All posts by Site Admin

Front Page, NCO Studio

Cimarosa – The Secret Marriage

JdP Music Building, St Hilda’s College
1 and 2 November 2019, 8.00pm

Tickets: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on?q=newchamberopera

The only opera in history to have been entirely encored at its first performance, The Secret Marriage (Il matrimonio segreto) tells the story of Carolina, secretly married to her father’s secretary Paulino. Her father is trying to marry Carolina’s sister, Elisetta, to one Count Robinson, but his plans have been derailed; the Count only wants to marry Carolina. Meanwhile, Carolina’s and Elisetta’s Aunt Fidalma has fallen in love with Paulino, providing yet another complication… the libretto, by Bertati, is based on an English comedy by George Coleman, and set by Cimarosa, one of the most prolific and capable opera composers of the late 18th century. It was first staged on 7 February 1792.

Conductor: Joseph Beesley
Assistant conductor: Toby Stanford
Director: Michael Burden

Carolina: Margaret Lingas
Elisetta: Emily Brown Gibson
Fidalma: Stephanie Franklin
Paulino: Richard Douglas
Count Robinson: Tom McGowan
Geronimo: Chris Murphy

NCO Studio

Intimate Virtuosity: Bach and Couperin for solo keyboard and voice

New College Chapel
20 November 2019
8.30pm

Madeline Claire de Berrié, soprano
Georgie Malcolm, soprano
Filippo Turkheimer, bass
Anhad Arora, harpsichord and director

Tickets: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on?q=newchamberopera

“Brashness and grace vie side-by-side for one evening as New Chamber Opera interpret two pillars of the High Baroque”

J.S. Bach’s virtuosic cantata for solo voice and harpsichord, ‘Amore Traditore’, and Louis Couperin’s magnificent ‘Lecons de Tenebres’ are seemingly at opposite ends of the affective spectrum. Bach’s zany cantata, consisting of 3 explosive movements of musical vitriol against the treachery of love, contrasts deeply with Couperin’s noble lament to a lost Jerusalem. But these two chamber works participate in a tradition of what can be termed as ‘intimate virtuosity’. Both the ‘Lecons’ and ‘Amore Traditore’ are scored simply – for continuo and voice – removing the powerful, connotative force of the orchestra in favour of an intimate grandeur that only continuo harpsichord and its bowed and plucked associates can evoke. The two compositions can be seen as affective complements offering two stunningly different conceptions of intimate lamentation.

Director: Anhad Arora

Summer Opera

Handel: Il pastor fido

The Summer Opera
3 (Preview)/6/9/10/12/13 July 2019

Conductor – Steven Devine; Director – Michael Burden

In a new English translation by Simon Rees

Cast
Amarilli – Barbara Cole Walton
Dorida – Indyana Schneider
Eurilla – Gwendolen Martin
Mirtillo – Kate Semmens
Silvio – Mark Chambers
Trieno – Patrick Keefe

The Evening’s Events
6.00pm: Drink in the Cloisters
6.30pm: Opera Part I, The Warden’s Garden
Picnic Interval in the Cloisters (approximately 90 minutes)
9.00pm: Opera Part II, The Warden’s Garden
10.00pm: Curtain

More on Tickets

More on Il pastor fido

Arcadia (with balloon)… in the Warden’s Garden

Tickets

Wednesday 3 (Preview) & Tuesday 9
New Chamber Opera

Book online at http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newchamberopera or download the booking form here.

Tickets are also available from the following organisations

Saturday 6 & Friday 12
Tickets: New College Development Office (01865) 279 337

Tuesday 9
Tickets: OXPIP (01865) 778 034

Wednesday 10
Tickets: Friends of the Oxford Botanic Garden: 07472 365001

Saturday 13
Tickets: Friends of WNO 01844 237551Mobile: 07813907466

Arcadia… as imagined

Il pastor fido

Amarilli, a shepherdess, in love with Mirtillo
Dorinda, a shepherdess, in love with Silvio
Eurilla, a shepherdess, in love with Mirtillo
Mirtillo, a shepherd, in love with Amarilli
Silvio, a hunter, in love with hunting, and eventually, with Dorinda
Tirenio, a High Priest of Diana

Set in Arcadia, the background to the plot of Handel’s pastoral opera Il pastor fido is that Diana, virgin huntress goddess, has become displeased with Arcadia and has let it be known that only through the marriage of a couple descended from heavenly ancestors, one of whom will be ‘a faithful shepherd,’ will her wrath be appeased; Silvio and Amarilli are designated the ‘happy couple,’ to everyone’s consternation. The three shepherdesses spend the opera pursuing the objects of their desire. Amarilli is in love with Mirtillo (who loves her in return) but is destined for Silvio. Eurilla is also in love with Mirtillo (who does not return her love), and tries to undermine Amarilli. Dorinda in is love with Silvio (who does not return her love until he almost kills her with a spear while hunting).

The first Eurilla, Margherita de l’Épine

The opera was Handel’s second one for London; the first, Rinaldo, had been a brilliant success, and the audience was taken aback at this short and understated work. It achieved only a few performances, but it was twice revived in 1734 first with added choruses, and then with added dances, it was more popular, achieving a total of some 14 performances. The two versions represent two phases of Handel’s opera career; the first, his early years in the capital when both he and Italian opera were still finding their feet in the city, and the second, his years as an opera promoter, when he faced competition from the Opera of the Nobility, competition which ultimately damaged the staging of Italian opera in London. Il pastor fido has been performed in modern times on numerous occasions, with the 1734 version first performed in 1948 at Göttingen, and the 1712 version in 1971 in Unicorn Theatre, Abingdon.

NCO Studio

SUMMER ORATORIO CONCERT

Mozart: Exsultate Jubilate
Mozart: Mass in C Minor

12 June 2019, 8.00pm
New College Chapel

Tickets
http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newchamberopera
or on the door

Conductor – Joe Beesley

The two works of Mozart on the programme count among the most beloved in the composer’s output. Exsultate Jubilate was composed by Mozart for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, who was the primo uomo in Mozart’s opera Lucio Silla in Milan. Mozart composed the motet for Rauzzini, whose technical excellence he admired, and its first performance took place on 17 January 1773, while Rauzzini was still singing in Mozart’s opera at night. The Mass in C Minor, K.427, was composed in Vienna in 1782 and 1783 shortly after he left Salzburg. The work is scored for two sopranos, tenor, bass, and double chorus.

Portrait of Rauzzini by Joseph Hutchkinson
NCO Studio

Xerxes

Xerxes is in love with…a plane tree

Handel

25 & 26 January 2019
8.00pm (the overture will be played at 7.45pm)
New College Ante-chapel

Tickets: £15/£7 concessions
From https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newchamberopera
Or on the door

Musical director – Anhad Arora
Repetiteur – Joseph Beesley
Director – Michael Burden

Xerxes – Stephanie Franklin
Arsamenes – Connor Devonish
Romilda – Emily Gibson
Atalanta – Georgie Malcolm
Amastris – Indyana Schneider
Ariodates – Chris Murphy
Elviro – Filippo Turkheimer

Handel’s comic piece Xerxes of 1738 was one of his last operas; it was also one of his least successful. The audience didn’t understand his operatic jokes and didn’t see the funny side of it; even though four of the characters start with ‘A’.  Charles Burney later commented: ‘I have not been able to discover the author of the words of this drama: but it is one of the worst Handel ever set to Music: for besides feeble writing, there is a mixture of tragic-comedy and buffoonery in it.’ The buffoonery includes a collapsing bridge, a warring (potential) couple, a foolish general, a servant disguised as a flower seller, and a monarch in love with a plane tree. We can promise you all this, and much more!

Other

‘Too many notes’
Mozart Arias in Masterclass

A masterclass with Jonathon Swinard

8 November
New College Ante-chapel
2.00-4.00pm

This event is free, but is ticketed; please book here:
https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newchamberopera

Masterclass participants: Alexander Gebhard, Emily Gibson, Patrick Keefe, and Indyana Schneider

Conductor and pianist Jonathon Swinard is the Head of Music at Garsington Opera and the Artistic Director of the Scottish Opera Young Company. He studied at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, where he held the NCO Répétiteur Scholarship, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He began his career at Scottish Opera as the company’s first Emerging Artist Répétiteur and also held the Alexander Gibson Choral Conducting Fellowship with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus. From 2014 to 2016 he was Solorepetitor and Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater in Nuremberg where he conducted opera, ballet, and musical theatre. In 2016 he returned to Scottish Opera as Chorus Master and Répétiteur. He studied conducting with Sian Edwards at Dartington and is the Musical Director of the Helensburgh Oratorio Choir.

Jonathon is a long-standing member of Faculty for both the Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto and Lyric Opera Studio Weimar and is a visiting vocal coach at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Royal Academy of Music, and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is passionate about the training of young voices and is the Artistic Director of the Alvarez Young Artists’ Programme at Garsington Opera.

NCO Studio

Lo Speziale, The Apothecary

Haydn

18 & 19 November 2018
8.30pm
New College Ante-chapel

Tickets: £12/£6 concessions

From https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newchamberopera
Or on the door

Musical Director – Anhad Arora
Répétiteur – Joseph Beesley
Director – Michael Burden

Sempronio, an old apothecary – Maximilian Lawrie
Grilletta, Sempronio’s ward – Emily Gibson
Mengone, Sempronio’s apprentice – Jacob Clark
Volpino, a young rich dandy – Indyana Schneider

Haydn’s short comic opera The Apothecary – described as ‘a comedy of great warmth and ebullience’ – was written for performance at Estahazy in 1768. The libretto is by the creator and master of the comic opera libretto, Carlo Goldoni. The story is a love tangle, in which the old Apothecary is in love with his ward Grilletta – but as also is the poor apprentice Mengone, and the rich and assured dandy Volpino. The action twists and turns encompassing a marriage contract, a map of Turkey, and the appearance of Volpino disguised as a Pasha.