English Touring Opera (ETO) makes a welcome return to Bath this month to present two contemporaneous operas that could hardly be more different, staged across two consecutive nights at the Theatre Royal. On Monday 30th May, ETO will perform a new production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s comic fantasy The Golden Cockerel, followed on Tuesday 31st May by a poetic production of the most popular of operas, Puccini’s La bohème.
The Golden Cockerel, the first opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to be produced and toured by ETO visits the Theatre Royal for one night only on Monday 30th May, after visiting 12 venues across the UK. Based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin, fantasy, mischief and musical delight combine in the composer’s final and favourite opera. A daring satire on the last days of the Romanov empire, the score is bursting with the exotic orchestrations that made Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite Scheherezade so popular.
ETO’s new Music Director Gerry Cornelius conducts James Conway’s production of The Golden Cockerel starring baritone Grant Doyle (most recently with ETO in the 2019 production of Verdi's Macbeth) in the role of the indolent Emperor Dodon with soprano Paula Sides as the seductive Queen of Shemakha. This new production also features Edward Hawkins, Amy J Payne, Robert Lewis, Luci Briginshaw and Alys Mererid Roberts in the title role.
A send-up of corruption and sloth in government, the fairy-tale opera holds up a mirror to the last days of the Romanovs, and in particular the debacle of the Russo-Japanese War making The Golden Cockerel as explosive as it is charming. Director James Conway said, “Despite its political edge, which meant it fell foul of the Tsarist censors, the music is daringly sensual and erotic at points. For many it’s an undiscovered joy of an opera.”
On Tuesday 31st May, ETO’s much praised production of La bohème appears at the Theatre Royal as one of 21 performances nationwide. Sung in Italian, this breath-taking revival of ETO's acclaimed 2015 production is performed in period dress with poetic designs.
Puccini’s La bohème is a story of young love, opening on Christmas Eve in a Parisian garret, where two lovers meet on a snowy night. Told with the most memorable music, from ‘Che gelida manina’ to the shattering brass chords announcing Mimì’s death, Puccini’s story of youthful love is a classic tale of passion, friendship, jealousy and mortality that captures the drama and poverty of late 19th Century Paris.
Soprano Francesca Chiejina (named by the Guardian as one of the “exciting new artists across the musical spectrum who are set for success in 2022”) sings the role of seamstress Mimì, while tenors Luciano Botelho and Thomas Elwin play her love-sick poet Rodolfo. Jenny Stafford and April Koyejo-Audiger portray the flirtatious Musetta, with baritones Michel de Souza and Jerome Knox as the painter Marcello. Christopher Moon-Little directs the 2022 revival of James Conway’s 2015 production conducted by Dionysis Grammenos.
Puccini’s famous opera about a poet who falls in love with a consumptive seamstress, is a cultural touchstone throughout the world, described by English Touring Opera’s Artistic Director James Conway as “a poignant memory in music of love and loss – like a shard of mirror in which one sees one’s youth”.
ETO will host a Pre-Show Talk before both performances at Bath’s Theatre Royal at 6.30pm. The Pre-Show Talks are free of charge to ticket holders, to book a place contact the Box Office.
Tickets for English Touring Opera’s performances at the Theatre Royal Bath are available from the Box Office on +44 (0)1225 448844 and online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk.
Photo: Edward Hawkins, Grant Doyle, and Paula Sides in Golden Cockerel. Credit Richard Hulbert Smith
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