in 1970, eventually becoming their Director of Productions, and moved on to the same role at ENO alongside Lord Harewood and Mark Elder, which ushered in a decade of significant ambition and experiment. Subsequently he pursued a wide-ranging international freelance career, before becoming Intendant of the Bregenz Festival (2004–2014), and Artistic Director of WNO (2011–2019). He is a librettist and translator of operas from many languages. He has received significant awards from Poland, France and Austria, and was knighted for his services to opera in 2020 and in the same year received the IOA Leadership award. Interests Croquet, gardening, cooking.
ELIN PRITCHARD
Amelia Boccanegra
Grange Park Opera début
Born St. Asaph, North Wales Roles include Micaëla Carmen (WNO), Miss Jessel Turn of the Screw (Opera Holland Park, ENO, Ustinov Theatre), Lucia Lucia di Lammermoor (Buxton Festival), Fiordiligi, Violetta, Tatyana (Den Jyske Opera), Elvira Giovanni (Finnish National Opera, Scottish Opera), Anne Trulove Rake’s Progress, Violetta Traviata (Scottish Opera), Musetta Bohème, Ofglen Handmaid’s Tale (ENO), Mimì Bohème (WNO, Longborough), Kupava Snow Maiden, Nedda Pagliacci, Flowermaiden Parsifal, Vixen Cunning Little Vixen, Zemfira Aleko (Opera North), Rusalka (Garsington Opera/Edinburgh Festival), Alice Ford Falstaff and title role Manon Lescaut Interests Hiking, cooking, reading.
ROSS RAMGOBIN
Sharpless Butterfly
Jahangir Taj Mahal
At GPO films Owen Wingrave and L’heure espagnole
Born London Principal roles with Covent Garden, ENO, Glyndebourne, WNO, Brisbane Baroque, Angers Nantes Opera, International Handel Festival, Göttingen, Nederlandse Reisopera, Israeli Opera and Verbier Festival. Contemporary work includes The
Death of Klinghoffer conducted by John Adams, Written On Skin conducted by George Benjamin. Concert appearances have included projects with BBC Concert Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Interests Arsenal Football Club where he is a season ticket holder.
MARK SHANAHAN
Conductor Mazeppa
At GPO Tosca, Elisir d’amore
Studied Chetham’s, London University, post-graduate conducting at the Royal Academy of Music as the Sir Henry Wood conducting scholar. UK productions include Otello, La Bohème, Barber of Seville, Force of Destiny, Ernani, Tosca (English National Opera), Rigoletto, La Traviata (Opera North) and appearances at Opera Ireland, Wexford Festival. International engagements include Jenufa (NantesAngers Opera – Claude Rostand Critique award), Cosi fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, Falstaff, Zauberflöte, Makropulos Case (Nantes-Angers Opera), Bohème (Marseilles), Nozze di Figaro (Lille), Katya Kabanova (Nancy), Mikado (La Fenice, Venice), Tosca, Death in Venice, Nabucco, Adriana Lecouvreur, Carmen, Simon Boccanegra (Frankfurt). Interests Photography, history and architecture.
DAVID SHIPLEY
Pietro Boccanegra
At GPO Ivan the Terrible, Bohème, Don Carlo
Born Ipswich Studied Royal Academy of Music, GSMD, Jette Parker Young Artist at Covent Garden Roles Dr Grenvil Traviata, Antinous Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Zuniga Carmen and Nightwatchmen Die Meistersinger (ROH), Gremin Onegin (Opernhaus Zürich), Rocco Fidelio (Oxford Philharmonic), Sarastro Zauberflöte (Glyndebourne tour), Sparafucile Rigoletto (Houston Grand Opera, Scottish Opera), Bottom Dream (Scottish Opera). Interests Cooking, Formula 1, Arsenal Football Club.
VICTORIA SIMMONDS
Nur Jahan Taj Mahal Grange Park Opera début Born Burton on Trent Recent & future commitments include Fox Cunning Little Vixen, Meg Page Falstaff (Garsington), Luke Bedford’s Through His Teeth (ROH), Boy Way Back Home (ENO), Marcellina Nozze di Figaro, Elvira Giovanni, Watkins Itch (Opera Holland Park), Angel
2/Marie Written on Skin (Netherlands Opera, Toulouse, Lisbon, Opéra Comique Paris, La Scala
Milan, Lincoln Centre NY, Wiener Festwochen, Bavarian State Opera, European Tour with Mahler Chamber Orchestra) Angelina Cenerentola (Opera Holland Park, Danish National Opera), Minsk Woman Flight (Scottish Opera, Opera Holland Park), Hippolyta Midsummer Night’s Dream (Scottish Opera), concerts with the Nash Ensemble, performances at Beijing Music Festival. Interests Theatre, growing fruit and vegetables on her allotment, walking her Tibetan Terrier.
CASPAR SINGH
Shah Jahan Taj Mahal Grange Park Opera début
Born Hemel Hempstead. Studied GSMD, Bayerische Staatsoper Opernstudio
Recent engagements Ferrando Cosi (Norwegian Opera, Komische Oper Berlin, Malmö Opera), Tamino Zaubeflöte, Hyllus
Hercules, Fenton Falstaff, Laerte Hamlet (Komische Oper Berlin), Lysander Midsummer Night’s Dream (Glyndebourne, Garsington, BBC Proms, Steeman/ Ein Hirt Tristan und Isolde (Glyndebourne), Male Chorus Rape of Lucretia (Kammerakademie Potsdam). Forthcoming Liceu Barcelona, ENO, Glyndebourne, Bayerische Staatsoper. Interests Cooking, walking the dog with his wife.
JULIA SITKOVETSKY
Mumtaz Mahal Taj Mahal
At GPO Daughter of the Regiment
Born UK Recent & forthcoming engagements Königin der Nacht Zauberflöte (Leipzig Oper, Dresden Semperoper, Komische Oper, Hamburg Oper, Deutsche Oper am Rhein), Waldvogel Siegfried, Le Feu/ Princesse/Rossignol L’enfant et les sortilèges (Deutsche Oper am Rhein), Maria
Was ihr Wollt, Ida Der Junge Lord (Staatsoper Hannover), Gilda, Rigoletto (Landestheater Linz), Königin der Nacht Zauberflöte (Scottish Opera). Covid cancellations Elvira Puritani, Morgana Alcina (Deutsche Oper am Rhein). Interests Cooking.
DAVID STOUT
Mazeppa Mazeppa
At GPO Tristan & Isolde, La Gioconda, Falstaff, Don Carlo, Don Quichotte, Magic Flute, Cunning Little Vixen
Born Oundle Studied Senior Chorister at Westminster Abbey. David grew up in southern Africa, where he studied and taught
zoology before transitioning to singing with Rudolf Piernay at GSMD. Upcoming engagements title role Don Pasquale (Scottish Opera), Alberich Das Rheingold (Deutsche Oper am Rhein). Other notable roles include Sancho Pança Don Quichotte (Bregenz Festival), Stárek Jenufa (Teatro dell’Opera di Roma), Bluebeard (São Paulo Symphony), Leporello Giovanni Concert appearances include War Requiem (Brangwyn Hall), Dream of Gerontius (Polish National Radio Orchestra), Belshazzar’s Feast (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra). Recordings include Haydn Creation and Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen Interests Walking, fishing, birding. He has written a murder/mystery trilogy, The Enlightened, which paints an alternative picture of our human origins, and decisions we must make.
ROBIN TEBBUTT
Revival Director Boccanegra
At GPO Jenufa
Born Suffolk Studied At school in Great Yarmouth, Robin played the trombone in brass bands, and then studied music and drama at Birmingham University. Staff Director at Welsh National Opera 1993-2008. As Associate Director for Katie Mitchell he has directed many revivals of her productions including Jenufa (opening Surrey season 2017 for Grange Park Opera), and Lucia di Lammermoor (Covent Garden 2024). Interviewed by David Pountney to join ENO in 1986, he didn’t get the job. However, he did get to assist him at WNO on some of his great productions and revivals in European cities, most recently Forza del Destino in Bonn. Interests Living in a remote Welsh village, he has joined the church bell ringers - but hasn’t got the hang of it all.
YANNIS THAVORIS
Costume Designer Taj Mahal
At GPO Hansel & Gretel
Born Thessaloniki Studied Architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Scenography at Central Saint Martins. He was the winner of the 1997 Linbury Prize for Stage Design. Recent designs include Suor Angelica (ENO), Don Giovanni (Santa Fe Opera), Marx in London! (Scottish Opera), Ariodante, L’Heure Espagnole / Gianni Schicchi (Royal Academy of Music), Mansfield Park, Fledermaus (Royal Northern College of Music), Hänsel & Gretel (Royal College of Music), Viva la Diva (Salzburger Landestheater, Buxton Festival), Roméo et Juliette, Fliegende Holländer (Estonian National Opera), Hänsel & Gretel (RNCM and Grange Park Opera), Orlando (San Francisco Opera), Roberto Devereux (sets, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe), Otello (Theater
Magdeburg). Also Tosca (Nederlandse Reisopera), Cendrillon (RNCM), Elisir d’amore (Den Jyske Opera), Midsummer Night’s Dream (Helsinki). Plans include Turn of the Screw (Spoleto USA).
ADRIAN THOMPSON
Goro Butterfly
At GPO Katya Kabanova, Island of Dreams, Ivan the Terrible, Excursions of Mr Broucek
Born London Studied GSMD, where he is now a professor
Previous engagements
Basilio Marriage of Figaro ( Royal Opera House Irish National Opera), Ulrich Eisslinger Meistersinger (Glyndebourne), Judith Weir’s In the Land of Uz (BBC Proms), Lilaque Boulevard Solitude, Witch
Hansel & Gretel, Scribe Khovanshchina, Shapkin
From the House of the Dead (WNO), Skuratov From the House of the Dead, Canio Pagliacci (Opera Frankfurt), Albert Gregor Makropoulos Case (Opera Zuid, Opera de Stadt Köln), Monostatos Zauberflöte, Bardolfo Falstaff, Zivny Osud, Midas
Liebe der Danae (Garsington), Goro Butterfly, Monostatos (Scottish Opera), Mime Das Rheingold (LPO/Jurowski, Bochumer Symphoniker), Emperor Turandot (Toronto), Chairman Mao in John Adams’ Nixon in China (ENO). Future engagements The Fool in Berg’s Wozzeck with LPO and Vladimir Jurowski.
KITTY WHATELY
Suzuki Butterfly
At GPO film Owen Wingrave
Born Tooting Studied Chethams, GSMD, RCM
Recent engagements Michelle Festen (Royal Opera House), Jocasta Oedipus Rex (Scottish Opera), Lyel The Snow Maiden (ETO). Other highlights include Isabelle in Missy Mazzoli’s one-woman opera Song from the Uproar
(BBCSO and BBC Singers, Barbican), Hermia Midsummer Night’s Dream (Rouen), Hansel Hansel & Gretel, Elvira Don Giovanni (Scottish Opera), Meg in UK première Little Women (Opera Holland Park). Interests A champion of women composers, Kitty has many world première recordings of songs by women. She co-founded a charity SWAP’ra (Supporting Women And Parents in Opera) creating career development opportunities and support networks for operatic artists with caring responsibilities
PHILIP WHITE
Head of Music / Chorus Master
At GPO since 2015
Born Portsmouth Credits Since 2017, Head of Opera at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where productions have included the UK staged première of Jake Heggie’s
Dead Man Walking, Chorus Master at the Royal Danish Opera (2004–2012), Assistant Chorus Master at the Bayreuth Festival (2005–2015), Assistant Chorus Master Moses und Aron (WNO), Chorus Master Oedipus Rex, Le Rossignol, Parsifal, Tannhäuser (Théâtre du Châtelet), Associate Chorus Master at Radio France (2000-2004), under Kurt Masur and Myung Whun Chung, where work included chorus preparation for Deutsche Grammophon’s recording of Messiaen’s La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, Bizet’s Ivan IV, Honegger’s La Danse des Morts, Benvenuto Cellini (EMI), Guest Chorus Master at Scottish Opera, Chorus Master at Opéra de Lyon (2014-2017), Longborough and ENO (Satyagraha, The Perfect American). Philip also prepared the chorus with Sting for his album Sacred Love Interests Walking, cooking, photography, travelling, reading just about anything about the USA.
CHRISTIAN ANDREAS baritone
At GPO 2nd season
Born Brackenheim, Germany
Trained University of Music
Karlsruhe, Royal College of Music London, International Opera Studio at the Opera
National de Lyon (France). Recent credits include Guglielmo Così fan tutte, Dancaire Carmen (Regents Opera), Don Inigo L’heure espagnole (Opera de Toulon) and Monterone Rigoletto (Verbier Festival). Interests Travelling, yoga and planespotting.
ANDREW ASHTON dancer
Grange Park Opera début
Born North Yorkshire. Trained Laine Theatre Arts Credits include Swan Lake, Edward Scissorhands, Lord of the Flies (New Adventures), title role The Snowman (Sadler’s Wells), La Traviata (Royal Ballet).
Interests Mixology, jazz, swimming, architecture.
TIM BAGLEY bass Yamadori Butterfly
At GPO 6th Season including roles Policeman/Pickpocket Hansel & Gretel
Born Poole Trained RNCM
Credits Capellio I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Red Earth Opera), Oroveso Norma (Midlands Opera), Timour Le Roi de Lahore, Robert Penny Under the Greenwood Tree (Dorset Opera), Guglielmo Così (Da Ponte Opera Festival), Leporello Giovanni (Weimar), Zuniga Carmen, Duphol Traviata, title role Figaro (Opera on Location). Interests skiing, video games.
MALACHI BRIANT dancer
Grange Park Opera début
Born Kingston-upon-Thames, grew up in Cumbria Trained Trinity Laban Conservatoire
Credits include Postcards
From England (BarrowFull), The Creation (Scherzo Ensemble), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Glyndebourne). Interests Making coffee, learning Danish and a good movie.
SAM BRITNER tenor
Dara Taj Mahal
Grange Park Opera début
Born Wales Training Currently 2nd year at University College London and studies with Richard Berkeley-Steele at the Royal Academy of Music Credits Judge Danforth in UK première of Ward’s The Crucible, Timothy Laughlin in European première of Spears’ Fellow Travellers. (University College Opera, Alfredo La Traviata (Dorset Opera), Eugene Onegin (Hampstead Garden Opera). Interests German beers.
HARRY BROOKES-OWEN bass
Registrar Butterfly
Grange Park Opera début
Born Cardiff Training A boy chorister at Hereford Cathedral, Harry now studies at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Credits include Superintendant Budd Albert Herring, Pig The Enchanted Pig, Le Roi Cendrillon (RBC). He recently started working at Det Kongelige Teater (Royal Danish Opera) as an extra chorus member. Interests Sport. He plays rugby for the University 1 st team and can probably identify every bird in the UK
STEPHEN BROWN tenor
Grange Park Opera début
Born Croydon Trained Trinity Laban Credits include Tamino Zauberflöte (Opera Greenwich), Frederic Pirates of Penzance (Cardiff Opera), Joseph Fame and Envy (OCO). Interests Portraiture, 3D printing and designer board games.
CAROLINE CARRAGHER mezzo
Grange Park Opera début
Born London Trained RWCMD, Wales International Academy of Voice Credits include Rossweisse Die Walküre (Regents Opera, New Palace Opera), Ruth Ruddigore (OHP & Charles Court Opera), Baba the Turk Rake’s Progress (Aylesbury Opera), Tisbe Cenerentola (Guildford Opera, Aylesbury Opera), Third Lady Magic Flute (Opera Alegría), Ragonde Count Ory (Opera Alegría), Carmen (Ormond Opera), Miss Rose Lakmé (Chelsea Opera Group). Interests H iking, animals, and trapeze.
PHILIP CLIEVE tenor
Shehryar Taj Mahal
At GPO 8 th Season including Antonio Island of Dreams
Born Lancashire Trained
RNCM Recent engagements
World tour with cruise liner
Silver Shadow. Philip has performed with Buxton Festival Opera and regularly returns home to perform with Birkenhead and Formby choral societies. Interests Real ales, membership of CAMRA, airfix models.
LAURA COPPINGER soprano
Grange Park Opera début
Born Oxford Trained Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Credits include Chorus L’elisir d’amore (Longborough), Oasis L’Etoile (Alexander Gibson Opera School), Die Frau Erwartung (Orchestra Vox), Baroness Irene La Vera Costanza (New Chamber Opera), Zerlina Don Giovanni (The People’s Opera), Cunegonde Candide (Barricade Arts), Second Woman Dido & Aeneas (Glyndebourne Youth Opera). Enjoys Knitting and drinking rooibos tea and sherry (not at the same time).
CERI HEDDWYN DAVIES tenor
Messenger Taj Mahal
Grange Park Opera début
Born Cardigan Bay, West Wales Trained International Academy of Voice, Cardiff
Credits include Turiddu Cavalleria Rusticana (Duchy Opera), Tybalt Capuleti e I Montecchi (Red Earth Opera), Percy Anna Bolena (Red Earth Opera), Luis Gondoliers (Opera Teifi). Interests include restoring classic motorbikes and exploring new places.
EDEN DEVANEY tenor
Grange Park Opera début
Born Manchester Trained Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Credits include Chorus Oedipus Rex (Scottish Opera), Chorus Idomeneo (RCS), Evangelist St John’s Passion (RCS), Tenor Soloist Mozart Requiem (Edinburgh Royal Choral Union). Interests include making coffee, long drives in beautiful scenery and choral conducting.
ALISON DUNNE mezzo
Mother Butterfly
At GPO 6th Season including Sister Dolcina Suor Angelica (film)
Born Dublin Studies RWCMD
Credits include Dorabella Cosi, Bridesmaid Figaro, Mercedes Carmen, Suzuki Butterfly, 3rd Lady Flute, Giovanna Rigoletto, Orlofsky Fledermaus, Composer Ariadne, at Buxton, Longborough, Wexford, WNO, ENO. Interests Yoga and swimming.
PETER ENTWISLE bass
Grange Park Opera début
Born Hammersmith Training Chorister at Hereford Cathedral and RNCM Credits include Rape of Lucretia (BYO), Barbiere di Siviglia (OHP), Simon Boccanegra (Opera Rara/North). Interests Bargainhunting at the supermarket, speedrunning, video games and K-Pop.
ROBERT FOLKES tenor
At GPO 2nd Season
Born Salisbury Trained Royal Academy of Music Recent credits Tamino Zauberflöte, Nemorino L’elisir d’amore Chorus The Rake’s Progress and Ariodante (RAM). Interests Jazz trumpet, cycling, running and reading.
KATHRYN FORREST soprano Grange Park Opera début
Born Scotland Training Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (sponsored by Cardiff Arms Park Male Choir) and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Credits include Gala Soloist with WNO Orchestra conducted by Maestro Xu Zhong of Shanghai Opera, Helena Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nella Gianni Schicchi (RWCMD), cover Sita Roi de Lahore (Dorset Opera), Dorothee Cendrillion (Fife Opera). Interests Swimming, hiking, star–gazing and cooking great food.
KARLA GRANT soprano
At GPO 3 rd Season including Alms Sister Suor Angelica (film)
Born Scotland Studied RCS
Roles include Sandman
Hänsel und Gretel, Pamina Zauberflöte. Opera scenes
include Susanna Figaro, title role La Calisto, title role Cunning Little Vixen, Giulietta Capuletti e Montecchi. She was a Dunedin Consort Young Artist, a Leeds Lieder and Oxford Lieder Young Artist and appeared in masterclasses with Dame Janet Baker, Dorothea Röschmann and Julius Drake. Interests hiking, painting & dressmaking, reading, travelling.
ELIZABETH GREEN mezzo
Grange Park Opera début
Born Canterbury, living in the Cathedral grounds Trained Royal Academy of Music, Australian Contemporary Opera Company Credits include Songs for Sue by Oliver Knussen under the direction of Barbara Hannigan. Venus Venus and Adonis (Hampstead Garden Opera), Gertrude
Hänsel und Gretel (Berlin Opera Academy), Handel Messiah (Canterbury Cathedral), Bach St John Passion (Aachen) and Dido and Aeneas (Cadogan Hall). Interests English wine-making.
ASHTON B HALL dancer
Grange Park Opera début
Born Norwich Rrained Trinity Laban Conservatoire Credits encompass stage, TV, and film including Romeo & Juliet (Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures), Breathless Puppets (Akram Khan), House of Flamenk (James Cousins Co, Arlene Phillips), and Tarantiseismic (Damien Jalet). Opera credits
La Traviata (David McVicar, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Liceu Barcelona) and Midsummer Night’s Dream (Glyndebourne). Interests Travelling, cooking, football, and cheese.
HASMIK HARUTYUNYAN
soprano
Aunt Butterfly
At GPO 2nd Season
Born Armenia Training Royal Conservatoire of Scotland; Hasmik was one of the first recipients of Opera Europa
Eva Kleinitz Scholarship at the National Opera Studio and was a recipient of the Opera Awards Foundation Bursary Recent engagements include Tatyana Eugene Onegin,
Leonora Fidelio (ENO at Cadogan Hall), Iphigélnie Iphigénie en Tauride, Telethusa Iphis (Opera North), Fiordiligi Cosi (WNO). Opera scenes include Female Chorus Rape of Lucretia (RCS), Rosalinde Fledermaus, Mimi Bohème (WIAV). Hasmik appeared at the Wigmore Hall in 2023 with the National Opera Studio. Interests Cooking, pilates, plants, teaching, Armenian sacred music of the middle ages and folk songs.
LACHLAN HIGGINS baritone
Grange Park Opera début
Born Melbourne Trained WAAPA (Perth), RWCMD (Cardiff) Recent performances include Don Giovanni, Demetrius Midsummer Nights Dream (RWCMD), Schaunard La Boheme (FFO). Interests Reading, exercise, any excuse to be surrounded by nature.
ADAM JARMAN baritone
Commissioner Butterfly
Grange Park Opera début
Born Kent Studied Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Holloway, University of London. Credits Bartolo Nozze di Figaro, Dr Falke Die Fledermaus and Blansac La Scala di Seta,(RNCM), Speaker Magic Flute (Clonter Opera). Interests Playing tennis, brewing beer. He has recently taken up bookbinding.
TIGRAN KAKHVEJYAN baritone
Asaf Kahn Taj Mahal Grange Park Opera début
Born Armenia Studied Tigran trained as a graphic designer, painter, and illustrator at Armenia’s National University of Architecture and Construction. His musical His musical journey began at 13; he has degrees from Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory and the Royal Academy of Music and studied at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Credits include Orpheus Orpheus & Eurydice, Silvio Pagliacci (Yerevan Opera Studio), title role Onegin (RCS Opera School, Tarquinius Rape of Lucretia (British Youth Opera). Interests Family time, movies, his aquarium of colourful fish. He likes to sing songs of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and frequently freelances as a graphic artist.
PHILIP KALMANOVITCH baritone
Grange Park Opera début
Born Ottawa, Canada
Trained University of Toronto and Opera de Montreal
Credits include Impresario in Donizetti Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali (Wexford), Falke Die Fledermaus (Gulfshore Opera), Bill Jones Brokeback Mountain (NYCO). Interests Karaoke, mixology, and fitness.
HENRY GRANT KERSWELL
Yakuside Butterfly
Khusro Taj Mahal
At GPO 3 rd Season including roles Hortensius Daughter of the Regiment, Spinelloccio
Gianni Schicchi, Sebastian Island of Dreams, Jailer Tosca
Born Guildford Recent & forthcoming engagements Dr Grenvil Traviata (OHP), Director of the Theatre Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali, Various roles Lady Gregory in America (Wexford Festival), Fasolt Das Rheingold (Regents Opera), Baron Zeta Merry Widow (Opera de Bauge), Benoit & Alcindoro Bohème (Opera Holland Park), Nicola Fedora (IF Opera), Gremin Eugene Onegin (OHP Young Artists), Fiorello Barber of Seville (Ulster Touring Opera), Snug Midsummer Night’s Dream (ETO), Bartolo Marriage of Figaro (Opera UpClose), Antonio Marriage of Figaro (OHP and ETO) Victorian Alice’s adventures in Wonderland (OHP, IF Opera and ROH), Don Attilio Phantom of the Opera (National Tour). Interests Martinis and horseracing.
SAM LEGGETT tenor
At GPO 2nd Season
Born London Trained Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Credits Blind Die Fledermaus (Kentish Opera), Don Ottavio Don Giovanni (Random Opera), Count Barigoule Cendrillon (Carshalton Opera), Ralph Rackstraw HMS Pinafore (New London Opera Group), Edward Ferrars Sense and Sensibility The Musical (Surrey Opera), Almaviva Barber of Seville (Tessitoura), Remendado Carmen (Bristol Opera), Ferrando Cosi (LoveOpera), Pirelli Sweeney Todd, Tolloller Iolanthe (Bristol University), chorus Tristan und Isolde (GPO), Peter Grimes (Epiphoni), Freischütz (Random Opera), Pirates of Penzance, Yeomen of the Guard (Forbear Theatre), Turco in Italia (Longhope Opera). Interests Swimming, gaming, puzzle-solving, reading.
CHRISTIAN LOIZOU bass-baritone
At GPO 2nd Season
Born Worcester Trained Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Royal Northern College of Music. Credits Moroccan Soldier in the world premiere of Tutino’s La Ciociara, Yeats / The Judge in world première of Caruso’s Lady Gregory in America (Wexford Festival Opera), Sirocco L’Étoile (RNCM). Interests Board games, cooking.
LUKE MURPHY dancer
At GPO The Excursions of Mr Broucek, Otello, La Giaconda Credits As Movement and Fight Consultant The Rakes Progress and Midsummer Nights Dream (Glyndebourne Festival). Principal and ensemble roles Edward Scissorhands, Swan Lake, The Car Man, Lord of the Flies, Nutcracker!, Sleeping Beauty (New Adventures). Other appearances The Hairy Ape (Old Vic). Festen, Otello, Die Zauberflöte, Don Pasquale (ROH), Das Rheingold (ENO). Interests Luke has created programmes for Care Homes, works with refugees, young offenders and addicts, using dance as a medium of self-expression and wellbeing improvement.
HANNAH O’BRIEN soprano
Cousin Butterfly
Grange Park Opera début
Born Drogheda, Ireland. Trained RIAM and RNCM. Credits include Confidant/ First Niece The Critic (Wexford), Female Chorus Rape of Lucretia (BYO), Donna Elvira Don Giovanni (Hurn Court Opera), Tatiana L’Aube Rogue (Wexford), Elvira L’italiana in Algeri (Wexford), Nella Gianni Schicchi (Wexford), Pamina Zauberflöte (Clonter Opera), Mary Crawford Mansfield Park (RNCM), Griselda Cinderella (Alma Deutscher). Interests Video games, board games, hiking, exploring.
SARAH RAPPOPORT mezzo
Grange Park Opera début
Raised Switzerland Training Currently a third year undergraduate at Royal Northern College of Music. Opera credits include 2nd Lady Zauberflöte ( Berlin Opera Academy), Beth Slater Sliverwood (RNCM), cover Koukouli L’Etoile, RNCM). Other appearances include scenes Dorabella Cosi
fan tutte (RNCM), recitalist at Lerici Music Festival. Interests Fashion, psychology, travelling.
PHOEBE RAYNER mezzo
Grange Park Opera début
Born Oxford Trained Royal College of Music and RNCM Credits include Stewardess Flight (RCM), Nerone Agrippina (Hampstead Garden Opera), Flora Traviata (Barefoot Opera), Hänsel Hänsel und Gretel (WOCo). Interests Thai food, running, tiny dogs.
BENJIE DEL ROSARIO tenor
Drunken Cossack Mazeppa
At GPO 6th Season including roles Rybar Katya Kabanova, Farty Excursions of Mr Broucek, Nelson Porgy & Bess
Born London Trained Trinity Laban Credits include Emperor Turandot (OperaMakers)
Yakuside Butterfly, Beppe Pagliacci (Opera de Baugé), Boy 1 Trouble In Tahiti, Macduff Macbeth (Opera South East), Canio Pagliacci (Hampstead Garden Opera), 1st Armed Man Flute (St. Paul’s Opera), Goro Butterfly.
JAMES SCHOUTEN tenor
Architect Taj Mahal
At GPO 2nd Season
Born Calgary, CA. Trained
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, RCM Credits include Loge Das Rheingold (Regent’s Opera), Alfred (Kentish Opera), Idomeneo Idomeneo (RCS), Prince Charmant Cendrillon (RCS). Interests Cryptic puzzles, sci-fi and alternative rock.
ROSA SPARKS mezzo
Maid Boccanegra, Kate Butterfly
Grange Park Opera début
Born Winchester Training
RNCM Credits include Emmie Albert Herring (Opera North), Aloès L’étoile (RNCM), Lucilla Scala di Seta, Mrs Coyle
Owen Wingrave, Yum-Yum Mikado, Papagena Zauberflöte, Belinda Dido & Aeneas. She created the roles of The Soprano Interrupted and The Journalist Silverwood Interests Lego, reading, pottery.
REBECCA STOCKLAND mezzo
At GPO 5th Season roles include La Zelatrice Suor Angelica
Born Oxford Studied Exeter, GSMD Credits consort
singer, 10 years full-time chorister with ENO where her principal roles include Goose Paul Bunyan and she has taken many covers. Interests Food, wine, skip diving, upcycling.
LUCY THANLANGE mezzo
Grange Park Opera début
Born Norwich Trained RAM Credits include When the Sky Cracks Open (Tête á Tête), title role Giulio Cesare, chorus Iolanta, Chérubin, L’enfant et le Sortileges (RAM), title role Carmen (Opera Integra).
Captain Boccanegra, Iskra Mazeppa, Dawar Taj Mahal
At GPO 2nd Season including Shepherd Tristan und Isolde
Born Salem, Oregon Trained Brigham Young University and RAM Credits include Basilio/ Curzio Figaro (Spira Mirabilis), Tamino Zauberflöte (Aquilon Festival), Nemorino L’elisir, Septimius Theodora, Gherardo Gianni Schicchi (BYU). Interests: Cooking, history, walking.
STEPHANIE WONG soprano
Grange Park Opera début
Born Hong Kong Trained RCS, RNCM, HKAPA Credits include Pamina Zauberflöte (RCS), Vespina L’infedelta delusa (RCS), Le Converse Suor Angelica, Despina Così (NWOS), 2nd Lady Zauberflöte (HKAPA), Governess Turn of the Screw, Blanche Dialogues des Carmelites (RCS scenes), Susanna Le nozze di Figaro (HKAPA scenes), Ilia Idomeneo (RNCM scenes) Interests Flute, psychology, photography, novels, cooking.
CATRIN WOODRUFF soprano
At GPO 5th Season including roles Rubix Cube sister Suor Angelica (film) and Journalist Gods of the Game
Born Wales Trained RCS, RNCM, University of York Roles Belinda Dido & Aeneas, Thérèse Mamelles de Tirésias (RCS), Carolina Matrimonio Segreto, Elvira L’Italiana in Algeri (Pop-Up Opera), Susanna Figaro (Opera dei Lumi), Kate Butterfly (Bergen). Interests Cooking, classic musicals, fashion history.
COURTESY NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBARY
Whilst cleaning out a desk, the library found an old recipe box labelled Interesting Reference Questions. People came to the library for reference, but also for inspiration or information on buying and selling. In a world preGoogle, librarians were Wikipedia, Craigslist, Pinterest, Etsy, and Instagram. Anna Fletcher picked out a few
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Alejandro Virelles
Jimin Kim
Arthur Wille
Pilar Ortega
Joseph Taylor
Erina Takahashi
James Streeter
Daniel McCormick
Francesca Velicu
OPERA DANCERS
Andrew Ashton
Briant Malachi
Ashton Hall
Dominic Lamb
SOPRANO
Laura Coppinger
Kathryn Forrest
Karla Grant
Hasmik Harutyunyan
Elizabeth Karani
Hye-Youn Lee
Rachel Nicholls
Hannah O’Brien
Elin Pritchard
Julia Sitkovetsky
Stephanie Wong
Catrin Woodruff
MEZZO-SOPRANO
Caroline Carragher
Alison Dunne
Sara Fulgoni
Elizabeth Green
Sarah Rappoport
Phoebe Rayner
Victoria Simmonds
Rosa Sparks
Rebecca Stockland
Lucy Thalange
Kitty Whately
TENOR
Sam Britner
Stephen Brown
Philip Clieve
Ceri Davies
Eden Devaney
John Findon
Robert Folkes
Luis Gomes
Otar Jorjikia
Sam Leggett
Benjie del Rosario
James Schouten
Caspar Singh
Adrian Thompson
Sam Utley
BARITONE
Christian Andreas
Lachlan Higgins
Adam Jarman
Tigran Kakhvejyan
Philip Kalmanovitch
Simon Keenlyside
Jolyon Loy
Ross Ramgobin
David Stout
BASS /BASS-BARITONE
Tim Bagley
Luciano Batinić
Harry Brookes-Owen
James Creswell
Peter Entwisle
Andreas Jankowitsch
Henry Grant Kerswell
Jihoon Kim
Christian Loizou
David Shipley
FLOREAT GRANGE PARK OPERA 2025
OFFICE
Wasfi Kani CBE
Helen Sennett
Bernard Davies BEM
Natalie Bennett
Anna Fletcher
Ferenc Hepp
Debbie Davies
Vanessa Joy
Holly Gilmour
Annabel Larard
Matt Boothby
Jack Rush
Jess Bennett
Katie Chappell
Jessica Costelloe
Carole Lipscombe
Tracy Jones Brera PR
Oliver Agency Make a Noise
PROGRAMME BOOK
Wasfi Kani
Katie Chappell
Anna Fletcher
Jack Rush
John Good printing
OFFICE
Grange Park Opera
Pimlico Opera
Sutton Manor Farm
Bishops Sutton
Alresford SO24 0AA
PHONE 01962 73 73 73
grangeparkopera.co.uk
GRANGE PARK OPERA charity no 1068046
PIMLICO OPERA charity no 1003836
MUSIC
The Gascoigne Orchestra
The Orchestra of
English National Opera
Iain Burnside Consultant
Philip White Head of Music
ASS’T CONDUCTORS
Oliver Cope Boccanegra
Thomas Payne Butterfly/Taj
Edmund Whitehead Mazeppa
REPETITEURS
Adrian Salinero Bocc
Jeremy Cooke Butterfly
Valeri Ayvayan Mazeppa
George Ireland Taj
LANGUAGE COACH
Alessandra Fasolo
Bocc/Butterfly
Arina Mkrtchian Mazeppa
TECHNICAL & STAGE
PRODUCTION MGT Igor
Kate Chapman Bocc
HEAD OF TECHNICAL
Declan Costello
SHOW SUPERVISORS
Declan Costello Taj
Sofia Buchanan Bocc
Alistair Gribben Butterfly
Dom Kelly Mazeppa
STAGE TECHNICIANS
Ro Hannam
Jara Hilmarsdottir
Genevieve Lane
Niall Mulcahy
Lateef Oshinowo
Francesca Osimani
Mary Sharrock
Katherine Smith
Jess Verri
Simon Woods
STAGE MANAGEMENT
Wendy Griffin-Reid
Millie McElhinney
Adam Tripp
Valeria Bettini
Gusta Matthews
Jennifer Hunter
Sarah Bedford
WITH THANKS to many volunteers contributing to the success of the season
