News bits

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 stages 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.

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.

'Thelma', by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

A world première at Croydon

It's not often that a company has the opportunity to stage the World Première of an opera but such an opportunity has come the way of Surrey Opera and, as a company in Croydon where Coleridge-Taylor lived and worked, what other more fitting company should take up this exciting and enormously worthwhile challenge?

Some notes about Thelma


Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

The opera Thelma, which we are proudly performing on February 9th - 11th, was for a long time believed to be lost or destroyed; it was miscatalogued in the British Library and unearthed by Dr Catherine Carr, in the course of research for her PhD thesis.

The story of Thelma is presented as a Norse myth; good triumphs over evil and true love reigns (in the Romantic tradition).

Gondoliers photos

I've added some photos from out Gondoliers production, taken by Peter Marr.

The Bartered Bride

This light-hearted opera is set in a Bohemian village in the 19th century. It tells the story of lovers Mařenka and Jeník, and how their true love prevails over the combined efforts of ambitious parents and a scheming marriage broker. Matters are complicated by the arrival of a travelling circus and a jilted lover dressed as a dancing bear! The lively music reflects Bohemian and Czech folk song and dance tunes.

Surrey Opera staged the opera in traditional style but in a modern English translation by Amanda Holden, with professional soloists, full chorus and orchestra.

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