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SEEN AND HEARD
NEWS FEATURE
New Devon Opera
2009: A superstar tenor guides South
West England's only professional opera company (BK)
It's unlikely but true because the man himself said so recently to Seen and Heard's
Jim Pritchard. A fledgling professional opera company in south-west
England has José Cura as its Patron. In the summer of 2004,
when a small group of Devon-based opera enthusiasts
met to explore the possibility of putting on an opera in 2005, no one there
imagined that three years later, they would be looking back at such
a successful period of development. Nor
did they realise that the name of their group would become
recognised internationally so
quickly.
The success of this
“Flute” made everyone involved look more seriously at
the future. What might be
the opportunities for a company like New Devon
Opera? Time was spent in developing a
professional culture and researching the market
opportunities. First and foremost, opera is an expensive business and New
Devon Opera as the company
came to be called, wanted to set high standards, hiring quality
singers and musicians and providing its audiences with
comfort and value. None of these
were easy targets, especially when
starting with a zero based budget and no public or
private funds available to underpin
the costs.
Back in 2004, the extent of the group’s ambition was
to develop the excellent ‘scratch’ Mozart concerts which
had been an annual fixture in the delightful chapel at Ugbrooke
House in Chudleigh, near Newton Abbot in South Devon. For twenty years,
musician and conductor David Warwick had brought together professional and
amateur singers of his acquaintance to help raise funds there
for the charity SENSE. Mozart’s Magic
Flute was to be a ‘one-off’ venture and, with the support of Lord and Lady
Clifford, owners of Ugbrooke, the
opera was presented in
the courtyard.
NDO also recognised that, it needed to extend
awareness of its operations locally and nationally if it was
to grow and thrive. New venues were tested with
concerts and productions, a Barber of Seville in 2006,
Tosca in 2007 and Rigoletto in 2008 : some proved uneconomic, but all
contributed to the marketing of New Devon Opera's name
and quality.
When New Devon Opera first asked
Chevalier Cura to
take on the position of Patron, Chairman Linda Hughes went to meet him backstage at
The Royal Opera. He was
appearing as Dick Johnson in The Girl
of the Golden West (see Seen and Heard
reviews
2005 and
2008) and as the two talked, it became clear that
they had similar views about the best ways forward for talented young artists
in opera.
Blessed himself with a rich burnished tenor voice, mesmerizing stage presence and abundant charm, José Cura has been thrilling audiences since he first burst onto the international music scene. His intelligent, insightful – sometimes controversial, but always intense and unforgettable performances - have made him a household name to opera lovers the world over. But this success did not come easily. As Cura himself puts it:
“I moved from Argentina to Europe in 1991. I worked for two or three years in restaurants – my wife worked with me, washing dishes – and we did many things a lot of people wouldn’t think about doing. We had a very hard life. We lived in a garage for one year because we couldn’t pay the rent and we heated the garage with a small fire, with me gathering wood in the middle of the night!”
It is this memory that drives Maestro Cura's
urge to help promising singers
gain the skills and experience needed to succeed in the notoriously tough and challenging world of international opera. The timing
of the patronage was chosen to coincide with the only
period when Cura was in the
UK in 2007 and since then he has offered New Devon Opera
generous quotas of time, energy, skill, and commitment to
its development.
It turned out that Linda Hughes and Maestro Cura really did have an agreed vision
about opera, especially where young artists were concerned. Linda Hughes
says that, ' ..the attraction of opera is that it is a complete theatrical art form:
according to one definition at least, opera
is “a drama to be sung with instrumental accompaniment by one or more singers in costume”.
And putting the word “drama” first, highlights the central fact that opera singers
also have to be actors, combining the highest standards of
that talent with those of singing technique and musicianship.'
From the outset, New Devon Opera
wished to include training elements
that would not only benefit singers, but – over
time - the other artists and professionals involved
in realising opera too.
Maestro Cura agreed that the first 'José
Cure Opera Project' (JCOP) for New Devon Opera would take place in the spring of 2007 in Devon. The aims were that the Project should add value to the professional reputations of all participants - as well as offering in-depth tuition and coaching for them.
Entry to the Project was by competition. Advertisements went out in the opera press and applications invited from singers of all voice types. At the closing date of 31st January 2007, applications from singers had come from all over the world: Australia, Singapore, Japan, China, India; from Europe – Denmark, Germany, Finland, Poland, France , Romania, Portugal, Spain; and all parts of the UK. Following a preliminary selection process, a “long list” of 37 applicants went to Maestro Cura in March.
On April 24/25, he heard 36 singers and made a short-list selection of 19 to go forward to a third stage.
Of those finally selected, many found the experience helpful and have seen
their careers developing well.
Some examples are
Ben Bevan (baritone) who is singing Lescaut (in Puccini's
Manon Lescaut) with Scottish Opera at the moment and is receiving good
reviews. José Cura said of him, “I would happily bet on the future
of this talented English singer” and there is little doubt that JCOP set
him on his path. Similarly, Christian Schleicher (tenor) is opening as
Tamino in Magic Flute in Wurzburg shortly and Carthaig Quill (tenor) is at the
Opera Studio.
Invitations were also extended to all music departments in UK universities and
colleges for young pianists to apply for a Repetiteur Seminar run by Anthony Legge and Alex Ingram. Seven of those repetiteurs were selected to come to Devon and take part in this Seminar.
NDO’s aspiration is that this project might become a bi-annual national event for Devon. NDO
itself has been the promoter for the project and in the 20 months since the initial concept was formed, the Trustees and many volunteers have provided the considerable administrative and infrastructure support. NDO is also hugely grateful for funding support from the Arts Council, Awards for All and the D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust.
A new La Bohème for
2009
This year's production is La Bohème,
described once by Rolando Villazón as the opera in
which the principals,
''...
meet, fall in love, they split, she returns,
she dies''!
The orchestra of nineteen musicians drawn from the south west
is NDO's own and will be conducted by Dr Paul Foster.
The director is Martyn Harrison, and repetiteurs are Susanna Stranders (former Royal Opera House Young Artist) and Philip Voldman
from the USA, who recently has been working with Dennis O’Neill at the Cardiff International Voice Academy and with Scottish Opera.
The cast of young Bohemians represent the cream of attractive young singers from Australia, South Africa, UK and Poland:
Michaela Bloom sings Mimi, whose tragic love affair with the poet Rodolpho (Arthur Swan)
contains some of the world’s most popular and well-known opera music –
"Che gelida manina" and the love duet “O soave fanciulla".
The role of the flirt Musetta is sung by Belinda Evans. Belinda,
from
Somerset, was a finalist in the BBC’s “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?”.
She also appeared in Kenneth Branagh’s film adaptation of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”.
Jeremy Vinogradov is Musetta’s long-suffering partner,
Marcello.
Performances take place on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th July 2009 at 7.00 pm,
in the Courtyard of Ugbrooke House, Chudleigh,Devon, TQ13 0AD
- Tickets: tel: 01626-863605 www.newdevonopera.co.uk
and a further performance at Budleigh Salterton Festival
(tel: 01395-445275; www.budleigh-festival.org.uk)
will be given at 7.30 on July 28th.