Julian Edwards News
American composer
Commemorations 2025 (Birth: Julian Edwards)
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2024-03-28
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2024-03-15 09:42:00
Almost an expressionist nightmare: Janáček's Jenůfa at ENO with Jennifer Davis in the title role
[…] when a large amount of 'who knows' seems to hang over the whole enterprise. But this revival, directed by David Alden, with movement director Maxine Braham, seemed to be a stake in the sand, showing what ENO does best. Conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson, the cast included Jennifer Davis as Jenůfa, Susan Bullock as the Kostelnička, Richard Trey Smagur as Laca, John Findon as Števa and Fiona Kimm as Grandmother Burya. Set designs are by Charles Edwards with costumes by Jon Morrell, lighting by Adam Silverman revived by Gary James. The work was sung in the classic Edward Downes and Otakar Kraus translation.Jennifer Davis, who sang Jenůfa, is a singer who impressed in the title role of Dvořák's Armida at Wexford in 2022 [see my review]. Armida premiered in 1904 in Prague, just three months after the first performance of Jenůfa in Brno. Janáček was only 13 years younger than […]
2024-02-18 15:34:10
[…] a love triangle turned fatal. Sofulak goes further still, explicitly linking the two operas by conceiving Aleko and Cavalleria’s Alfio as the same man, 20 years apart, and haunted – in every sense – by a crime he is doomed to repeat.Both stagings shift the action of their operas significantly: Cavalleria Rusticana trades sun-kissed Sicily for 1970s communist Poland, and Aleko’s gypsies become the free-loving denizens of a 1990s surfers’ colony, with designs by Charles Edwards (sets) and Gabrielle Dalton (costumes) doing delectable justice to both settings. If the former, with its stripped-back aesthetic and prevailing unease, packs more of a wallop than the candy-coloured latter, the same might well be said of the operas themselves: Rachmaninoff’s episodic score can’t quite match Mascagni’s, neither for momentum nor for word-painting, richly evocative though it undoubtedly is.
2024-02-16 08:09:00
As Puccini's Manon Lescaut opens English Touring Opera's Spring tour, I chat to soprano Jenny Stafford who sings the title role in Jude Christian's new production
Photo by soprano Julia Mariko before the sitzprobe for ETO's production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut via TwitterEnglish Touring Opera's Spring 2024 season opens at the Hackney Empire on 24 February 2024 with Puccini's Manon Lescaut, followed by Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress on 2 March, and the tour continues across England until 28 May. The tour also features a new family opera by Omar Shahryar and Hannah Khalil, The Great Stink.The new production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut is directed by Jude Christian (who directed Tom Coult's debut opera Violet at Aldeburgh Festival in 2022) and conducted by Gerry Cornelius, with Jenny Stafford as Manon, Gareth Dafydd Morris as Des Grieux and Aidan Edwards at Lescaut. I recently caught up with Jenny Stafford in a gap in rehearsals to chat about Manon and Puccini.When we chat, Jenny has been in rehearsals for just over two weeks and feels that they are 'whizzing through it', something she appreciates. Working through […]
2024-01-30 07:50:00
Back with vengeance: Nina Stemme in Richard Strauss' Elektra at Covent Garden
[…] there since 1910).Then in 1988, I was lucky enough to catch Gwyneth Jones on terrific form in the very last revival of Rudolf Hartmann's 1953 production at Covent Garden. Hartmann was a director associated with Richard Strauss and he staged the premieres of Friedenstag and Capriccio, and his production seemed to echo the designs of the original ElektraThis was followed in 1990 by Götz Friedrich's production with Eva Marton and Deborah Polaski, since then Susan Bullock in Charles Edwards' 2003 production to name but a few. But it has always been Tinsley and Jones that stayed in the mind. Now, I can add another performance to the roster, that of Nina Stemme who returned to Christof Loy's new production at Covent Garden on 26 January 2024 with renewed vigour following a bout of illness. Antonio Pappano conducted, with Sara Jakubiak as Chrystothemis, Karita Mattila as Klytämnestra, Lukasz Golinski as Orest and Charles Workman as Ägisth. Designs […]
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