Tezza's Theatre Place

Tosca – credit Ali Wright. “ People’s reaction to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic. They either love it or hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don’t, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul. ” This is probably the most profound sentence uttered in the movie ‘Pretty Woman’. I remember my first opera, ‘Carmen’ at the ENO. I will not say it changed my life, but I was totally hooked on opera as an art form afterwards. Everyone should have a way into the wonderful world of opera, and one of the best I can recommend is at the Trafalgar Studios where they are currently staging  Opera Undone: Tosca & La bohème  sung in English, the two operas have been reviewed and re-written, bringing them firmly up to date, as individual one-hour productions. The night begins with  Tosca . In his studio, the painter Mario Cavaradossi (Roger Paterson) is working on a portrait of a lady. The lady is beautiful a...

From left to right – Top row – Catrine Kirkman, Jennie Jacobs. Bottom row – Hannah Crerar, Philip Lee. (c) Robert Workman. The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence starts as follows: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”. Of course, this is rubbish. Men – or more importantly people – are not created equal. Where and to whom you are born will often set the path for your life to come and nowhere was this truer than in the English class system of the 1800s. A theme which is central to the plot of Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore at the King’s Head Theatre. H.M.S. Pinafore is a submarine in the Royal Navy. It is commanded by the urbane Captain Corcoran (Matthew Palmer/Matthew Siveter) a man assured of his place in the world as indeed are those below decks – Able Seamen Rackstraw...

Bizet’s opera  Carmen  holds a special place in my heart.  Not only was it the first opera I saw, but Matthew Bourne’s danced version –  The Car Man  – was the first time I really understood how a story could be told so well only by movement. So, when I heard that the King’s Head were presenting a new version of the story, I leapt at the chance to go. This new English version, with libretto by Mary Franklin – who also directs – and Ashley Pearson, brings  Carmen  solidly into the twenty-first century. The action starts here in the UK. where we meet Jose (Mike Bradley/Roger Paterson) a nurse fed up with his lot. He hates his life, consisting of a job he dislikes, a very sick mother being looked after by his wife, and his unrequited love for hospital cleaner Carmen (Ellie Edmonds/Jane Monart). Then one day fate, and Carmen’s naivety changes their relationship and enables Jose to both assist Carmen and get her into his debt. Months later, now work...

Michael Ball Photography BrinkhoffMögenburg It’s always nice when two of your favourite things come together – for example, musical theatre and ABBA. So when I was asked if I wanted to go and see the new version of Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice’s musical  Chess  at the Coliseum. I leapt at the chance. Set during the height of the cold war,  Chess  is the story of two Chess Grandmasters – Frederick Trumper (Tim Howar) from the USA and Russian Anatoly Sergievsky (Michael Ball) – battling it out to be world champions under the watchful eye of The Arbiter (Cedric Neal). Both men are totally different. Trumper is loud, brash, arrogant and often ends up arguing with his ‘second’ Florence (Cassidy Janson). On the other hand, Anatoly is a family man, married to Svetlana (Alexandra Burke) and, by all appearances, a dedicated ambassador of the Soviet Union, particularly under the watchful eye of his state-appointed ‘second’ Ivan Molokov (Philip Browne). As t...

https://www.lastminutetheatretickets.com/londonwestend/carmen-1808-union-theatre-london-review/ Carmen – Credit Scott Rylander Ah, the classics. As everyone knows there are two types of performances that involve people singing on stage. There is opera – grand stories, big voices, elitist and not for the plebs – and there is musical theatre – shallow plots, jazz hands, available to the Saturday night, ‘gotta catch a show crowd’. And as everyone really knows, the last sentence is rubbish. Opera can be accessible and musical theatre can be amazingly deep in plot and composition. And, of course the two genres can be mixed which is precisely what Phil Willmott has done with  Carmen 1808  at the Union Theatre. Spain in 1808 is under the control of Napoleon Bonaparte and his troops. Our narrator, the painter Francisco Goya (Alexander Barria) sets the scene. The Spanish nobility have accepted France’s rule and the French army – along with their new comrades in the Span...