An Italian Evening at Frilford Heath Golf Course

We've just come back from a great gig at Frilford Heath Golf Course, with an Italian theme. Vanessa and myself and Lyndall performed for the first time with 2 of our superb Don Giovanni cast members, Julia Hessey and Matthew Duncan - great singers with the exuberance of youth. Also a brilliant and appreciative audience so what more could you want?!
Lots of interest expressed in our Don Giovanni production and lots of promises of ticket purchases..
All this on a very bad day for lovers of a great football team.. Leeds United only managed a draw with Ipswich Town which means relegation to the 1st Division next year... really grim. It means that we are going to have to have our best years at Opera Anywhere ever, to lift me out of the pits of misery!

Don G - A Great Start!

After the first full week of rehearsals everyone is enthused about the potential of this new Don G production - it really is going to be a cracker, we collected the staging and set that has been especially built for us by Paul Batten last night, really impressive stuff and so right for this production.
Also had a great initial meeting with Ice Rink Arena owners yesterday to investigate the Arias On Ice tour and also have seen the Classical Music Magazine article on us -great publicity, we'll get it posted on our web site soon!

Don Giovanni - Day 1

After much deliberation and debate, auditioning and planning, we've finally reached the start point of our brand new Don Giovanni production with a great first days rehearsal. Our cast is the strongest its ever been and we're all raring to go on this most exciting new project. Controversial because of the modern English translation we're using but whatever the audience response, this production is bound to make an impact. Anna Pelly has written it in such a way that the action never stops and cuts right to the point, this Don Giovanni will make us or break us, as Harvey Goldsmith says we're "barking mad" to risk so much on this one production, but as he also says "this Don Giovanni could be the next Jerry Springer"!

Bulgaria!

We're taking a break in Bulgaria (don't ask -it's a long story!), but a fascinating place and very cheap to live, perhaps we could run Opera Anywhere from here! We've been to the Sofia Opera House for a Carmen performance with great singing, acting?! and playing, a fab tenor in Don Jose. Ticket prices heaviliy subsidised by the state, great seats for less than 7 GBP!! Cheap tickets seem to work, families fill the large house - great to see all ages enjoying it, very enthusiastic response. The only minor complaint is the bloody revolving stage, made us feel a bit giddy! But then probably I'm jealous!
Had a call whilst we're hear to do a live interview on Spanish radio following up from the Harvey Goldsmith TV show, so tune in tonight if you live in Spain!
Adios Omegos!

Our 'Christian' attitude towards Don Giovanni

We've had so many emails and comments from fellow committed Christians regarding the language used in the translation of our upcoming Don Giovanni that we thought we would post our thoughts here.
Obviously the Channel 4 programme picked a controversial scene from the production to focus on in order to get a response and to shape and add flavour to the documentary. Taken out of context in this way doesn't do justice to the translation and to our upcoming performance of the whole opera. I think only in the latter of the E4 programme which showed a short clip from another part of the translation did a better impression begin to form in people's minds.
We chose to use this translation because in our experiecne it factually represents some modern working environments and situations people have to put up with and it offers Opera companies like ourselves a unique opportunity to communicate in a language that modern audiences can relate to.
That said we know this brand new translation would be challenging for our audience, for that reason we performed scenes from the new translation throughout the summer and received very positive feedback from not just our regular audience base but young and old, corporate and general public - they all loved it, not one complaint from 9 performances across the country. We even dared to perform it in the Cheltenham Pump room! In fact the odd comments we did receive for our performances of 'Great Opera Moments' was how we performed the famous Lakme duet that was used in the British Airways advert, the two singers were dressed as air stewardesses and we performed as if in an aiport! The other complaint was with regard to the language in a scene we performed from Jonathan Dove's 'Flight' - we used the accurate and correct translation, I wonder if Glyndebourne received any feedback when they performed to entire opera?
I know I'm harping on here but I wanted to explain a bit more about the background, now, from a Christian perspective here is how we see it:
Don Giovanni, in any production, whether it be performed by the Welsh National Opera in Italian or the ENO in English, is a story about an unpleasant and unsavoury character and his behaviour is typical of modern day 'real life' equivalents that live and breed in corporate life today.
Just because we claim to be Christians can't change our society today and how Don Giovanni is reflected in theatre. In fact the story of Don Giovanni is a moral one, Don Giovanni has the opportunity to repent, but doesn't, and then pays the consequences.
It's a tricky subject, this business of using modern language in opera, only just the other day I was watching a TV opera entitled 'Combat Opera' reflecting on life in town centres these days with binge drinkers, I found it to be very entertaining initially and really connected with it because it used everyday language, however, it just then kept on and on using expletives and sensationalising bad behaviour in public places for the sake of it, I switched off feeling disgusted and disappointed that what started off to be a good idea, just fizzled out into the cesspit because of lack of imagination. I do hope none of our Don Giovanni audience will walk out of any of our shows - but what we do say loud and clear on all our advertising is 'stay away if you expect to be offended by the use of strong language'.
We went to a marvellous performance of Handel's 'Agrippina' the other day at the Colliseum, with a modern translation using strong language, even performed in English ENO now use surtitles, so we had expletives not only sung at us but on a screen, even with our Christian sensitivities, it seemed highly appropriate and funny! But then maybe we've been corrupted, although I doubt it . . . Vanessa has never sworn at me in 25 years of married life!

Opera Anywhere Got It's Act Together!

Well we did in the end but only just! It's amazing how arrogant I have come across and how obstinate! What a long suffering wife Vanessa is? Thanks for all your comments good and not so good, despite our appearance of cockyness (or should I say mine), we did learn a heck of a lot from Harvey. One regret we had from the final edit was the lack of our fantastic success we had with our family shows at Christmas, real wholesome good stuff that we were very proud of and incorporated lots of young people. It was a great experience and we've learn't alot...

There's tension in the air tonight!

There's more than a little nervousness in the Opera Anywhere office tonight, even Mia, the spaniel we're looking after has got the itch! We've invited our fellow directors around to give them a meal and view the programme, we'll wonder if they agree with Harvey and think we're "barking mad"! When people see us in the street this week, will they cross over? Will the men in white coats arrive on our doorstep? Will our sponsors suddenly dissapear? Will I have to give up and get a proper job?
I'm beginning to wonder, after seeing clip after clip promoting the show tonight, whether we should have taken the whole thing a bit more seriously, it was such a laugh, well mostly, and I'm afraid that the viewers are going to get a very skewed picture of Opera Anywhere! I do hope that the Showdown that follows on E4 has more balanced editing, at least at the Showdown we looked as if we knew what we were doing... do send us your comments if you've seen it, we've got very broad shoulders! The main thing is do laugh, don't hold back on our account!

Edit: Unfortunately some comments from this entry have been lost by accident whilst trying to remove some offensive material that was posted.

Met the Queen today!

Well we pulled off our April fools joke and appeared with the cast of Opera Anywhere's 'Curiouser & Curiouser' and marched through Sunninwgell and Bayworth in our great costumes, me of course as the 'Queen Of Hearts'! We must have looked an incredible sight and we made the impact we were looking for and even got the Oxford Mail & Times photographer taking pictures of the procession and the opening ceremony at the Chapel.. great fun!! The best bit was James' Bagpipes, they were sublime and it was fantastic following him down the road and in and out of the pub, some wonderful expressions on peoples faces!!

Nelsons Mass at Highworth

Vanessa and myself have just come back from our Highworth Choral Society gig, where we sung Contralto & Tenor solos. A great night and really nice to be able to sing together in the same gig especially as we managed to slip into the programme a Purcell duet we do together. I also did a Bruckner Motet with the lovely choir, which was nice and very much eastery! We are really looking forward to meeting the Queen at Bayworth chapel for our opening ceremony, too excited to sleep!