St Paul’s Opera’s Summer time Opera Competition

Rehearsal pictures from St Paul’s Opera’s forthcoming manufacturing of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore

My native opera firm, St Paul’s Opera is presenting its annual Summer time operatic staging at St Paul’s Church, Clapham subsequent month (3 to five July 2025) with Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore. The director is Eloise Lally who directed English Touring Opera’s manufacturing of Bellini’s The Capulets & The Montagues which we caught in Hackney earlier this yr [see my review]. The music director is Adrian Salinero, a London-based Basque Spanish pianist, repetiteur and vocal coach.

The solid consists of Ashley Mercer as Dulcamara, Martins Smaukstelis as Nemorino, Theodore Day as Belcore, Fiona Hymns as Adina and Isabella Roberts as Giannetta

L’Elisir d’Amore is an opera that appears to ask administrators to give you imaginative new settings. While there are productions that stick with the unique setting of a small Basque village on the finish of the 18th century, many extra give the piece a brand new look, discovering creative methods highlighting the category distinction between Adina and Nemorino. 

Who can overlook the unusual impact of Jonathan Miller’s American mid-West setting at ENO, although fortunately the current ENO manufacturing set the opera in an English nation home throughout World Warfare II [see my review], while Guido Martin Brandis’ manufacturing for Wild Arts used an creative Nineteen Fifties setting merely as a backdrop to the motion [see my review]. An identical strategy was taken in Victoria Newlyn’s riotous fashionable gown manufacturing for West Inexperienced Opera [see my review]. Nonetheless within the Nineteen Fifties, Waterperry Opera had Adina working an American wellness spa with Nemorino because the janitor [see my review]

For St Paul’s Opera, Eloise Lally’s manufacturing guarantees to even be Nineteen Fifties, this time a hospital ward in post-war Clapham, the place Matron Adina as retains order amongst sufferers, employees, and neighbours—whereas the mysterious Dr Dulcamara affords his “miracle treatment” to anybody in want.

There are three night performances from 3 to five July, when you may picnic within the church grounds beforehand, in addition to a relaxed matinee on Saturday 5 July which which shall be an amazing alternative for households to benefit from the comedian opera in a household pleasant environment.

Full particulars from the St Paul’s Opera web site.