United Kingdom Cumbria Opera Pageant 2025 – Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro: Soloists, Refrain; Jessica Meakin, Julian Cann (violins), Hannah Borlase (viola), Daniel Crompton (cello), Hannah Gillingham (flute), Sarah Davies (oboe), William Hammond (clarinet), Ursula Leveaux (bassoon), Alistair Burton (harpsichord continuo) / Melvin Tay (conductor). Penrith Methodist Church, 23.8.2025. (CK)
The Cumbria Opera Pageant, now in its third manifestation (beforehand in 2021 and 2023), is the brainchild of the younger conductor Joe Davies, and every part that occurs right here is colored by his irrepressible vitality and optimism. And if that appears like a prelude to a judgement alongside the strains of ‘Good effort’, neglect it: there are younger musicians right here of the best calibre. Virtually all of them – singers and manufacturing staff alike – are returning to the Cumbria Opera Pageant: they’re already veterans of Festivals at Garsington, Longborough, Buxton, Holland Park, the Grange and elsewhere. A few of them have come via youth schemes reminiscent of El Sistema and the Jette Parker at Covent Backyard.
The main focus of the Pageant is, very clearly, to introduce opera to individuals who have by no means been to 1, however who would possibly effectively give it a attempt when it’s introduced to them, excellently carried out and produced, on their doorstep. In pursuit of this, the Pageant occasions transfer athletically from venue to venue the size and breadth of the county: Appleby, Barrow, Carlisle, Grange, Kendal, Keswick, Penrith. It’s the top of the Lake District vacationer season, so who is aware of? Guests seeking to spend a night doing one thing new would possibly discover their lives turned the other way up.
I noticed this Figaro on its third and closing evening in Penrith Methodist Church: unprepossessing on the skin, however with an inside whose mild and ethereal class takes your breath away. An ideal setting for Mozart. It was superbly adorned by the opera staff: even the TV screens have been garlanded with greenery. As for the viewers: a decent turnout of Cumbria’s diehard however ageing supporters of the Arts? Not a little bit of it: a vibrant crowd, upstairs and down, lots of them younger. Joe and his staff are evidently doing one thing proper.
The opera was sung in English: an actual benefit in following this most complex of comedian plots. Lucy Britton’s bespoke translation was clear, racy and punchy: it was displayed on screens both facet of the stage, which was hardly obligatory, so skilful have been the singers in projecting the phrases, and so creative was Persia Babayan-Taylor’s path in clarifying every comedian state of affairs. A sensibly slimmed-down model of the libretto was used, compressing the opera’s 4 acts into two, meting out with a number of the peripheral roles and shortening the recitatives.
The soloists have been a pleasure. Ross Cumming’s Figaro was virile, assured and fascinating – a playmaker ready to take dangers. Sofia Kirwan-Baez’s Susanna was in some ways the guts of the efficiency: despite the fact that she hardly has the stage to herself – she sings nearly completely in Duettini, Terzetti and so forth – we have been all the time aware of her voice and her presence, each amusing and affecting. Gabriella Noble was an irrepressible Cherubino and a pure comic: the identical was true of Holly Brown’s tart Marcellina. George Robarts because the Rely had a commanding stage presence and a voice to match, highly effective certainly in his third act aria. Caroline Taylor introduced dignity and depth of feeling to her portrayal of the Countess: a lot in order that she appeared – with somewhat extra sweetness on the prime of her vary – a Marschallin within the making. Chris Murphy introduced an amusing contact of pomposity – by no means overdone – to the forthright lawyer Bartolo.
Joe Davies had organized Mozart’s rating for a string quartet and single woodwinds with out dropping an iota of its magnificence, its vitality or its class: a rare feat. Melvin Tay carried out this small band with buoyancy and infectious delight. For such a small ensemble to hold the burden of Mozart’s ingenuity and expressive refinement should have appeared a marathon, however it by no means confirmed.
Persia Babayan-Taylor’s path was endlessly resourceful, making good comedian and dramatic use of the gallery excessive up behind the stage. Emma Turner’s set was easy and exquisite, its centrepiece like a big diagonal bolt of cloth, a vernal inexperienced draped flippantly with white silk: upon which PJ Summers’s lighting performed, turning it pink for discord, blue for moonlight, gold for closing reconciliation. The costumes (Meg Bowyer, Nina Fuster-McClements) have been attractive.
This Figaro was a delight to the ears and the attention: it made me remorse that I had missed the earlier Festivals (which had featured, amongst different issues, Mozart’s different Da Ponte operas). Earlier within the day there had been extra delight: a Younger Artists’ Showcase that includes six singers from Cumbria, all aged 18-25 and understudying key roles in Figaro and Britten’s Flip of the Screw (to be carried out later within the week), took half in a seamless hour of arias from the 2 operas, interwoven and wittily directed by Nuala Sankey: fairly a feat, since it might be arduous to call two operas much less alike.
Faye Bowness and Sam Weakley made an attractive Susanna and Figaro (I might put my cash on Faye’s Susanna to be prime canine of their marriage). Rebecca Chandler’s Cherubino was endlessly entertaining, with an arsenal of comedian poses and facial expressions that will have made her a star of the silent display screen (how lucky, then, that we might hear her as effectively).
Within the Britten arias, Charlotte Thomson made a memorably passionate and weak Governess; Hannah Weakley, her voice pure and bell-like, was very touching in Flora’s aria; and Andrew Woodmass-Calvert’s Peter Quint, his voice blanched and otherworldly, sounded each lovely and unsettling. All was effectively, although, in the long run, as they joined collectively within the great Scena ultima that closes Mozart’s opera (within the night efficiency they fashioned half of the refrain). As Joe (characteristically) writes within the Pageant brochure, ‘that is your likelihood to get to know these sensible Cumbrian artists earlier than they’re promoting out Covent Backyard!’
Chris Kettle
Featured Picture: Younger Artists’ Showcase on the Cumbria Opera Pageant 2025 © Chris Tribble
For extra in regards to the Cumbria Opera Pageant 2025 click on right here.
Manufacturing:
Director – Persia Babayan-Taylor
Designer – Emma Turner
Lighting designer – PJ Summers
Costume designer – Meg Bowyer
Arranger – Joe Davies
Translator – Lucy Britton
Solid:
Rely Almaviva – George Robarts
Countess Rosina – Caroline Taylor
Susanna – Sofia Kirwan-Baez
Figaro – Ross Cumming
Cherubino – Gabriella Noble
Bartolo – Chris Murphy
Marcellina – Holly Brown
Refrain:
Faye Bowness, Lydia Lythgoe, Charlotte Thomson, Hannah Weakley (sopranos)
Rebecca Chandler, Rosemary Jones, Janet Rougvie (altos)
Cade Strathern, Andrew Woodmass-Calvert (tenors)
Lawrence Smith, Fern Warwick, Sam Weakley (basses)
