News bits

We have added further details about our fabulous new production of Die Fledermaus, at the Harlequin Theatre in Redhill in June and the lovely Minack Theatre by the sea in Cornwall in July.

SAD News: we lost both our (Surrey Opera's) president Ruth Lacey, on Friday March 23rd, after a short illness, and on Monday, March 26th, Lawrie Reed, who sang bass principal parts in many of our productions and joined the chorus in others.

We have added a new Thelma Reviews page.
This is Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's centenary year and a festival has been organised in Croydon. Download the brochure and come to the events!
We've added a new page with a few notes about Thelma (because it was lost). And more details about Thelma and a few photos from Albert Herring (taken by Phil Wallace) to the site.

Thelma by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Surrey Opera staged the World Première of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's long-thought lost opera Thelma at The Ashcroft Theatre in Croydon, where the composer lived and worked for his entire life, as part of a year-long Festival in the Centenary year of his death.

New web site

Welcome to the new Surrey Opera web site. It isn't complete yet but, if you are looking for older information, you may well find it on our previous web site or even on the one before.
See if you like the navigation, look at the Bartered Bride photo gallery. And come and see our performance of Thelma in February.
Please send comments to mailto:webmaster@surreyopera.org

Albert Herring

Surrey Opera made its Barn Theatre debut this September, with an exciting new professional production of Benjamin Britten's comic opera, Albert Herring.

Die Fledermaus

Surrey Opera presents a brand new production of Johann Strauss’s famous operetta Die Fledermaus, with a contemporary twist devised by Director Alexander Hargreaves and English National Opera translation by Leonard Hancock and David Pountney.

THELMA - A MAELSTROM FOR SURREY OPERA

With only a score and a few scribed margin notes for guidance, Christopher Cowell (Director) and Bridget Kimak (Designer) have had the delight of defining the focus and look of the new Opera.
The centre of the plot is occupied by the Maelstrom – a Viking word, coined to describe the treacherous whirlpool which lies between the Norwegian mainland and the Lofoten Islands. The word was well known to the Victorian public, following the publication of Edgar Allen Poe's poem “A descent into the Maelstrom”.
Inspired by the mystical world of the Norwegian artist Odd Nerdrum, Bridget Kimak's set consists of a series of simple lines suggesting the constant swirling of water, around and in which characters move. The costumes have also been conceived in a visionary style because, apart from a few archaeological remains, nobody really knows how the Vikings actually dressed.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor had obviously done some research about the Viking culture and myths before he wrote the Opera. However, there are a few incongruous details, like the devil Djaevelen sniffing snuff, which has been retained in a desire to remain faithful to the original text.

THELMA - THE NORSE SAGA THAT ATTRACTED AN INTERNATIONAL CAST

As Alberto Sousa our Portuguese tenor soloist – playing the part of the hero Eric – has discovered,

The joy of this work is the fact that Samuel Coleridge-Taylor clearly understood the voice and how to use it to greatest effect.

THELMA - THE JOURNEY FROM PAGE TO STAGE

As Music Director Jonathan Butcher has commented, “We are explorers without sat nav, maps, or compass”. The excitement of a totally new opera is discovering the melodic paths and interpreting the composer's hints and signs.
Yet what emerges is a vivid and carefully crafted musical work, fully accessible to a modern audience. Living in the early twentieth century, it is easy to see why Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was Stanford's star pupil at the Royal College of Music. His orchestrations are stylish whilst supporting the action and singers. Jonathan Butcher also believes that Coleridge-Taylor was strongly influenced by the music of Dvorak whom he greatly admired.
When the production was first mooted, whilst the Company was on tour in Cornwall, Stephen Anthony-Brown bravely offered to undertake the transcription from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's “spidery” original hand written text – yet 600 hours later he is still enthusiastic about the work and will be appearing as the Neck King. Surrey Opera is very much in his debt.

DISCOVERING THELMA

Never heard of “Thelma”? Well now is your chance!
Musical works that have never been performed usually have an interesting story behind them – either they are lousy, unfinished, or the composer felt dissatisfied with it, but none of these reasons apply to “Thelma”.
Written between 1907 and 1909, Samuel Coleridge Taylor clearly expected his opera to be performed, but as Catherine Carr, who discovered the manuscript tucked away in the British Library in 2003, said,

The thing I've not been able to understand is why it wasn't staged. Van Moorden, the artistic director of Carl Rosa Opera, refused to stage it and Coleridge-Taylor was bitterly, bitterly disappointed.
People have said there were insurmountable staging problems. I don't know. Maybe the technical demands of that time were too problematic to engineer. Certainly it cannot have been the music, the quality is such, it couldn't have been that!

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