The Grange Festival 2019 | Festival Programme by The Grange Festival

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L E N O Z Z E D I F I G A RO MO Z A RT June | 6, 8, 14, 19, 23, 30

FA L S TA F F V ER DI

June | 7, 9, 15, 21, 29

BELSHAZZAR H A N DEL

June | 20, 22, 28

July | 4, 6

DA N C E@T H E G R A N G E Curated by Wayne McGregor June | 25, 26

G E R S H W I N I N H O L LY WO O D T H E J O H N W I L S ON O RCH E S T R A July | 5

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Chairman’s Foreword A warm welcome to The Grange Festival’s third season. We have a wonderful operatic and musical feast for you this summer with Mozart’s Le nozze de Figaro, Verdi’s Falstaff, Handel’s Belshazzar (the latter a collaboration with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, celebrating their 40th anniversary) and an evening of Gershwin in Hollywood with the John Wilson Orchestra. We also have a thrilling programme of Dance@TheGrange curated by the brilliant Wayne McGregor, which features Company Wayne McGregor, Alessandra Ferri and Ballet Black. With Wayne’s guidance, this year, we have launched our New Commission Fund to support emerging choreographers from around the world. The first of these commissions will premiere as part of this year’s Dance@TheGrange. We are privileged to have as our long-term musical collaborators the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Academy of Ancient Music. Michael Chance, Michael Moody, Rachel Pearson and our marvellous team in the office have all worked with great energy, skill and imagination to build on the remarkable artistic achievements of 2017 and 2018. Exciting plans are already in place for 2020 and 2021 and beyond. A huge amount of work goes into our ambitious education

and outreach programmes, which last summer included an ‘opera camp’ when local schools created and performed an opera in a week, and a very successful dance workshop. We intend to continue and expand these programmes to reach more young people in the coming years. Everyone deserves a Chance. Catering is now in the hands of the multi-talented Becka Cooper who is creating a variety of delicious and operatic menus with locallysourced Hampshire produce. The reputation of The Grange Festival is fast growing internationally. We have launched the Hong Kong Friends and the American Friends of The Grange Festival; and in October 2019 we will be holding our second International Singing Competition with entries from all round the world. I would like to pay a heartfelt tribute to my fellow Trustees for their steadfast commitment and support from the very beginning of this noble venture and to thank, in particular, Sam Jackson, Rebecca Shelley and Alan Titchmarsh for their invaluable service on the Board. We remain hugely grateful to our beloved Patron, Lord Ashburton, and Mark and Sophie Baring for their unstinting support and kindness, and to Sally Ashburton for her sterling work in creating The Grange Festival Shop.

I would also like to thank all our many Friends, Donors and Volunteers for their generosity, ideas and enthusiasm. We depend entirely on their continuing love and support for what we are doing. We need to grow our database and spread the message far and wide that great artistic things are happening at The Grange. Please encourage all your friends and those who love the arts to join us and help us achieve our vision of creating a world-class festival in Hampshire. The exquisite beauty of The Grange never ceases to thrill as one glimpses the monumental classical Doric columns set in a perfect Arcadian landscape. The swans continue to glide serenely up and down the lake as if they had been trained by the legendary Edward Watson himself. When so much seems to be in flux in the world at the moment, it is reassuring – and much-needed food for the soul – to return to The Grange and experience the beauty and magic once again. I wish you an enjoyable 2019 Season.

The Rt Hon Sir Charles Haddon-Cave Chairman of The Grange Festival

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T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Welcome from Michael Chance From my travels as a singer, two publicly displayed aphorisms stay in the memory. The first shines brightly in gold letters above the stage in the Neue Gewandhaus in Leipzig, where the civic symphony orchestra was born: ‘Res severa est omnium gaudium’ – which basically means enjoying yourself is a serious matter. The other is more discreet, on a little plaque backstage in Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires (to my mind the world’s greatest opera house after The Grange): ‘Improvisation and routine are the enemies of good art’. The first, somewhat joyless it must be said, (it’s a quote from Seneca), carries the implication that everything which goes into creating what you the audience witness on stage is the result of an enormous amount of hard work from a large group of people, all blessed with specific highly sought-after skills. It also suggests that music play an important part in one’s life. The second describes the process, the degree of application, and the constant need to refine and re-create. I would slightly depart from its slur on improvisation, which I feel is a key ingredient to the creation of good art. We all at The Grange Festival are constantly learning, about our audience, about what is possible and desirable, about the whole business of presenting great performances. In year three we are still very young, but perhaps a little wiser. Being distinctive, ambitious, and prudent are all important. We have

been delighted at the response so far from so many of you. But we know that you might react less well if we settle into a routine or become too improvisational. In the pages of this programme, I hope you will find much to entertain you. I know that you are not going to read it all while here at The Grange. I urge you to delve deep when back at home. There is much to learn about Mozart’s skill at billiards, the history of Babylon, Handel as self-appointed English gentlemen, and what actually happens backstage in the wig department (not Handel’s, ours!) I feel so privileged to be doing this job, and to be working as part of such an effective if small team. I am constantly asked why I am not singing in one of the operas. There are many answers to this, but the main one is that to be able to offer work to so many other singers and musicians and dancers and creative teams and technicians is a rather amazing thing to be able to do. That’s more than enough for me. So many moments shine from this past year. I was personally thrilled that Agrippina caught the imagination of so many; it was a joy to witness an entire auditorium rocking with laughter at The Barber of Seville; and I could hardly contain myself watching a full house in total focus on the revelatory balletic images bombarding all our senses. And later last summer, the theatre rocked to eighty teenagers expressing

their own thoughts in powerful spontaneous operatic synthesis. We strive to include more and more from ever wider afield both as audience members and performers. As we sit through this year’s performances in our electrifying theatre, let us all think a little about the many who don’t know about these things because it simply doesn’t exist in their home or their school or anywhere near where they live. It should. We can all help it to do so, even just a little bit. Let me thank so many who make this Festival and the numerous other events, projects and initiatives which compliment it, happen: the hugely valued colleagues who work year round in the office, the large temporary community who come together for the Festival months, the invaluable volunteers, and, of course, the performers. I hope you all feel much appreciated as part of the Grange family. I consider it a humbling privilege to be your colleague. I am thrilled to present to you this year’s Festival, our third. Thank you for coming, and to so many of you, for coming back. I am determined that more and more of you will continue to do so.

Michael Chance CBE Artistic Director and CEO of The Grange Festival

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ÂŠ Leela Bennett

Agrippina, The Grange Festival 2018 © Robert Workman

Preparing the dining room, The Grange Festival 2018 © Shannon Robinson

Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Grange Festival 2018 © Simon Annand

Company Wayne McGregor and dancers from The Royal Ballet perform Bach Forms, choreography by Wayne McGregor, which premiered at The Grange Festival in 2018 with live accompaniment by Joanna MacGregor.

The Barber of Seville, education workshop ÂŠ John Snelling

The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Grange Festival 2018 ÂŠ Simon Annand

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Academy of Ancient Music

The Academy of Ancient Music is enormously pleased to be one of three Orchestras in Residence at The Grange Festival, an iconic venue in the beautiful Hampshire countryside. We continue our close association this year with Martin Lloyd-Evans’ production of Le nozze di Figaro, following on from 2018’s criticallyacclaimed Agrippina, starring Anna Bonitatibus and Raffaele Pe. We are particularly pleased that it was possible to capture the last performance of Agrippina on film for the archive, which is now available – for a short promotional time only

MUSIC

The ground-breaking Academy of Ancient Music was formed in 1973 by the renowned scholarconductor Christopher Hogwood. The orchestra revolutionised the musical world with its historicallyinformed approach, performing baroque and classical music as it would have been heard in its original time. Today the AAM, under the leadership of Music Director Richard Egarr, continues to take inspiration from the composers themselves through meticulous research, performing on authentic period instruments and using first edition scores.

Our thanks to Michael Chance, Michael Moody and all at The Grange Festival; to all those onstage and backstage; and to you, the audience – it is your enthusiasm and support that allows us to create and deliver programmes of artistic excellence in such an inspiring and sublime setting as this – thank you.

– to view online free of charge. Working with Michael Chance on this new musical venture at The Grange is exciting for his strong vision, and rewarding for his artistic excellence; and the AAM is proud to be continuing its artistic collaboration here, begun in 2017 with Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. We look forward to working together for many more exciting years, bringing the best of historically-informed performance to The Grange as this wonderful festival’s season continues to develop and flourish.

Alexander Van Ingen Chief Executive, Academy of Ancient Music

RECORDINGS

EDUCATION

The AAM has an incredible recording history, having built up a catalogue of more than 300 CDs which have won numerous accolades, including BRIT, Gramophone, Edison and MIDEM awards. As well as recording for all the major labels, the AAM now has its own in-house record label, AAM Records. On this label, the AAM has released the original 1727 version of JS Bach’s St Matthew Passion, dubbed “a triumph” by Gramophone magazine, and most recently a stunning album of instrumental works by Monteverdi’s contemporary, Dario Castello.

In 2010 the AAM launched the AAMplify education scheme, aiming to nurture the next generation of young artists and audiences.Working with partners and associates around the country, AAMplify delivers inspiring workshops, masterclasses and other special projects to people of all ages and backgrounds, in addition to valuable training for young instrumentalists. The AAM is proud to be Associate Ensemble at London’s Barbican Centre, Orchestra in Residence at the University of Cambridge, Orchestra in Residence at The Grange Festival and also at Chiltern Arts, Music at Oxford, and The Apex Bury St Edmunds, and a Culture Mile Network partner.

Visit www.aam.co.uk to find out more

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Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra © Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, February 2019

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is delighted to continue its longterm artistic collaboration with The Grange Festival and to return for another summer. The Orchestra loves performing in the stunning setting of The Grange and we are excited for this season’s new production of Falstaff. I always feel that the musicians of the BSO bring a freshness to the performances of the operatic masterpieces, applying their great experience and skills of the symphonic repertoire to the wonder opera scores.

Dougie Scarfe Chief Executive The BSO remains at the forefront of the UK orchestral scene since its foundation in 1893. A cultural beacon, it serves communities across the South and South West and extends its influence across the whole of the UK and internationally with regular festival appearances, an extensive catalogue of recordings, numerous plays on Classic FM as the station’s Orchestra in the South of England and continued live broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. Each year the BSO performs upwards of 140 public performances in its home region of over 10,000 square miles – from

full symphonic concerts from its home base at Lighthouse, Poole to Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Exeter, Bristol, Basingstoke, Cheltenham, Brighton, Truro, Torquay, Guildford and Winchester to a variety of ensembles, including Kokoro, the BSO’s new music group, which perform at smaller and more unusual venues across Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Hampshire Taking its lead from founder Sir Dan Godfrey, the BSO is one of the UK’s most dynamic and innovative symphony orchestras. He established a world class ensemble and during his tenure not only did the Orchestra work with such illustrious figures as Bartók, Sibelius, Holst, Stravinsky, Elgar and Vaughan Williams, Bournemouth was also the first orchestra to have performed all the Tchaikovsky symphonies in the UK and gave more premières than any other orchestra at the time. More recently composers who have worked with the BSO include Sir Michael Tippett, Sir John Tavener, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Rodion Shchedrin, David Matthews, James MacMillan and Mark Anthony Turnage. Kirill Karabits is now the BSO’s longest serving Chief Conductor since Sir Dan himself. He continues the fine pedigree of esteemed past Principal Conductors including Sir Charles Groves, Constantin

Silvestri, Rudolf Schwarz, Paavo Berglund, Andrew Litton, Yakov Kreizberg and Marin Alsop. Taking music beyond the concert hall lies at the heart of the BSO’s commitment to giving back to the community. BSO musicians take part in an extensive portfolio of learning and community projects, from national curriculum based workshops in schools, through to tea dances for the elderly, performing alongside enthusiastic amateur players, pioneering work involving people living with dementia and 18 Music Education Hubs across the region. A brand new addition to the portfolio is the ground-breaking disabled-led ensemble BSO Resound. The BSO was also awarded the Alzheimer’s Society 2017 Dementia Friendly Organisation of the Year (Small and Medium). The BSO has over 300 recordings to its name since pioneering beginnings in 1914. CD releases of Bernstein, Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Howells, Dvořák, Bartók, Weill, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Khachaturian, Prokofiev and Walton have all been highly acclaimed and the partnership with Nicola Benedetti in her CD The Silver Violin was the top-selling classical recording of 2012. Currently working with Chandos, Kirill and the BSO have embarked on a series of lesser known Russian/Soviet composers including Lyotashinsky and Terterian.

For more details about Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra visit bsolive.com 9

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

The Sixteen

Images of audiences queuing to hear early Tudor polyphony or contemporary choral compositions belonged to the world of fantasy before The Sixteen and Harry Christophers brought them to life. The UK-based ensemble, hallmarked by its tonal richness, expressive intensity and compelling collective artistry, has introduced countless newcomers to works drawn from well over five centuries of sacred and secular repertoire. The Sixteen’s choir and periodinstrument orchestra stand today among the world’s greatest ensembles, peerless interpreters of Renaissance, Baroque and modern choral music, acclaimed worldwide for performances delivered with precision, power and passion. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, The Sixteen arose from its Founder and Conductor Harry Christopher’s formative experience

as cathedral chorister and choral scholar. His enterprise, launched in 1979, built on the best of the British choral tradition while setting new standards of virtuosity and musicianship. The Sixteen’s professional female and male voices create a distinctive sound of great warmth and clarity. Although refined over four decades, that sound has remained remarkably consistent, always responsive to the emotional content of words and music, ever alert to subtle nuances of colour and shading. The Sixteen has widened its reach at home in recent years as ‘The Voices of Classic FM’, Associate Artists of The Bridgewater Hall and Artistic Associates of Kings Place, and with an ongoing Artist Residency at Wigmore Hall. Since 2000 its annual Choral Pilgrimage has brought the ensemble to Britain’s great cathedrals and abbeys

to perform sacred music in the spaces for which it was conceived. Appearances in the BBC television series Sacred Music, presented by Simon Russell Beale, have also helped grow The Sixteen’s audience. The most recent edition, an hourlong programme entitled Monteverdi in Mantua: The Genius of the Vespers, was first broadcast in 2015. ‘No praise would be too high for the range of The Sixteen, from seraphic notes on the brink of audibility to a richness of which a Russian choral ensemble would be proud,’ concluded one reviewer following the world premiere performance of Sir James MacMillan’s Stabat mater. The work, first performed at London’s Barbican Centre in October 2016 and later streamed live from the Sistine Chapel, was commissioned for The Sixteen by its long-term funding partner, the Genesis Foundation.

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International tours are an essential part of life for The Sixteen. The ensemble makes regular visits to major concert halls and festivals throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. It gave its first tour of China in October 2017, followed soon after by debut concerts in Estonia and Lithuania. The Sixteen’s touring credits include performances at the Cité de la musique in Paris, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Vienna’s Musikverein, together with appearances at the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Lucerne, Prague and Salzburg festivals. The Sixteen’s period-instrument orchestra, central to the ensemble’s ambitious continuing series of Handel oratorios, has drawn critical acclaim for its work in

semi-staged performances of Purcell’s Royal Welcome Songs in London, a production of Purcell’s King Arthur in Lisbon and new productions of Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse at Lisbon Opera House and The Coronation of Poppea at English National Opera. Following the success of the inaugural Choral Pilgrimage, The Sixteen launched its own record label in 2001. CORO has since cultivated an award-winning catalogue of 157 titles, albums of choral works by Francis Poulenc, Purcell’s welcome songs for James II, and the world premiere recording of MacMillan’s Stabat mater recent among them. The Sixteen’s substantial discography for CORO and other labels has attracted many prestigious international prizes, including a Gramophone Award

for Early Music and a Classical Brit Award for Renaissance, recorded as part of the group’s contract with Universal Classics and Jazz. In 2009 The Sixteen was named as Classic FM Gramophone Artist of the Year and received the Gramophone Best Baroque Vocal Award for its recording of Handel’s Coronation Anthems. In 2018 the group won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society award for best ensemble. The Sixteen’s commitment to the future of choral music is clearly reflected in Genesis Sixteen. The initiative, supported by the Genesis Foundation, offers the UK’s first fully funded choral training programme for singers aged 18 to 23. It has been specially designed to help participants navigate the testing transition from student status to life as professional performers.

For more information on The Sixteen, Harry Christophers and CORO, please visit www.thesixteen.com

Agrippina, The Grange Festival 2018 © Robert Workman

Admiring Rick Guest’s photography, The Grange Festival 2018 © Shannon Robinson

The Grange Festival Theatre © Shannon Robinson

Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Grange Festival 2018 © Simon Annand

The Dining Room, The Grange Festival © Shannon Robinson

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Learning @The Grange

The Barber of Seville workshop © John Snelling

How can opera play a part in developing essential skills in young people – curiosity, leadership, persistence, resilience? Combining a broad range of expressive arts – music, drama, dance, design, creative writing and visual arts – we use opera to nurture creativity and give young people a platform to explore and develop their imagination.

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The Barber of Seville workshop © John Snelling

Time Capsule © Leela Bennett

This project was always about the process and not just the product: fast, sharp and demanding, requiring high levels of collaboration and communication. The aim was to give young people a stimulating experience, to offer them creative ownership and to allow them to produce their piece, expressing their own ideas in their own voice.

Following the success of the project, our second devising project Like Unlike will take the gritty, topical subject of how social media impacts on our everyday life. Within a safe creative environment, our awardwinning professional team will encourage the teenagers to share their views on how we should be presenting ourselves in a chaotic public arena. Working with students who have little or no access to the arts, the team will help them develop the confidence to hold independent views and to equip them with new tools for building self-esteem.

Time Capsule © Leela Bennett

Last August, our innovative project Time Capsule brought together 60 teenagers from 18 different schools to create a new opera in just five days. Working together for the first time, they debated, mind-mapped and brainstormed the theme – what they were most and least proud of that mankind has created. They developed a story line and musical material, dance and design concepts. Led by a professional creative team they shaped, rehearsed and performed their piece to family and friends on our stage here at The Grange.

Mozart In The Making © Leela Bennett

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Time Capsule © Leela Bennett

We are not ignoring younger children! Our Mozart in the Making project was a reimagining of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Over 150 children from five Hampshire primary schools were invited to perform on our amazing stage for an audience of their friends and families. In preparation for the performance, a series of fun, immersive workshops encouraged children to sing and create movement while introducing them to the magic of this opera and fuelling their imaginations. During the season, our interactive half-term workshop, Fun with Figaro, brought together primary-aged children, parents, grandparents and friends. An opportunity for families to share an experience, enjoy some laughter, hum some tunes before watching the final rehearsal of Figaro!

Mozart In The Making © Leela Bennett

Our secondary workshop Verdi & Shakespeare gave Music, Drama and English students the opportunity to explore how Verdi created his masterpiece Falstaff using text from the Merry Wives of Windsor. They too watched the final rehearsal of the new production. In addition, each year our theatre is filled with young dance students who have the opportunity to attend special performances from our Dance@TheGrange programme. This year features Company Wayne McGregor and Ballet Black.

Looking further ahead, we plan a community opera, with almost no age limit at either end. Jonathan Dove’s Monster in the Maze has already received enormous international acclaim bringing together large groups of committed first-time performers across the globe. We will give it its first fully staged production in an opera house, as the climax to a process over many months and over a wide area of Hampshire and beyond.

Susan Hamilton

The Barber of Seville workshop © John Snelling

Time Capsule © Leela Bennett

Mozart In The Making © Leela Bennett

Head of Learning

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GAETANO DONIZETTI

THE ELIXIR OF LOVE CONDUCTOR ALICE FARNHAM –

LEOŠ JANÁCEK

THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN EMERGING ARTIST PRODUCTION CONDUCTOR JUSTIN BROWN

A MINI COTSWOLDS BAYREUTH Sunday Times

lfo.org.uk | 01451 830292 Near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire GL56 0QF

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance is proud to support The Grange Festival.

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Thinking boldly, investing responsibly Please note that the value of shares and the income from them can fall as well as rise and you may not get back the amount originally invested. This can be a result of market movements and also of variations in the exchange rates between currencies. Sarasin & Partners LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC329859 and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. ÂŠ 2019 Sarasin & Partners LLP â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all rights reserved.

An individual and expert approach to the law For almost 300 years we have helped our clients manage their future whilst safeguarding all that is valuable to them To find out how we can help you please get in touch www.wilsonsllp.com 01722 412 412 enquiries@wilsonsllp.com

VAUGHAN We are delighted to support The Grange Festival Ground Floor, South Dome Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London, SW10 0XE 020 7349 4600

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T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Ways to support us The Grange Festival exists to bring inspirational opera and ballet to The Grange in Hampshire. Year-round we also work in our community with a programme of outreach and education that is featured in detail elsewhere in this programme. Inspiring music lovers of the future and supporting young artists in the early years of their careers are an important part of our work. The fundamental objectives are to be world class in all we do, and to be sustainable over the long term. Ticket sales cover half of the annual income we require leaving us to raise in excess of ÂŁ1.3m each year. There are many ways in which we can be generously supported.

Major Gifts Many people support us.WeÂ rely on them. Among these are a few who make an exceptional gift that is transformative, as we work to establish an international reputation for excellence. If you think you could help us with a gift and would like to be part of the history of this wonderful place please get in touch with our Director of Development, Rachel Pearson on 01962 792201. Email rachel@thegrangefestival.co.uk Telephone 01962 791201/791020

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Please Become a Festival Friend

All our Friends enjoy Priority Booking and all donations, apart from Footlights, are acknowledged in the Festival programme. Footlight supporters will be listed in the 2020 programme. All Friends levels expire at the end of July each year.

THE SWEET SPOT Every stage has that unique place that projects the voice perfectly and produces a quality of sound to tickle the hairs on the back of your neck. Suggested donation £5,000

THE LIMELIGHT Before electricity, theatres produced intense light by directing a flame at a cylinder of quicklime. Suggested donation £2500

THE PROMPT CORNER Every theatre needs one. Without this, it may not be alright on the night. Suggested donation £1000

THE ROSTRUM The birds eye view and position of power guiding orchestra with a flick of the wrist. Suggested donation £500

THE WINGS It’s all happening here in the secret, silent world. Prop tables are ready, quick changes are prepared, the crew are primed, the cast are awaiting their cues. Suggested donation £250

THE FOOTLIGHTS The original theatre lighting: once upon a time as candles, now used as a special effect. Suggested donation £40

THE HIGHFLYERS

(under 35s only)

Traditional Scenery operators worked on the fly walks high above the stage. Suggested donation £10

Our annual Festival Friends underpin each festival and are essential to sustaining the high quality of our operas. Friends have access to priority booking and play a crucial part in the making the Festival happen. Ticket income covers only half of the cost of each production, so we depend on our Friends’ generosity to fill the gap. In this third year, we hope our Friends will continue to be as generous as they can in supporting us. Please spread the word – we can never have too many friends.

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Other Ways To Help Us FESTIVAL PEACOCKS – LEGACIES AT THE GR ANGE FESTIVAL

CORPS DE BALLET PIONEERS AND NEW COMMISSION FUND

Have you enjoyed your summer evenings at The Grange? If you have, perhaps you might consider supporting us through a legacy in your will. It is a highly tax efficient way to help us ensure that The Grange Festival thrives and our constant work to instil a love of creativity and music in our community and in our schools continues to flourish. You will be making something wonderful happen each year. The gloriously vibrant peacock is the ancient symbol of immortality. We invite you to become a Festival Peacock. You will be named on a seat in the auditorium and will be listed each year in the programme. Your gift will ensure that this very special theatre continues to inspire artists and audiences for generations to come. Legacies can be made by way of a gift or cash, shares or property and your solicitor can advise you about writing your will. As we are a charity (no. 1165859), no inheritance tax is payable on your gift. This is an effective way of reducing your tax liability whilst also helping a favourite and important endeavour.

Bringing world class Dance and Ballet to this romantic corner of Hampshire is a unique and important development. We are seeking Corps de Ballet Pioneers to help us; a group of generous individuals who will be at the start of something remarkable and be part of its development. Commitment to something new and imaginative like this, which promises to become a high-profile part of the national performing arts scene, is philanthropy with far-reaching consequences in an appropriately inspiring setting. This year the New Commission Fund has enabled us to premiere short works from emerging choreographers selected by our Director of Dance. Suggested gifts from £5000

EDUCATION FUND We focus on two areas. First, we offer a range of scholarships and assistant roles to help develop young talent in all those areas of expertise that go in to staging a show – singers, conductors and behind the scenes technicians. Secondly, we are working with many schools delivering creative projects during the year that take pupils beyond the confines of the school curriculum. This summer 80 schoolchildren will join our summer school to work intensely over 5 days to create, devise and then perform an opera on the professional stage. Gifts to this work develop the professionals of the future and the enjoyment of music and theatre for all. We seek gifts of all sizes

CORPOR ATE SUPPORT We invite companies to support a production or sponsor a single performance during the season. The Grange is an astonishingly beautiful setting and we take great care to ensure any visit you make is perfect from the moment you arrive. Support comes with a range of opportunities. We will even bring a singer to your Christmas or Summer Party.

NAME A SEAT This is a perfect way to acknowledge your appreciation of the theatre or recognise someone else who has loved this place. Your gift will be acknowledged with a plaque of your wording on the seat. Suggested gift according to seating area £250, £500 and £1000

SPONSOR A SINGER OR DANCER Your support for a particular role of your choice enables us to cast performers of the highest standard and makes a real contribution to the overall production. If you would like to hear more about any of these initiatives please contact Rachel Pearson, Director of Development. Email: rachel@thegrangefestival.co.uk Tel: 01962 792201 / 01962 791020

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International Friends of the Grange Festival The Grange Festival has been travelling abroad: Hong Kong last November and New York in April. We have set up The Hong Kong Friends of The Grange Festival, and are doing the same in USA, with The American Friends of The Grange Festival. Both are exciting initiatives with two-way implications of mutual assistance and support.

A few hours after one of the worst typhoons in living memory, we gave a reception in the Hong Kong Club, opened in its present location by Philip Haddon-Cave our Chairman’s illustrious father. Four young opera singers entertained the gathering and a successful launch was achieved in high spirits. The following day, I held a masterclass in the Performing Arts Centre organised by the director of voice there, Nancy Yeung. She and I sang together ten years ago in the first performances of Somtow Sucharitkul’s new opera ‘Ayodhya’ in Bangkok. Our links with Hong Kong are strong. We are establishing links with Rumiko Hasegawa’s visionary project More Than Musical, which brings opera to new audiences, and look forward to hosting a number of HK Friends – as well as Rumiko’s company – on their future visits to the UK. We will also be returning to Asia in November to launch a collaborative programme of internships that will see us mentoring local talent at future Festivals.

On 8th April, a block away from the Metropolitan Museum, The Grange Festival held a riproaring reception in a majestic private house filled with a famously important porcelain collection. I am happy to report that some 75 or so guests and three young singers had a high old time and no porcelain was disturbed. In the subsequent days, the process to establish our own not-for-profit charity got underway and I auditioned some 25 young singers from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Houston. We hope that some of them will be singing with us in the UK, initially in our Singing Competition in October. Huge promise was on show, not surprisingly. These initiatives are about finding support for The Grange Festival in two key international locations, but also about using the expertise of our singers and coaches and repetiteurs to give help where it is needed and requested. I have no doubt, after two exhilarating trips, that the future looks rosy for both.

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Founders of The Grange Festival

SAMWELL FOUNDERS Sarah & Tony Bolton The Linbury Trust Delfont Mackintosh Theatres

WILKINS FOUNDERS Richard & Rosamund Bernays David & Simone Caukill Bernard & Caroline Cazenove Malcolm and Sarah Le May Joe & Minnie MacHale Richard & Chrissie Morse Tim & Thérèse Parker Michael & Cathy Pearman Sir Simon & Lady Robertson Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement Richard & Cynthia Thompson and Anonymous Donors

John & Claudia Arney Jamie & Carolyn Balfour Mark & Sophie Baring Robin & Anne Baring Glynne & Sarah Benge Daniel & Alison Benton Sophie Boden Simon & Sally Borrows Claudia Langdon & Janie Cadbury Sir Euan Calthorpe Bt William & Kathryn Charnley Sir Vernon & Lady Ellis Catherine & Jon Ferrier Mr & Mrs James Fisher Tom & Sarah Floyd Susie, Katie, Anna, Christina & Hwfa Gwyn Sir Charles & Lady Haddon-Cave Rumiko Hasegawa James & Rhona Hatchley Sheelin & John Hemsley Malcolm Herring Charles & Catherine Hindson Herman & Claire Hintzen Roger & Kate Holmes Adrian Hope David & Patricia Houghton Andrew & Caroline Joy Owen & Jane Jonathan J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust Thomas & Alexandra Loyd The Peter & Elisabetta Mallinson Trust Simon & Nathalie Marshall-Lockyer Nigel & Anna McNair Scott Joanna & Luke Meynell Patrick Mitford-Slade William & Francheska Pattisson Mark & Rachel Pearson Lord & Lady Phillimore Ernst & Elisabeth Piech John & Erica Simpson Graeme & Sue Sloan Dr Helmut & Anna Sohmen Judy & Graham Staples Tim & Charlotte Syder The Stevenston Trust Lou & John Verrill and Anonymous Donors

COCKERELL FOUNDERS

SMIRKE FOUNDERS Peter & Rosemary Andreae David & Elizabeth Benson Anthony & Consuelo Brooke Rex & Sarah Chester Ina De & James Spicer Domenica Dunne Alastair & Robina Farley For Elise Peter & Judith Foy Malcolm Herring Peter & Sue Holland George & Janette Hollingbery Graham & Amanda Hutton David & Penny Kempton Tammy Lavarello Charles & Sue Marriott James & Caroline Masterton Martin & Caroline Moore Mr & Mrs Jonathan Moseley Colin Murray Mr & Mrs Roger Phillimore Jonathan & Gillian Pickering Bianca & Stuart Roden Giles & Sue Schofield David & Alexandra Scholey Sophie Service Paul & Rita Skinner The Band Trust Peter Tilley Esq Alan & Alison Titchmarsh Lucy & Michael Vaughan Mr & Mrs Hady Wakefield and Anonymous Donors

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COX FOUNDERS Bill & Boo Andrewes Tony & Chris Ashford Isla Baring OAM Tom & Gay Bartlam Beaulieu Beaufort Foundation Simon & Rebecca Bladon Simon & Julia Boadle Anthony & Sarah Boswood Michael & Belinda Boyd Britwell Trust Julian & Jenny Cazalet Julia Chute Colwinston Charitable Trust Henrietta Corbett Corin & Richard Cotton Carl Cullingford Edward & Antonia Cumming-Bruce The de Brye Charitable Trust Michael & Anthea Del Mar Mrs Marveen Flack Gamlen Charitable Trust The Golden Bottle Trust Roger & Victoria Harrison Richard & Frances Hoare Lucy Holmes Andrew & Kay Hunter Johnston Howard & Anne Hyman

John & Sara Jervoise Max & Caroline Jonas Ralph & Patricia Kanter Morgan & Georgie Krone Virginia & Alan Lovell William & Felicity Mather Dr & Mrs Jonathan Moore Annette Oakes The Ogilvie Thompson Family Kevin Pakenham David & Sarah Parker Deborah & Clive Parritt The Countess of Portsmouth Richard & Iona Priestley George & Veronique Seligman Rebecca Shelley Brian Spiby Fiona & Geoff Squire OBE Clare & Richard Staughton The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation Robert & Tiggy Sutton Alison & Simon Taylor Peter & Nancy Thompson The Worshipful Company of Dyers The Wykeham Gallery and Anonymous Donors

CORPOR ATE FOUNDERS Accsys Group Artemis Investment Management Cazenove Capital Charles Stanley Wealth Managers Country Life Hawksmoor Investment Management Hiscox Hunters Solicitors IG Group Meggitt PLC Norton Rose Fulbright LLP Sarasin & Partners Stifel The Zygos Partnership

FOUNDING ADVERTISERS Adam Architecture Architectural Plants Burrells Chalke Valley History Festival Christies Danebury Vineyards Dorset Opera Festival English Heritage Farrow & Ball Gosset Champagne Jamb. Kirker Music Holidays Lime Wood Hotel Longborough Festival Opera Martin & Company Moda Rosa Opus Ottoman Silks PathĂŠ News Provident Financial Regents Park Open Air Theatre Saffery Champness Stone, Vine & Sun Wine Merchants Taylor Fladgate The Grange Estate West Green Opera

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Other Generous Gifts FESTIVAL PEACOCKS

SUPPORTERS OF SINGING COMPETITION 2019

Gay & Roger Bradley David & Patricia Houghton Michael & Cathy Pearman Heleen Mendl-Schrama and Anonymous Donors

Sir Jeremiah Colman Gift Trust The Evelyn Drysdale Charitable Trust Michael Steen

HONG KONG FRIENDS

LEARNING@ THEGR ANGE 3i Lord & Lady Ashburton Mark & Sophie Baring The Bernard Sunley Foundation Rosamond Brown The Dyers’ Company D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust Rumiko Hasegawa GS Gives Jennifer Hodgson Oscar & Margaret Lewisohn Patrick Mitford-Slade Rupert & Elizabeth Nabarro Tim & Thérèse Parker Michael & Cathy Pearman Roger & Virginie Phillimore Ernst & Elisabeth Piech The R & I Pilkington Charitable Trust The Seawall Trust and Anonymous Donors

St John & Lesley Flaherty Rumiko Hasegawa Jenny Hodgson The Kadoorie Charitable Foundation Dr Helmut & Anna Sohmen Peter & Nancy Thompson

AGR IPPI NA FILMING SUPPORT Mark & Sophie Baring Rosamund & Richard Bernays Sir Charles & Lady Haddon-Cave Malcolm & Sarah Le May Richard & Chrissie Morse The Countess Annabel Portsmouth Rebecca Shelley John & Wendy Trueman

ADDITIONAL GENEROUS GIFTS Geoffrey Barnett Nigel Beale & Anthony Lowrey David & Elizabeth Benson Peter & Jane Clarke Sophie Comninos The de Brye Charitable Trust Gilly Drummond Golden Bottle Trust Richard & Chrissie Morse The Band Trust Tim & Thérèse Parker Roger & Virginie Phillimore Michael & Sue Pragnell Peter & Nancy Thompson Mr & Mrs Hady Wakefield and Anonymous Donors

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CORPS DE BALLET PIONEERS & NEW COMMISSION FUND Justin & Celeste Bickle Nigel Beale & Anthony Lowrey David & Simone Caukill C E Eliot-Cohen’s Charitable Settlement Carl T. Cullingford Peter & Judith Foy Robina & Alastair Farley Henrietta Hirst Roger & Kate Holmes Morgan & Georgie Krone Martin & Caroline Moore In loving memory of Victoria Parker Stephen & Isobel Parkinson Mrs Adam Quarry Sir Simon & Lady Robertson Kristina Rogge Graeme & Sue Sloan John & Lou Verrill and Anonymous Donors

THE GR ANGE FESTIVAL TICKETS FOR CHARITY EVENTS

2019 CORPOR ATE SUPPORTERS Barclays Clifford Chance Hunters Sarasin Stifel Taylor’s Port

Atmos, Company Wayne McGregor © Ravi Deepres

2019 FESTIVAL ADVERTISERS Alfred Homes Architectural Plants Barclays British Pathé Brown Rudnick Chalke Valley Clifford Chance Danebury Vineyard Dorset Opera Hunters Solicitors Kirker Holidays Lime Wood Longborough Festival Opera Martin & Co Moore Blatch Opera Holland Park Ottoman Silks Paris Smith Price Forbes Provident Financial Sarasin Stifel Taylor’s Port The Grange Estate Vaughan Designs Wilsons LLP World Odyssey Wykeham Gallery

Art Fund Hampshire The Brain Tumour Charity The British Council British Red Cross The Emma Campbell Trust English National Ballet Farnham Youth Choir Homestart Honeypot Childrens’ Charity Horatio’s Garden Julian House Marie Curie Neuroblastoma UK North Hampshire Medical Fund NSPCC Perins School, Alresford Petersfield Museum RNLI Ropley Church Rugby Portobello Trust Shepherds Down School St Andrews Church Sunrise Appeal Cancer Research UK Weeke Primary School, Winchester Wessex Cancer Haven Westgate School, Winchester Winchester College Bursaries Fund Winchester Home Start

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

Friends of The Grange Festival

SWEET SPOT Peter & Rosemary Andreae Nigel Beale & Anthony Lowrey Jill Parker George & Veronique Seligman and Anonymous Donors

LIMELIGHT Mr & Mrs Nic Bentley Robert & Caroline Bordeaux-Groult Julian & Jenny Cazalet Simon & Noni de Zoete David & Mary Laing Sir David & Lady Plastow Michael & Sue Pragnell The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation Peter & Nancy Thompson Robin & Sarah Thorne Marion Wake Mr & Mrs Craig Wilson and Anonymous Donors

PROMPT Charles & Clare Alexander Geoffrey Barnett Mrs Rupert Beaumont Peter & Valerie Bedford Julian & Jane Benson Anthony Bird Dr. Keith Dawkins & Mrs Jean Boney QC Jonathan & Karen Bourne-May Lord & Lady Bridges Robin & Penny Broadhurst Mrs Charles H. Brown Rex & Sarah Chester Sir Christopher & the Reverend Lady Clarke Cynthia & Oliver Colman Pru de Lavison Edward & Giovannella Dunn St John & Lesley Flaherty Lindsey Gardener Fergus & Clare Gilmour Judy & Richard Haes Jenny Hodgson Peter & Linda Hollins David & Sue Humphrey Diane Katsiaficas Mr. & Mrs. Patrick Hofmann Robbie Lloyd George Anne Longden Mr & Mrs Jean Paul Luksic John & Patricia Marden William & Felicity Mather

Ian & Clare Maurice The McLaren Trust Peter & Brigid McManus Colin Menzies Brian & Bernadette Metters Alison & Antony Milford Jonathan & Claire Moore Mr Nathan Moss & Mrs Michelle Nevers Guy & Sarah Norrie Peter & Poppity Nutting Richard & Rose Plincke The Countess of Portsmouth Jill & Michael Pullan Neil & Julie Record The Hon Philip Remnant, CBE Stephen Riley & Victoria Burch Kristina Rogge Mrs Alicia Salter James & Judy Scott Nigel Silby Brigitte & Martin Skan Chris & Lisa Spooner Mrs Anne Storm Peter & Sarah Vey Mr & Mrs Niko Vidovich Edward & Katherine Wake Johanna Waterous CBE & Roger Parry CBE William & Madeline Wilks Mary Rose Wood and Anonymous Donors

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ROSTRUM David & Jane Anderson Lord & Lady Arbuthnot of Edrom Robin & Anne Baring ADAM Architecture Peter & Valerie Bedford Barry & Mary Blacker Bob & Elisabeth Boas Longina Boczon Graham & Julia Bourne Gay & Roger Bradley Robin & Jill Broadley Adam & Sarah Broke Hugh & Sue Brown Peter & Pamela Bulfield Anthony Bunker Geoffrey Burnand Mark Burrows Peter & Auriol Byrne Jane Countess of Clarendon Peter & Jane Clarke Ian Clarkson & Richard Morris Dr & Mrs Peter Collins Dr Neville Conway Anthony Cooke David & Nikki Cowley Johnny & Liz Cowper-Coles Lady Curtis John & Susan Curtis Geoffrey & Ingrid Dale Roderick Davidson Anthony Davis Geoffrey & Caroline de Jager Anthony & Fiona Deal

Patrick & Nikki Despard Graham & Janna Dudding Jamie & Jenny Dundas Mr & Mrs H Dyer Alun & Bridget Evans John Fairbairn Simon & Hilke Fisher Michael & Nicola Fitzgerald Julia Flory Tim & Rosie Forbes Geoffrey & Elizabeth Fuller David & Jillian Gendron Mr & Mrs W. Gething Michael & Diane Gibbons Martin & Jacky Gillie William & Mary Knowles Jenny Gove Mr Robin & The Hon Mrs Greenwood Tim & Jenny Guerrier Max & Catherine Hadfield Gilbert & Vahideh Hall Edward & Rosie Harford Julian & Guinevere Harvey Rob & Anne Heather Jenny & Bill Helfrecht Malcolm & Mary Hogg Christopher & Jo Holdsworth Hunt Sarah & Mark Holford Viscount & Viscountess Hood David & Mal Hope-Mason Mr Stephen J Howis

N O Hunter & J S Hunter Mike & Margi Jennings Nigel & Cathy Johnson-Hill Michael & Julia Kerby Stephen & Miriam Kramer Liz & Roger Kramers Mr & Mrs Bill Lawes Roger & Natalie Lee Mrs Roger Liddiard Derek & Susie Lintott Gussy the Theatre Cat Ian & Jane Macnabb Chris & Clem Martin Alison Mayne Mr & Mrs Hallam Mills Ian & Jane Morrison David & Angela Moss Mr & Mrs John Muncey Francis & Amanda Norton Carole & Roy Oldham Joanne Ooi Bleach Lavinia & Nick Owen Peter & Sue Paice John A Paine Erik & Lillemor Penser Caroline Perry Robin & Clarkie Petherick Mr & Mrs J Pinna-Griffith John & Elizabeth Platt John Polak Hugh Priestley Chrissie Quayle & Robin Colenso

April, Lady Rivett-Carnac Xavier & Alicia Robert James & Lygo Roberts Miles & Vivian Roberts Peter Rosenthal Julian & Catherine Roskill Dr Angela Gallop CBE & Mr David Russell Ginny & Richard Salter Dr Anthony Smoker David & Unni Spiller Marcus & Sarah Stanton Caroline Steane Mr & Mrs Nicholas Stranks Tom & Rosamond Sweet-Escott Jeremy Taylor Mr & Mrs P M Thomas Sarah Thomas Mr & Mrs William Tice Prof & Mrs G M Tonge John & Pauline Tremlett Sir Tom & Lady Troubridge Clive & Tessa Tulloch Sir Michael & Lady Turner Paul & Sandra Walker Lisa Hawkins David & Meriel Walton Mark & Jane Williams Nicholas & Penny Wilson Louise Woods and Anonymous Donors

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

WINGS Dr Stewart Abbott Philippa Abell Daphne & John Alderson Nick & Sarah Allan Clive Anscott Julian & Mary Ashby Richard Ashton Julie & Keith Attfield Nick & Audrey Backhouse Dr Simon Bailey Mrs Caroline Barber Nicholas & Diana Baring Robin & Anne Baring Rose Baring & Barnaby Rogerson Cara & Oliver Barnes Robin Barton Paul & Janet Batchelor Val & Christopher Bateman Anne Beckwith-Smith Dr Peter Bennett & Dr Beatrice Sofaer-Bennett Rebecca Berkley Adrian Berrill-Cox Michael Biddle Mike & Sarah Bignell Richard & Lucinda Blacker The Blundens Annabel & Alverne Bolitho Neville & Rowena Bowen Dr Douglas & Mrs Susan Bridgewater Charles & Patricia Brims Ali & Michael Brindle QC Tony & Mo Brooking George Brown & Alison Calver Finn Bruce

Jo & Geoffrey Burnaby Martin & Sarah Burton Lady Jennifer Bute Richard Butler Adams Mrs Maurice Buxton Nick & Nicky Cambrook Angus Carlill & Sandra Carlisle Dr Nicholas Carroll Mr Charles-Edouard Castella Julian Chadwick Belinda & Jason Chaffer Lady Chesham Julian & Josephine Chisholm Simon & Caroline Clark Richard & Angela Cobb Marianne & Harald Collet Michael & Virginia Collett Gill Collymore Jonathan & Henrietta Cooke Diana Cornish Morella & Robert Cottam Peter & Carole Cregeen Stephen & Julia Crompton Josh & Anna Dale-Harris Antoni Daszewski Peter & Pamela Davidson Mike & Suzette Davis Anne & Jonathan Dawson Mr. & Mrs. Leprince Jungbluth Baron & Baroness de Styrcea Sir John & Lady de Trafford Mrs Elizabeth Dean Lord & Lady Deben Hugo & Linda Deschampsneufs Krystyna Deuss Robert & Caroline Dixon

Mrs Gilly Drummond Christopher & Jenny Duffett Christina & Hugh Dumas Cathy Dumelow Mrs Saskia Dunlop Christina & Andrew Dykes Ken & Sheena Eaton Paul & Pauline Eaton James & Diana Ekins Robert & Mary Elkington Dr Julia P Ellis Martin & Eugenia Ephson Michael & Rebecca Everett John Farr Nicholas & Jane Ferguson Mr & Mrs Graham Ferguson The Fischer Fund Andrew & Lucinda Fleming J A Floyd Charitable Trust Mr & Mrs John Foster Lindsay & Robin Fox Sir Robert & Lady Francis Rod & Marie Franks Andrea Frears Alan & Valerie Frost Susie Furnivall Anton Gabszewicz & Mark Gutteridge Jonathan & Tessa Gaisman Paul & Sarah Galloway C. F. Gibbs Anne Giles Brett & Caroline Gill Bruce Ginsberg Philippa & Charlie Goodall Gill Graham Maw

Susie Grandfield Keith & Theresa Grant Peterkin Michael & Stephanie Gretton Richard & Marguerite Griffith-Jones Alistair & Jenny Groom Felicity Guinness & Simon Ricketts C. Guth Andrew & Jane Brown Martin & The Hon Mrs Haitham Taylor Allyson Hall Rachel & John Hannyngton Susanna Hardman Wendell & Andrea Harris Keith & Sarah Jane Haydon Mrs Susan Hebeler John & Catherine Hickman Will & Janine Hillary Mr & Mrs I F Hodgson Daniel & Diana Hodson H. R. Holland Jonathan Holliday Lizzie Holmes Jill Hooker Denzil & Kate How Billy & Heather Howard The Howmans Bart & Carole Huby Neville Hudson Iain & Claudia Hughes Robert Hugill & David Hughes Adam & Laraine Humphryes Mr & Mrs Geoffrey Hunt David & Wendy Hunter

Leonora Chance Anthony Chater Vera Chichagova Lucy Chiswell Miss Julia Clarke Nathaniel Colman Jonathan Cook Toby Cooper Dr Benedict Coxon Fergus & Sarah Cross Cláudia Lopes Emiliana Damiani Sam Dewes Florence Drake Theo Elton Mrs Jessica Fisher

Mr Benjamin C K Fowler Cat Fox Mr William Fox Constance Freer-Smith Mr & Mrs Simon Frost Nina L Frost Will George-Carey Miss Eleanor Gleave Jacob Goodwin Edward Goodwin Mr James Grant Belshazzar Laurence Habets Mr Simon Hall Mr George Harding-Rolls Katie Harrison

Ann Catherine Farrer Hartigan Sophie Heard Claire Hickman Mr Tyler W. Hill Jessica Hollingbery Hei Mun Hong James & Jasper Hunter Flora Johnston Josephine Jonathan Rachel Kenny Thomas Linton Ellie London Mr Ryan J Loveridge The Rev’d Graham Lunn Amy Lyddon Miss Elizabeth Mallet

HIGH FLYERS Mark & Amanda Austin Charlotte Baly Aurea Baring Flora Baring Fred Baring Jordan Bergmans Niall Bird William Bird Emily Blackman-Gibson Hugo Blanshard Richard Boyle Miss L V Brazier Ms Bridget Burkill Leonora Campbell Ferdinand Campbell Rev’d D Chadwick

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Andrew & Juliet Huntley Barnabas & Campie Hurst-Bannister Tim & Christine Ingram Clive & Louise Irvine Moira Jackson Allan & Rachel James John & Jan Jarvis Martin & Sandra Jay Tony Johnson & Terry Drew Rupert Johnson & Alexandra Macdonald-Smith Sally & Scot Johnston Charmian Jones Guy Jordan & Lucie Kitchener Joan & Geoff Kellett Penelope Kellie Dinah Kennedy Martin & Clare Knight Sarah & Christopher Knight Stephen and Gabrielle Knights Peter & Beth Lamb Rear Admiral & Mrs John Lang Simon & Sarah Lavers Mr & Mrs Andrew Lax Mr & Mrs Lentaigne Rupert Lewin Anthony & Fiona Littlejohn Susie & James Long Desmond & Jenny Longfield Joanna Lorimer-Green Michael & Joyce Lugton Mrs Fiona Lunch Lord & Lady Lupton Imogen Lyndon Skeggs Sue MacKenzie-Charrington

Peter & Pamela Macklin JJ & Victoria Macnamara Bill & Sue Main Elisabeth Mason Nigel & Sue Masters Fairhurst Estates Louise Matlock Paddy & Polly Nigel & Maria Melville Paul & Emily Michael Malcolm & Kate Moir David & Alison Moore-Gwyn Christopher Morcom QC & Diane Morcom Simon & Fiona Mortimore Nicholas & Victoria Muers-Raby Tom & Ros Nell Charles & Martie Nicholson John & Dianne Norton Hugh & Maggie Ogus Charles & Rosemary Orange Colin & Rosalind Osmer Mrs Mary-Vere Parr Robin Pauley Dr Henry Pearson Lucy Pease Richard & Michelle Pelly Mr & Mrs EHD Peppiatt Jeremy & Bryony Pett Anthony & Sally Pfiffner Sir Hayden & Lady Phillips David & Christina Pitman Jane Poulter Dr Victoria Preston Tony & Etta Pullinger Douglas & Jane Rae

Catherine Rainey Dr Marian Gilbart Read & Dr Martin Read Tineke Dales Christopher & Sheila Richards Royston & Tana Riviere James & Catharine Robertson Miss Anne Robertson Alex & Caroline Roe Deborah Roslund Derek Attley & Annabel Ross Alan Sainer Simon & Abigail Sargent Mike Sarson Mr & Mrs Richard Scopes Alex & So Scott-Barrett Tom Seabrook Rupert Sebag-Montefiore Joanna Selborne Hugh & Patricia Sergeant Mr David Shaw Thoss Shearer Diane & Christopher Sheridan Jock & Annie Slater Ann Smart Miriam Smith Lady Snyder David & Di Sommerville Andrew & Jill Soundy Rosemary & Michael Steen John Stephens OBE John & Margo Stephens Brian Stevens Jeremy & Phyllida Stoke John & Rosie Sturgis Sir John & Lady Stuttard

Tom & Jo Taylor Stephen Tedbury Bottega dei Sapori Hugh & Sandy Thomas Mr Jocelyn Thomas Gordon & Sue Thorburn Elaine & James Tickell Sarah Tillie George & Lucinda Tindley Kieran Trasler Simon & Mary Troughton Sir David & Lady Verey Rupert Villers Mr & Mrs R Vlasto Guy & Fizzy Warren Mr & Mrs Graham J. West Angela Wheeler Tony & Fiona White Peter & Alexandra White Sonali Wijeyaratne & David Fitzherbert Barton & Rosie Wild Howard & Jan Wilkinson Keith & Keren Williams Penelope Williams Clare Williams Hamish & Elisabeth Williams Angela M Wilson Peter & Lissa Wilson Jilly Wise William & Celia Witts David & Vivienne Woolf Richard & Noely Worthington Paul & Sybella Zisman and Anonymous Donors

Ellie Mallet Miss C Martin Nicholas Maw James McCarthy Mr Connor McNeil Issy Mitchell Isabel Morgan Dr Conor Mosli-Lynch Nathan Murphy Laura Murphy Heloise Nangle Edward Nangle Nauman Nazeer Tom and Catherine Neal Mrs LA Oxford-Norman

Millie Pardoe Lt F Parkes QARANC Robert & Emily Paul Mr J W Pinder Isabella Pitman Sebastian Pont Kate Poston Louisa Quarry Piers Quarry Charles Quarry Dr Lavinia Raganelli Oliver Ratcliffe Olivia Rhys-Evans Miss Caroline Roddis Sebastian Salek

Joseph Saxby Miranda Shaw Cressida M Shaw Ellie Sheahan Ben Sheron Emma Sheron Andrew Simpson Miss India Smyth Nick Spiller Drew Steanson Francesco Tesolin Charles Andrew Thomas Zi-Ken Toh Kitty Vaughan

Roseanne-Marie & William Verrill Edward Verrill Henry Verrill John Peter White Jr Max Whitehead Eleanor Wilkinson Daniel & Thomas Wilkinson-Horsfield Eliza Winter Jennifer Wood Miss Woods Zijian Zhang and Anonymous Donors

Our warm thanks to all our supporters 55

The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Grange Festival 2018 © Simon Annand

The dining room, The Grange Festival © Shannon Robinson

The Barber of Seville, education workshop © John Snelling

Hall of Fame 2017 © Desmond Chewyn

Arriving in style © Shannon Robinson

Il barbiere di Siviglia, The Grange Festival 2018 © Simon Annand

L E N O Z Z E D I F I G A RO MO Z A RT

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

L E N O Z Z E D I F I G A RO MOZ A RT Libretto by Arrigo Boito after Beaumarchais’ Le mariage de Figaro Sung in Italian with English surtitles by Kenneth Chalmers

Conductor Richard Egarr Director Martin Lloyd-Evans Designer Tim Reed Lighting Designer Peter Mumford

T H E AC A D E M Y O F A N C I E N T M U S I C

Leader Bojan Čičić T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L C H O RU S

Chorus Master Anthony Kraus Assistant Conductor Assistant Director Repetiteur Movement Director Production Manager Wardrobe Supervisor

Tom Primrose William Edelsten Lisa Engelbrecht Mitchell Harper Tom Nickson Kate Lyons

CA S T

Count Almaviva Countess Almaviva Susanna Figaro Cherubino Marcellina Don Basilio Dr Bartolo Antonio Barbarina

Toby Girling Simona Mihai Ellie Laugharne Roberto Lorenzi Wallis Giunta Louise Winter Ben Johnson Jonathan Best Richard Suart Rowan Pierce

This production is supported by

The Club Figaro Syndicate Robert & Fiona Boyle | Jamie & Caroline Balfour | Tom & Sarah Floyd | Christopher & Frances Kemball These performances are sponsored by

6 June Barclays | 8 June Taylor’s Port | 19 June Stifel The musical edition used in these performances is published by Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel. By arrangement with Faber Music Ltd, London. In association with The Grange Festival, the Academy of Ancient Music is proud to present Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro in a concert performance at London’s Barbican on July 4th, enabling this wonderful cast to be seen by a wider metropolitan audience.

L E N O Z Z E D I F I G A RO

Synopsis Seville

AC T ON E

AC T T H R E E

On the morning of their wedding, Figaro, delighted with the convenient room his master has given them as a bedroom, is perplexed by Susanna’s unhappiness. She spells out that the Count wants to resurrect the ancient ‘droit du seigneur’, by which the lord of the manor may sleep with the wife of any of his servants on her wedding night. Figaro promises to frustrate the Count’s plans. Marcellina has come to hold Figaro to the terms of a loan. If he fails to repay her, the contract states that he must marry her. She has brought Bartolo, a lawyer and her ex-employer, to help press her case – a task sweetened for him by the prospect of avenging Figaro for his part in preventing his marriage to the Countess. Cherubino, a love-struck, aristocratic teenager, has been caught canoodling with Barbarina. He hopes that the Countess, on whom Cherubino has a terrible crush, will intercede on his behalf, and stop the Count from sending him away. When the Count turns up, Cherubino hides. The Count uncovers the skulking teenager and, furious, says that Cherubino must join the army. His ranting is interrupted by Figaro, who has brought the household staff to sing the praises of the Count in the hope of embarrassing him into allowing a quick wedding. Figaro taunts Cherubino about military life, while surreptitiously telling him to stick around as he has a cunning plan to outwit the Count…

The Count wonders what on earth is going on. The Countess, meanwhile, has a new plan, involving a swap with Susanna, each dressing as the other. All Susanna has to do is to set up a secret assignation with the Count. Moved by the Countess’s plight, Susanna agrees and meets with the Count. As she’s leaving, he overhears her telling Figaro they’ve ‘won the case already’. Realising he’s been tricked, the Count vows revenge. Meanwhile, the loan contract has been declared legal, and Marcellina is on the point of claiming Figaro as her husband when it is discovered that she is, in fact, his mother – and Bartolo his father. The Countess vows to recapture her husband’s love. She dictates a letter to Susanna, sealed with a pin. The presentation of some flowers is disrupted by Antonio, who reveals that one of the girls is, in fact, Cherubino. Some fast-talking from Figaro persuades them all to get on with the wedding ceremony – a double wedding, as Marcellina and Bartolo have decided to do the decent thing and get married. During the reception, Figaro notices the Count surreptitiously reading a letter – sealed with a pin. The celebrations continue.

AC T T WO In her bedroom, the Countess laments her husband’s waning love. Figaro and Susanna promise to help her: first they will provoke the Count’s jealousy by sending him a letter suggesting the Countess has a lover; next, Susanna will tempt the Count with promises of a romantic assignation in the garden, but instead of Susanna, they will send Cherubino, disguised as a woman, and shame him into submission. Desperate, the Countess agrees. Cherubino, smitten with the Countess, appears, and the two women begin to dress him for the farcical rendezvous. The Count knocks at the door. In a panic, Cherubino locks himself in the wardrobe while the furious Count rages at his wife. Seeking some way of opening the locked door, the Count leaves, giving Cherubino the opportunity to escape through the window. On their return, both the Count and the Countess are stunned when Susanna emerges from the wardrobe. Figaro arrives to escort everyone to the wedding. The Count confronts him with the anonymous letter, but Figaro pleads innocence. The arrival of the gardener, Antonio adds to the confusion and Figaro saves the situation only by claiming that it was he who jumped from the window. Just when all seems resolved, Marcellina storms in, accompanied by Bartolo and Basilio, pressing the terms of Figaro’s loan – he must pay up or marry her.

AC T F OU R Barbarina has lost the pin which the Count asked her to return to Susanna indicating his acceptance of their secret meeting. Figaro finds it and jumps to the conclusion that Susanna is unfaithful. He gets Basilio and Bartolo to hide so they can witness her treachery. The Countess and Susanna arrive, having swapped clothes. Susanna is livid at Figaro’s assumption of her infidelity, and takes the opportunity to provoke him, pretending she really is meeting a lover. Cherubino unexpectedly appears, looking for Barbarina. Distracted by a woman who appears to be Susanna (in fact the Countess dressed as Susanna), he tries to seduce her. The Count frightens Cherubino away and sets about seducing the disguised Countess himself. Seeing what he believes to be Susanna’s compliance with the Count, Figaro emerges, devastated. Eventually, Figaro and Susanna discover that neither is being unfaithful, but decide to continue with the charade to teach the Count a lesson. Believing he is witnessing the seduction of his wife, the Count storms in. Everyone suggests that the Count show mercy, but it isn’t until the Countess herself appears that he realises what he’s done. The healing power of forgiveness is celebrated, and everyone celebrates Figaro and Susanna’s wedding.

Interval

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

THE QUINTESSENTIAL REVOLUTIONARY ARTIST

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The overture to The Marriage of Figaro opens with a low chuckle that grows to an unstoppable guffaw of laughter. But what the overture doesn’t quite prepare us for is the anger, heartbreak and tenderness that is to follow, taking the opera’s audience on an emotional roller-coaster that leaves it uncertain whether to laugh or cry from one minute to the next. It was Mozart himself, finger on the pulse of his times, who suggested turning a French play that had recently caused an uproar in Paris into an Italian opera for the court theatre in Vienna. Originally banned by King Louis XVI, Beaumarchais’s play The Marriage of Figaro, eventually performed in 1784, concerns the conflict between the aristocratic Count Almaviva, and his servant Figaro over the Count’s attentions to Figaro’s bride-to-be Susanna. The battle between masters and servants had long been a staple of comic drama, familiar from a thousand commedia dell’arte plots. But Beaumarchais brought to his archetypal story a topical twist that made it much more provocative, for Count Almaviva claims the feudal right of the lord of the manor to enjoy the favours of any newlywed on his estate on her bridal night. Lurking beneath the age-old plot is a devastating critique of the social structures of late eighteenth-century

Portrait of Louis XVI of France Antoine-François Callet (1741–1823) © public domain

Europe, and of the continued dominance of the aristocracy, which erupts in a great tirade by Figaro against the injustices of wealth and power that still resonates today. Napoleon considered that the play had been the first step towards the French Revolution, which began only five years later. Mozart knew about the indignities of class all too well, and often expressed the rage of those who are condemned to lowly social status because of their birth. In 1777 he wrote to his father to convey his own resentment that, for all his talent as a musician, he was treated as no better than a servant: as a court musician in Salzburg he was placed above the cooks but below the valets in the pecking order. After a humiliating encounter with some aristocrats in Augsburg he resolved from that moment, he told his father, “to let the whole company of patricians lick my arse”. The play spoke directly to his own experience. And Mozart was politically astute enough to know that the play’s message was also in accord with Emperor Joseph II’s own attempts to modernise the creaking Habsburg empire by dismantling the power of the feudal aristocracy. Despite having banned German translations of Beaumarchais’s play, Joseph let Mozart go ahead with the opera, knowing that at the court theatre its provocative message would be relayed to an aristocratic audience.

The Milbanke and Melbourne Families on ‘The Hunt’ George Stubbs (1724–1806), circa 1769, National Gallery © public domain

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In 1781 Joseph II’s Serfdom Patent abolishing serfdom had placed great emphasis upon the freedom of marriage for servants, and Le nozze di Figaro is a plea for those newly emancipated from feudal obligation to be allowed to unite freely in marriage. For many of the Enlightenment thinkers, marriage was the sole institution capable of reconciling the contradictory needs of the individual with those of the family, property, religion and state; a contractual agreement between free individuals that stood as a symbol for other social and political contracts. And the ideal of marriage based upon love lay at the centre of Mozart’s own social vision as one of the key markers of the distinction between the new middle classes and the aristocracy. In a letter to his father of 1778, Mozart asks his father to send his congratulations to an aristocratic Salzburg acquaintance who had recently got married. But he cannot refrain from casting aspersions: “I wish him joy with my whole heart; but his, I daresay, is again one of those money matches and nothing else. I should not like to marry in this way. People of noble birth must never marry from inclination or love, but only from interest and all kinds of secondary considerations… We poor humble people can not only choose a wife whom we love and who loves us, but we may, can and do take such a one.” Beaumarchais’s play is a fast-moving intrigue with ingenious twists and turns, plots and subplots. Mozart’s Italian librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, had to shape this into an opera. “I did not make a translation of this excellent comedy” he later recalled, “but rather an adaptation or, let us say, an extract. To this end… I had to omit, apart from an entire act, many a very charming scene and a number of good jests and sallies with which it is strewn, in place of which I had to substitute canzonettas, arias, choruses, and other forms and words susceptible to music.” And he had to tone down some of the more confrontational political content. Nonetheless, social criticism is inherent in the plot, expressed in the anger of Figaro and Susanna at their predicament. When Figaro realises what his master the Count is up to he declares war in an aria of scarcely controlled rage, “Se vuol ballare”: “If you want to dance, little mister

Count, I’ll play the tune”. The aria starts with a mockingly formal minuet, the dance of the aristocracy, and then explodes into a series of unseemly middle-class hopping dances as Figaro imagines the indignities to which he will subject the Count, Mozart drawing on his audience’s knowledge of the class associations of the dances of his day to make the point. Throughout the opera Mozart carefully deploys his various musical languages (comic, serious, sentimental, parodic) to depict the different characters, and then brings them together in the equalising ensembles and finales. For the ensembles, Mozart was able to construct musical frameworks that permitted characters simultaneously to express entirely different thoughts or emotions in response to the same situation. One of the most remarkable examples is the sextet in Act III when it is revealed that two of Figaro’s staunchest enemies are in fact (plot-spoiler alert) his long-lost parents; as the revelations and surprises unfold, and as the characters change relationships and allegiances, Mozart matches every plot twist and turn effortlessly in the music. Even more remarkable are the end-of-act finales, when the dramatic action is brought to a climax, with all of the characters thrown together in mounting chaos and confusion. Mozart paces his finales carefully, allowing the tension to build slowly until it explodes like a suppressed geyser. And the opera is not just about social issues. The theme of loss, of both happiness and innocence, is also prevalent throughout. Cherubino, the adolescent page boy enraptured by every women he meets, is expelled from the Edenic garden of his innocent desires after gaining guilty knowledge of the Count’s amours; Figaro’s bellicose aria Non più andrai at the end of Act I depicts the adult world outside Eden as a battlefield of hardship and strife. The Countess repeatedly bemoans her lost happiness, and the Count is tormented by the knowledge that his servant Figaro will enjoy fulfilment with Susanna from which he is excluded. Susanna invokes the recovery of Eden in the nocturnal idyll of her Act IV aria Deh vieni, in which the whole frantic, bustling world seems to stand still. The gardener’s daughter Barbarina, in her wistful little

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The Storming of The Bastille on 14 July 1789, which later meant the end of the Ancien Régime Watercolour, Jean-Pierre Houël (1735–1813) © public domain

cavatina at the beginning of the last act, with the banal words “I have lost it”, ostensibly laments a lost pin. Nudge-nudgingly we know that the song refers to the loss of her sexual innocence; but in truth, it mourns a whole fallen world of regret for lost innocence. The German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller, born three years after Mozart, wrote a famous essay on the “naïve” and “sentimental” in literature. In this essay he identified humankind’s sense of loss as its primary existential experience. The naive artist is lucky enough not to experience existence as loss and celebrates the world as it is, whereas the sentimental artist conveys modern humankind’s longing to regain its lost unity with nature through the artistic modes of the elegy and idyll. Both modes lie at the heart of Le nozze di Figaro, in which Mozart proves himself to be the quintessential “sentimental” artist. People living in societies undergoing the fundamental transition from closed, customary and religious patterns of organisation to more

open, individualistic, relativistic and secular systems experience with special intensity humankind’s otherwise universal (since all human beings must abandon infancy) sense of a lost past in which order, wholeness and certainty prevailed. The Vienna in which Mozart lived for ten years between 1781 and his death in 1791 was a society undergoing one of the most rapid processes of modernisation hitherto experienced anywhere. During the reign of Joseph II, between 1780–1790, the Habsburg Empire, backward and impoverished, was dragged breathlessly and traumatically from the medieval into the modern age, a process that had taken place over three centuries in England, and over two centuries in France. No great artist has been more acutely aware of the nature of this transition than Mozart, nor conveyed its impact so profoundly or movingly.

Nicholas Till Director, Centre for Research in Opera and Music Theatre, School of Media, Film and Music University of Sussex

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THE RULES OF THE GAME, AND BEYOND

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Think of a ball game. The ball is the thing which escapes, which flies in all directions, which never bounces or rolls entirely true, which always has a certain bias, which wants to play. Where and how do you catch, contain or control the ball? The where may be simpler than the how. The where could be a court, like a tennis court, with its lines and squares and rectangles, the baseline, the service line, the sidelines. These are all human constructions, arbitrary but necessary. It could be a billiard table, with its cushions, its pockets and its lines. If the ball escapes the table (as it very occasionally does with a spectacularly mishit shot), it loses its power, it becomes just another random uncontrollable element or a fish out of water. Mozart apparently loved to play billiards and was rather good at it (not really a surprise). The Irish tenor Michael Kelly, who sang Don Basilio and Don Curzio in the first production of The Marriage of Figaro at the Burgtheater in Vienna in May 1786, recounts in his memoirs how he played hundreds of times with Mozart and never won once. If there was no-one to play with, Herr Mozart played Herr Mozart. It seems he also composed at the billiard table, whether or not with manuscript paper strewn about on the baize, as shown in the film Amadeus. It is not fanciful to imagine some connection between the fine art of controlling the potentially freewheeling balls with the tip of a cue and the miraculous balancing of the most volatile human emotions and actions which Mozart achieved in his operatic collaborations with Lorenzo Da Ponte, above all in The Marriage of Figaro.

The Marriage of Figaro is about love, in almost all its imaginable forms, from incipient to passé, from the most shapeless and polymorphic to the most enduring and stable, from youthful ardour to mature regret, and not without consideration of the forms love sadly decays into when it does not meet its match or live up to its highest aspirations, jealousy, possessive spite, impotent lust, vengefulness and all the rest. Of course, The Marriage of Figaro is not just about love, the most powerful, uncontrollable feeling humans experience, the force which courses through all living things as Lucretius described it at the beginning of De Rerum Natura, which, according to Dante (in Paradiso Canto 33, to which we will return) binds the universe together. The opera is also, as its name suggests, about marriage: that means about love in society, the ideal transformation of the uncontrollable freewheeling force of desire into an enduring and stable social bond. Society adds its own spins and biases to those already present in individual psychology. It is, as we might say, by no means a level playing field. The green baize is torn, the tennis court is sloping and full of potholes and it may even be, as John McEnroe once claimed when a line call went against him, that the lines aren’t straight. All relationships are warped by differences of class, gender, age and so on. Chaos and anarchy, even incipient violence, loom large in The Marriage of Figaro. The bubbling energy of the beginning of the overture (is there a more perfect one in the whole operatic literature?) speaks of an energy which is barely containable, or barely contained.

Still-Life of Musical Instruments Pieter de Ring (circa 1615—1660) © public domain

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The first two acts, after the deceptively tranquil, bourgeois opening scene of the measuring up of Figaro and Susanna’s bedroom for the marital bed (in which numbers take on a rather different complexion from the one they assume in Leporello’s catalogue aria in Don Giovanni), are a build-up of craziness and impossibility which reach their climax in the astonishing Act 2 finale. This (to change the name of the game slightly) is like the most impossible snooker you could imagine; almost everyone is snookered by everybody else. Figaro and Susanna are snookered by the Count, Figaro is also snookered by Marcellina and Bartolo, the Count is snookered (only just) by Susanna and the Countess, Cherubino is snookered by more or less everybody (though almost everybody, in their hearts of hearts, would be happy to be unsnookered by him). Even when Cherubino miraculously escapes, he encounters the most unlikely snooker in the form of the drunken, barely conscious gardener Antonio. How on earth can all this chaos and confusion, arising from blocked and misdirected and misunderstood passions, in some cases advanced and protected by outmoded social hierarchies, rules and customs, possibly be contained in order? It would be far too simple to say that the

answer lies in playing according to the rules, or to new and improved rules. The Count believes he can play by his own rules, which include the antiquated custom of the droit du seigneur. Figaro, once he hears of the Count’s designs on his bride-to-be, is determined not so much to beat the lecherous nobleman at his own game (Se vuol ballare signor Contino), as to re-right the rules, not just for his own marriage but for all future marriages. It turns out, however, that men, who have such belief in their intelligence, their power and dignity, are never really up to speed when it comes to this most complicated of all games. It is the women, and especially Susanna, the cleverest and most capable of all the characters in the opera, who understand that this game cannot be played straight, because in reality and not just in John McEnroe’s imagination the lines are not straight, that it involves a kind of necessary and virtuous deception. What is to stop all this game-playing descending either to cynicism or even worse, to the violence and tragedy that come when virtuous deception is imperfectly understood? This is the fate of the characters in Jean Renoir’s not so much Mozartian as Beaumarchaisian film La Règle du Jeu (which is headed, you may remember, with the following quotation from Le Mariage de Figaro:

Sensitive hearts, faithful hearts, Who shun love whither it does range, Cease to be so bitter: Is it a crime to change? If Cupid was given wings, Was it not to flitter?

Cupid Blindfolded Fresco, Piero della Francesca © public domain

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A scene from Mozart’s opera Le nozze di Figaro from the 19th century Watercolour, Anonymous © public domain

The over-literal gamekeeper Schumacher, seeing, or so he assumes, the womanising Octave having a tryst with his (Schumacher’s) wife Lisette in a greenhouse, shoots “Octave”. In fact, “Octave” is the romantic airman André dressed in Octave’s coat, and “Lisette” is the mistress of the house, Christine. Perhaps gameplaying only works for the upper classes. Or to put it another way, what lies beyond game-playing? Is the game only a game, or is it the reflection of a diviner order? Beaumarchais and Jean Renoir may share a certain (dare one say French?) fatalism and cynicism about love, but Mozart and da Ponte, at least in The Marriage of Figaro, do not. A double articulation of an enduring love, a love of infinite tender resource and of shining not-to-be-extinguished constancy, stands at the heart of The Marriage of Figaro. It is sung by Susanna and the Countess, in those arias and lovingly complicit and conspiratorial duets which take this opera to a place far removed from anything imagined by Beaumarchais or Jean Renoir. This love is closer to the ecstatic vision which Dante unfolds in the concluding Canto 33 of Paradiso, “the noonday torch of charity” and “on earth, among the mortals…a living spring of hope.” This “loving-kindness does not answer/ the one who asks, but it is often ready/ to answer freely long before the asking”.

A Commedia dell’arte Scene set in an Italian Landscape Oil on canvas, Peeter van Bredael © public domain

These words come from St Bernard’s prayer to the Virgin, requesting that she intercede for the long-travelling pilgrim Dante as he approaches the culmination of his journey. What Dante finally sees, or glimpses, is a vision of miraculous, hardwon order: “the substances, accidents, dispositions” of the universe, which normally seem “separate, scattered”, “ingathered/ and bound by love into one single volume.” This, I believe, is what Mozart and Da Ponte achieved, once and for all time, in The Marriage of Figaro, the opera which Joseph Haydn heard in his dreams and tried to put on the stage at Esterháza (but was prevented by the death of his patron), of which Brahms said “it is quite beyond me how anyone could create anything so perfect; nothing like it was ever done again.” At the very end of Paradiso 33, which means at the conclusion of the entire Divina Commedia, Dante confronts the ultimate conundrum, the equivalent of the geometer’s attempt to square the circle: how can the human form – that is to say humanity, with all its propensity to error, violence and misunderstanding – fit into what he now sees as the intricately infolded and perfect unity and harmony of the universe? He is struck by a flash of illumination: the recognition that his “desire and will were moved already – like a wheel revolving uniformly – by the Love that moves the sun and other stars.”

Harry Eyres Harry Eyres wrote the FT Saturday column Slow Lane. His most recent book is Horace and Me: Life Lessons from an Ancient Poet.

FA L S TA F F V ER DI

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L

FA L S TA F F V E R DI Libretto by Arrigo Boito

Sung in Italian with English surtitles by Christopher Luscombe and Louise Bakker

Conductor Francesco Cilluffo Director Christopher Luscombe Designer Simon Higlett Lighting Designer Peter Mumford B O U R N E M O U T H S Y M P H O N Y O RC H E S T R A

Leader Amyn Merchant T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L C H O RU S

Chorus Master Anthony Kraus Assistant Conductor Assistant Director Repetiteur Movement Director Production Manager Wardrobe Supervisor

William Cole Louise Bakker Lisa Engelbrecht Mitchell Harper Tom Nickson Karen Large

CA S T Sir John Falstaff Robert Hayward Master Ford Nicholas Lester Fenton Alessandro Fisher Dr Caius Graham Clark Bardolfo Christopher Gillett Pistola Pietro di Bianco Alice Ford Elin Pritchard Nannetta Rhian Lois Mistress Quickly Susan Bickley Meg Page Angela Simkin

This production is proudly supported by

Lord and Lady Laidlaw

Published by Casa Ricordi, Milano (Universal Music Publishing Group). By arrangement with G. Ricordi & Co. (London) Ltd.

FA L S TA F F

Synopsis Windsor

Sir John Falstaff, staying in Windsor and down on his luck, decides to restore his fortunes by seducing two married women, Alice Ford and Meg Page. He sends them identical love letters, but the ladies are close friends, and soon discover his double-dealing. They set about turning the tables with the help of their friend Mistress Quickly. Meanwhile, Frank Ford, who is prone to jealousy, hears of Falstaff’s interest in his wife and decides to test her fidelity. Pretending to be Signor Fontana, a rejected suitor, he pays Falstaff to seduce Alice on his behalf and very nearly interrupts their assignation. Frank and Alice’s daughter, Nannetta, is in love with a local lad, Fenton, but her father would like her to marry one of his friends,

Dr Caius, a wealthy if elderly GP. Alice is determined not only to punish Falstaff but also to enable her daughter to marry for love. Falstaff is foolish enough to attempt another secret meeting with Alice. This time their encounter takes place at midnight in Windsor Great Park, and the deluded knight is obliged to wear fancy dress. The Fords, by now reunited, lead the whole town in teaching their aristocratic visitor a lesson. In the confusion, one of Nannetta’s suitors is successful and everyone heads back to Falstaff’s hotel to toast the happy couple and laugh about the events of the last twenty-four hours.

Christopher Luscombe

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A LYRICAL COMEDY THAT RESEMBLES NO OTHER?

All Falstaff costume drawings by Simon Higlett Â© Simon Higlett

FA L S TA F F

Two items are accidentally swapped; two young lovers realise their love dream despite parental opposition; an ageing man finds retribution having vainly sought financial and sexual gain; nocturnal scenes; disguises; serenades. Anyone who has faint familiarity with such masterpieces as Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (1786), Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816), or Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (1843) will easily detect in this list some of the staple ingredients of the operatic genre known as opera buffa. Before Falstaff saw the light of day, taking the operatic world by storm in 1893, few would have associated such ingredients with Giuseppe Verdi, the towering figure who dominated the world of Italian opera throughout the mid and late nineteenth century. Opera buffa had seemingly declined during the nineteenth century, whilst opera based on tragic subjects, for which Verdi himself had a predilection, rose to extraordinary heights. The German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus described the fate of opera buffa in stark terms: ‘Strictly speaking, the history of Italian opera buffa had reached its end with Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia … Verdi’s Falstaff (1893) and, long before that, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale … are as it were posthumous works in the history of this genre, exceptions to the rule that nineteenth-century Italian opera was all but taken up with opera seria’.

In fact, Dahlhaus’s words amount to an overstatement. Opera buffa remained an essential fixture in the world of opera throughout the nineteenth century. As Il barbiere di Siviglia and other comic masterpieces by Rossini earned a permanent place in the repertoire of opera houses around the world, new opere buffe were created regularly between Don Pasquale and Falstaff, many of which enjoyed considerable success in the nineteenth century, from the Ricci brothers’ Crispino e la comare (1850) to Carlo Pedrotti’s Tutti in maschera (1856). And Verdi, despite the notorious fiasco of Un giorno di regno (1840), his only opera buffa before Falstaff, held no prejudice towards comedy: he introduced significant elements of comedy into such tragedies as Rigoletto (1851), Un ballo in maschera (1859), and La forza del destino (1862, revised 1869), and never ruled out composing opera buffa again. On the contrary: when in 1879 the Gazzetta musicale di Milano indicated that, according to Rossini, Verdi was not suited for comedy, Verdi’s reaction in a letter to Ricordi was vehement: ‘for twenty years now I have been looking for a libretto for an opera buffa and now that I have so to speak found one ready, you, with that article, put into the public’s head a crazy desire to hiss the opera even before it is written…’

Falstaff Chorus Act 3 © Simon Higlett

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The ‘so to speak’ is key. Verdi was prone to hyperbole, and no opera buffa was actually on his desk in 1879. It is during that year, however, that friendly relations were re-established between Verdi and Arrigo Boito, the composer and librettist who had authored the text for Verdi’s Inno delle nazioni (1862); the two had then fallen out over a caustic ode by Boito about Italian art which Verdi greatly resented. Following the rapprochement, the two would collaborate on the revision of Simon Boccanegra (1881), then on the creation of Otello (1887), and finally on the concept for a new comic work, which they first discussed in the summer of 1889. Boito sent a plot summary and Verdi’s response was thoroughly positive: ‘Excellent! Excellent!’ And on 10 July Verdi proclaimed: ‘Amen! So be it! We’ll write this Falstaff, then!’ Both committed to secrecy (a word Verdi underlined three times!); their project was not to be publicised, and Verdi remained cautious throughout most of the creative process. Even when the news of a Falstaff in the making was leaked to the press in November 1890, he felt the need to clarify to Ricordi that he had been working ‘to pass the time’ and that there was no chance that the opera would be finished anytime soon: ‘in a word, the whole of 1891 will not be sufficient for me to get to the end’. Indeed, following completion of the libretto in spring 1890, Verdi’s progress was irregular, as he took long breaks and at times struggled with depression; a draft of the whole opera was finished only in the autumn of 1891, and another year went into completing the orchestration. In the meantime, there had been various discussions of casting and, once the score was done, rehearsals began. The triumphal premiere took place on 9 February 1893. For Verdi, it was yet another extraordinary achievement – a crowning one, to be sure, made even more formidable by his advanced age. Who else could lay claim to having taken the opera world by storm during his 80th year? For Italy, it was a national event of the greatest magnitude, celebrated by the presence of nobility, politicians and intellectuals. Once again, Verdi had made history.

On 3 December 1890, while he was hard at work drafting the opera, Verdi made a statement that has remained famous – and which is far too frequently used as a tagline that defines Falstaff as a whole. ‘Boito’, he claimed, ‘has written for me a lyrical comedy that resembles no other’ (my emphasis). There is no question that Boito’s Falstaff, with its relentless dramatic pace, structural freedom, inventiveness of word play and pervasive use of irony, is a highly original libretto; and Verdi’s music rose to the occasion, focusing to an unprecedented extent on treatment of individual verbal expressions, a wealth of orchestral effects, and rhythmic and formal flexibility. That said, a note of caution: Verdi’s words refer specifically to the libretto, and one should bear in mind that only some of the music had been drafted by the end of 1890. For all its modernity and shift away from established norms and traditions, Falstaff is also a celebration of opera buffa of times past – of the staple ingredients mentioned at the beginning of this article and of many others. Following the world premiere, several reviewers drew comparisons between Falstaff and the likes of Cimarosa and Rossini; those comparisons should be read in context, woven as they were into a thick fabric of nationalistic celebration, but Verdi himself saw the enduring appeal of that tradition, and in particular of Rossini’s Barbiere, which, as late as 1898, he described as ‘the most beautiful opera buffa there is’. Many years earlier, in a famous letter in 1882, he jotted down a musical example from that opera (the phrase ‘Signor, giudizio, per carità’, which Figaro sings repeatedly in the Act 1 finale), describing it in striking terms: ‘this is neither melody nor harmony: it is the word declaimed, correct, true, and it is music… Amen’. The fact that Verdi singled out this detail, rather than one of the memorable lyrical sections in Barbiere, resonates with his treatment of now-iconic vocal gestures like Bardolfo and Pistola’s ‘Siam pentiti e contriti’ and Mistress Quickly’s ‘Reverenza!’ Even Quickly’s own ‘Povera donna!’ is a marvellous example of ‘word declaimed’, and a surprising quotation

‘this is neither melody nor harmony: it is the word declaimed, correct, true, and it is music… Amen’

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(translated into pure comedy), of the same words and music famously sung by Violetta in Act 1 of La traviata (1853). Ford’s agitation at the thought of being betrayed by Alice might evoke the huffing and puffing Don Bartolo trying to restrain Rosina. And the two young lovers, Nannetta and Fenton, are never granted more than a few stolen moments together, but they are given some of the most memorable melodic lines in all of Verdi – their solos in Act 3, of course, but also the celebrated ‘Bocca baciata non perde ventura’, which moves us no less than any love duet from Rossini’s La Cenerentola (1817) or Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. The fugue ‘Tutto nel mondo è burla’ deserves a special mention. With its irony and exuberance, it ends the opera and Verdi’s operatic career on a high note and stands out as one of the most haunting pages of Falstaff. But it may be understood, at the same time, as an homage to the convention of concluding an opera buffa with an ensemble that spells out ‘the moral of the tale’. An example that could have been on Verdi’s mind is the closing passage of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1787), ‘Questo è il fin di chi fa mal’. (Another reference to Don Giovanni is of course the minuet in Act 3, and both Un giorno di regno and Rigoletto include a quotation of the Act 1 minute from Mozart’s opera.) All in all, then, the recognition that Falstaff is ‘a comedy that resembles no other’, a work of extraordinary novelty and unique standing both in Verdi’s oeuvre and in late nineteenth century Italian opera, should not obscure the fundamental fact that this piece, in so many ways, makes us feel right at home with whatever we might know about comedy, opera and opera buffa. Verdi had lived a long life, and so had opera, and Falstaff celebrates equally those long lives, enriching both with a new chapter that combines novelty and continuity. In the end, Verdi’s Falstaff is best understood, perhaps, not as a comic masterpiece in splendid isolation, but as a highly innovative work that, nonetheless, is linked to the tradition of nineteenth-century opera buffa as Verdi understood and loved it.

Francesco Izzo Professor and Head of Music at the University of Southampton. He is General Editor of the critical edition The Works of Giuseppe Verdi.

Falstaff © Simon Higlett

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VERDI, SHAKESPEARE, AND THE QUEST FOR AUTHENTICITY

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Verdi and Shakespeare… Shakespeare and Verdi: something quite magical happens when we place these two names in juxtaposition with one another. They conjure up notions of genius: here are two masters of their craft, dramatists who towered over their contemporaries, and who still draw audiences to the theatre today. Rigoletto, Hamlet, Aida, and King Lear may use poetic and musical language that belongs to another era, yet they still manage to speak and sing to us across global and chronological divides with extraordinary immediacy and relevance. But what happens when they come together, crossing the centuries, in the creation of something new – opera? Indeed, this is a question that we might ask about Mozart and Beaumarchais, Purcell and Virgil, Monteverdi and Homer, as the transformation of a literary text into an opera invariably reminds us of the fundamental irrationality of the genre, the sheer folly of having characters sing rather than speak, and the impact this necessarily has on the spoken word. How do we judge the success of such an enterprise? Do we expect librettists and composers to be faithful to the authors whose works inspire their operas – to create “authentic versions” of a previously existing literary source? Or are we more interested in capturing something like the “spirit” of the original, whatever that might be? Is it possible to judge the newlycreated work on its own terms, without comparing it to the original, particularly when the characters and situations have acquired cultural meaning and significance over the centuries that transcends the original? These questions are particularly critical when we consider Verdi’s three encounters with Shakespeare: Macbeth (1846; revised 1865), Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). Who is not beguiled by the notion of the brilliant young librettist and composer Arrigo Boito, tempting Verdi out

of retirement with Shakespeare as the lure, a fact that has led scholars to attach greater importance to Macbeth and speculate about his presumed intention to set King Lear? Indeed, the availability of so much of Verdi’s correspondence allows us to look over his shoulder, to understand how Verdi read Shakespeare, his sense of how the drama should be paced, and the kinds of operatic voices that would best embody his characters. Thus, we read the following in a letter to librettist Francesco Maria Piave on 4 September 1846, at the beginning of what would become a fraught collaboration: “This tragedy [Macbeth] is one of the greatest creations of man! If we can’t do something great with it, let us at least try to do something out of the ordinary.” And more impatiently in a postscript from a letter of 29 October 1846: “Why the devil don’t you know what to make the witches say when Macbeth has fainted? Isn’t it in Shakespeare? Isn’t there a sentence that helps the aerial spirits restore his lost senses?…Oh poor me… Farewell, Farewell!” In realising Shakespeare, Verdi was also unwilling to compromise with his singers, who had to be prepared to declaim rather than sing, to make ugly and unattractive sounds if required dramatically: “No actor in Italy can do Macbeth better than [Felice] Varesi: because of his way of singing, because of his intelligence, and even because he’s small and ugly. Perhaps you’ll see he sings out of tune, but it doesn’t matter at all because the part would be almost completely declaimed, and he’s very good at that.” But he would seek the opposite for Desdemona. “The true Desdemona is yet to be found,” Verdi wrote to Giulio Ricordi in May of 1887. “Desdemona is a part where the thread, the melodic line never stops from the first to the last note. Just as Iago must only declaim and snicker. Just as Otello, now warrior, now cast down into the filth, now as ferocious as a savage, must sing and howl; so, Desdemona must always sing.”

Portrait of Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), 1886 Giovanni Boldoni (1842–1931), Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome. © public domain

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Yet even with Boito rather than the beleaguered Piave at the helm, it is essential to recognise that the Shakespeare to which he and Verdi so often refer in their correspondence had – since the early seventeenth century – undergone a continual process of metamorphosis and reinvention. Restoration audiences in mid-seventeenth century England, for instance, preferred happy endings, female actresses, elaborate stage machinery, and insisted on a far greater role for music and dance. Thus, in 1708 a prompter could describe how The Tragedy of Macbeth was “alter’d by Sir William Davenant; being drest in all it’s Finery, as new Cloath’s, new Scenes, Machines as flying for the Witches; with all the Singing and Dancing in it.” Further metamorphoses occurred when Shakespeare crossed the English Channel. August Wilhelm Schlegel’s German translation and commentary on Shakespeare would be enormously influential, inspiring, among other works, Mendelssohn’s Overture and Incidental Music for Midsummer Night’s Dream, op 61. For Hector Berlioz, Shakespeare was “the whole heaven of art,” revealing “the meaning of grandeur, beauty, and dramatic truth.” The version of Romeo and Juliet that he saw in Paris with English actors in 1827 may have inspired his dramatic choral symphony Romeo et Juliet, op 17 (and the ill-fated marriage to the actress Harriet Smithson), but the numerous cuts, censored passages and additional scenes might well have given Shakespeare pause, despite the fact that it was given in English. The versions of Shakespeare that were known to Italians were similarly “inauthentic.” Rossini’s Otello (1816), with a libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsa, was based on a French adaption of the play (Othello, ou le More de Venise by Jean François Ducis [1792]); it was heavily criticised for its departures from Shakespeare (the entire opera takes place in Venice), though Rossini’s version of the “Willow Song” in the final scene is exquisite. The Shakespeare that Verdi came to know and love was transmitted through Carlo Rusconi’s prose translation from 1838, which – though heavily influenced by Schlegel – had numerous inaccuracies, omissions, and

additions. Rusconi’s Macbeth, for instance, had absorbed some of Davenant’s extra material for the witches, which found its way into Verdi’s 1865 revision of that opera. But what differentiated Otello and Falstaff from so many other treatments of Shakespeare in the nineteenth century was Arrigo Boito: his literary sophistication, his ability to craft concise, vivid poetry that enabled Verdi to avoid conventional formal structures and find a flexible dramatic pacing better suited to the dynamic nature of Shakespeare’s plays. Boito knew enough English to have read Othello, Merry Wives of Windsor and the two parts of Henry IV that provided additional material on Falstaff in the original, and was familiar enough with the rest of Shakespeare’s plays to enrich Falstaff with other Shakespearean nuggets. By the time he crafted the libretto for Otello and Falstaff, Giulio Carcano’s verse translation (1875–1882) was also available. His most important source, however, seems to have been the scholarly French translation by Victor Hugo; the treatment of Othello even included a French translation of Shakespeare’s source, a sixteenth-century novella by Giraldi Cinthio. With Falstaff, however, the adaptation process seems to have been particularly creative. By then Boito understood well the necessity of tightening, simplifying, or telescoping aspects of the plot, and eliminating or fusing together characters. Of the 23 characters in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff retains only 12. At the same time, Boito complicates Falstaff’s character by interpolating material from Parts I and II of Henry IV. But what is perhaps most fascinating about the libretto is that Boito goes back even further than Shakespeare to the fourteenth century and the writings of Giovanni Boccaccio, sprinkling the libretto with antiquated language. In so doing, he recalls, as James Hepokoski has observed, that The Merry Wives of Windsor, like Othello, was also inspired by a sixteenth-century Italian source: Il pecorone by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino. For Boito, then, this was the way to “Mediterraneanise” Verdi’s music, to “guide Shakespeare’s farce back to its clear Tuscan source.”

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The result, of course, is not “authentic Shakespeare.” But why should we expect Verdi and Boito to be anymore faithful to their sources than Shakespeare was himself? Nonetheless, there is something about Falstaff – the English setting, the quicksilver pace, the earthiness, the domineering presence of the eponymous hero, and the fairy world in Act III that seems – well – Shakespearean. The jokes are Shakespeare’s jokes, but they are also opera’s jokes, for this is a work that both celebrates and mocks the genre with little musical puns and even subtle allusions to Verdi’s other operas: might we see Ford’s jealousy, for instance, as an inversion of Otello’s rage? And lest we take it all too seriously, there’s the final fugue (Tutto nel mondo è burla – All the world is a prank) – perhaps a nod at the finale of Don Giovanni – which invokes one of Shakespeare’s most

celebrated lines from As you Like It: “All the world’s a stage, / and all the men and women merely players.” In nineteenth-century Italy, that stage was in the opera theatre. We might conclude with Verdi’s own comment on Falstaff penned to a friend in December 1890: For forty years I’ve wanted to write a comic opera, and for fifty years I’ve known The Merry Wives of Windsor … Now Boito has taken away all my buts, and has made for me a lyric comedy like none other … Falstaff is a sad man who commits every sort of wicked deed… in a delightful way. He’s a type! Types are so various! The opera is completely comical. Amen. Amen indeed.

Wendy Heller Scheide Professor of Music History and Chair, Department of Music, Princeton University

Falstaff at Herne’s Oak, from The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V, Scene V James Stephanoff (1786–1874) © public domain

BELSHAZZAR H A N DEL

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BELSHAZZAR H A N DE L Libretto by Charles Jennens

Sung in English with surtitles

Conductor Harry Christophers Director Daniel Slater Designer Robert Innes Hopkins Lighting Designer Peter Mumford T H E O RC H E S T R A O F T H E S I X T E E N

Leader Sarah Sexton T HE SI XT EEN

T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L C H O RU S

Chorus Master Anthony Kraus Assistant Conductor Assistant Director Repetiteur Production Manager Wardrobe Supervisor

Anthony Kraus Larah Simpson Oliver John Ruthven Tom Nickson Josie Thomas

CA S T

Belshazzar Nitocris Cyrus Gobrias Daniel

Robert Murray Claire Booth Christopher Ainslie Henry Waddington James Laing

Acrobat Haylee Ann Acrobat Craig Dagostino Acrobat Felipe Reyes Score edited by Peter Jones This production is proudly supported by

Andrew & Caroline Joy | Michael & Sue Pragnell These performances are sponsored by

20 June Sarasin & Partners | 28 June Clifford Chance LLP | 4 July Hunters

BELSH A ZZAR

Synopsis

The action takes place in Babylonia, without and within the city walls. The city, ruled by Belshazzar, is under threat of attack by the Persian Prince Cyrus and his general, Gobrias.

PA RT ON E

PA RT T WO

Within Nitocris, the mother of Belshazzar, reflects on the precarious nature of human power — comparing empires to the ages of man. She contrasts the temporary nature of earthly authority with the permanent power of God.

Without The Euphrates River has been drained, leaving Babylonia vulnerable to attack by Cyrus’s Persian army. Cyrus rallies his troops for one last battle, promising scant resistance from the feasting, drunken Babylonians. The soldiers prepare to enter the city.

Without Babylonians stand on the city walls, mocking the futile attempts of Cyrus’s besieging army to penetrate their defences. Gobrias fears their mockery is justified but Cyrus vows they shall be defeated by their own hubris. Gobrias is fighting to avenge his son, for whose death he holds Belshazzar responsible; revenge is the only hope left to him. Cyrus assures Gobrias that he has a plan: he will drain dry the Euphrates and that night they will enter the city along the dry river bed, while the Babylonians are feasting. A rejuvenated Gobrias is ready for the fight.

Within The feast is at its height. Belshazzar asserts that wine raises men to the status of gods. He mocks a non-existent God and challenges Him to show his power. In the next moment, he sees writing appear on the palace wall. He helps his fellow Babylonians to read the strange text that, at first, only he can see. Belshazzar, obsessed by the meaning of the words, asks the kingdom’s wisest men to help “minister to my sick mind”, but they cannot decipher them. When Nitocris arrives, she informs her son that only Daniel can explain the meaning of the text. Scorning the material rewards offered by Belshazzar, Daniel glosses the words:

Within Daniel, a captive Jewish prophet, consults his books for confirmation that the hour of liberation for his people is at hand. He believes that God will help Cyrus defeat Belshazzar and allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem. His people celebrate. Belshazzar and his fellow Babylonians are feasting in the palace. His mother interrupts the party, decrying the excess. Their ensuing argument leads Belshazzar to provoke the disapproving Jews by drinking from their sacred vessels. He refuses to listen to their pleas or those of his mother, who fears divine vengeance for her son’s impiety: “must I see my son headlong to sure destruction run?” Interval

MENE:

The God you have dishonoured will end your reign

TEKEL:

You have been weighed and found wanting

UPHARSIN:

Your kingdom will be divided among the Medes and Persians Nitocris begs her son to repent, hoping God will prove merciful.

Inside the city walls, Cyrus, Gobrias and the Persian army seek out the enemy. That night, Nitocris is unable to sleep, her mind oscillating between hope and terror — between images of her son repenting and those of him dying a violent death. Daniel counsels against optimism, suggesting that Belshazzar cannot change his fundamental nature. Two messengers arrive with the news that Cyrus’s army has taken over the city. The Jews celebrate their imminent deliverance. Belshazzar prepares for his last stand, resolved to go out fighting. Cyrus enters and Belshazzar is killed. Gobrias rejoices in the death of his enemy, while Cyrus makes preparations for ruling the city. He grants mercy to a grieving Nitocris and freedom to Daniel’s captive people. As the Jews prepare to depart, all praise the power of God and Cyrus assumes the Babylonian throne.

Daniel Slater

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HANDEL AND JENNENS

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Ever since the writing of musical drama began, somewhere around the end of the sixteenth century, the relationship between composers and their librettists has been a tricky one. Certain partnerships, it is true, are made in heaven. We think of Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte in this context or of Verdi and Arrigo Boito, blessed in each case by a shared understanding of the unique character of the operatic project in hand. Others, like that of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, are nuanced with a competitiveness between music and text for the audience’s admiration. Less fortunate librettists find themselves brutally cast aside by the composer after a single commission, whatever its ultimate success. Benjamin Britten was notorious enough in this respect for various collaborators to refer to each other as ‘the corpses’ after an experience of working with him. In the case of George Frideric Handel, the most valuable of such relationships involved someone with no need to make money as a librettist, since he had plenty enough to spare. Charles Jennens was the grandson of a Midlands ironmaster, owner of foundries in Birmingham where the Industrial Revolution was beginning its earliest phase. The upwardly-mobile Jennenses had bought themselves a country estate, Gopsall Hall in Leicestershire, where his parents took care to bring him up in the style becoming a gentleman. Sent to Balliol College, Oxford, he developed a passion for book-collecting and went on to assemble a library of over 10,000 volumes. These included

early quartos of Shakespeare, from which he prepared variorum texts of individual plays, anticipating modern scholarship in their scrupulous editorial principles. A sensitive soul, unmarried and lacking anything in the way of significant family connections, Jennens was a continual prey to ‘an extreme Lowness and Depression of Spirits’, owing, in the words of a contemporary, to ‘a delicate Texture of the nervous System, too liable to Irritation’. Music, as so often in cases like his, took on a therapeutic role, and nobody’s music was dearer to him than that of Handel. He was a subscriber to all the composer’s published works and had manuscript copies made of others, eventually amassing a complete collection of scores. ‘Everything’, declared Jennens, ‘that has been united with Handel’s music, becomes sacred by such a union in my eyes’. His own words were to be thus transfigured when, in the summer of 1738, he gave Handel the text of an oratorio based on the story of David and King Saul in the biblical First Book of Samuel. The epic grandeur of the narrative, rich with vivid episodes and striking characters, were as inspiring to Handel as the elegance and fluency of its versification, and Saul, thanks partly to Jennens, is a truly astounding achievement. The librettist himself, clearly energised by collaborating with Handel, went on to arrange Milton’s poems L’Allegro and Il Penseroso for him as an oratorio, adding a final Moderato section, and produced, the following year, a ‘scripture collection’ of Old and New Testament extracts, which became Messiah.

Portrait of George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Balthasar Denner (Attributed) © public domain

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The relationship between composer and librettist was polite rather than intimate. Though Handel always maintained the social status of a gentleman, living in London’s most fashionable quarter, sporting a coat-ofarms and mixing with the aristocracy, he was shrewd enough to treat Jennens with suitable deference and courtesy. He never contrived, on the other hand, to appear servile, dependent on the other man’s patronage or angling for his financial support. To Jennens this close association with the composer whose work he valued above everyone else’s was enduringly important. It never stopped him, however, from finding fault with Handel, criticising him for everything from his readiness to borrow ideas from other composers to his all-or-nothing impetuosity when working on a new score. Jennens disliked the way in which the composer seemed to treat Messiah’s text too lightly with his musical setting, and deeply disapproved of his choice of the pagan mythological drama Semele, nothing but ‘a bawdy opera’, as part of a solemn Lenten oratorio season. What seems to have divided Handel and Jennens much less than we might imagine was their very different outlook on politics. Handel, erstwhile Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover, who became Britain’s King George I, was faithful to the Hanoverian dynasty and the royal family reciprocated in their devotion to his music. Jennens opposed their claim to the throne, remaining sympathetic to the exiled Stuarts. His fervent Anglican Christianity was of the kind known as ‘Nonjuror’ (from the Latin ‘jurare’, to swear) adopted by clergy and congregations who refused to take the oath of allegiance to a Hanoverian king as head of the Church of England. From the outset of their collaboration, Jennens took the opportunity to promote this subversive partisanship through certain of his Handelian texts. Saul offers us the spiritual and moral dilemma created (as in 1688, when the lawful sovereign James II was driven into exile) when the power of a weak and tyrannical ruler is challenged by a more promising opponent, though the former must always remain ‘the anointed of the Lord’ with a just claim to the throne. In Messiah meanwhile, scriptural verses focus on the mystery of the Eucharist and its

fulfilment in Christ, a belief especially dear to the martyred King Charles I and thus cherished by all Non-jurors, who kept 29 January, the day of his execution, as a solemn festival. When, in the summer of 1744, Jennens furnished Handel with a new oratorio, Belshazzar, the drama was still more overtly political in its subtext. The plot here is loosely based on events in the Book of Daniel, concentrating on the hubris and folly of Belshazzar, King of Babylon, who chooses to feast on the sacramental vessels of the captive Jews while his city is besieged by the Persians, and is duly punished by the Almighty. In the original bible story, a generally garbled version of historical events, it is King Darius of Persia who kills Belshazzar and seizes his kingdom. Jennens, taking hints from Herodotus and Xenophon, replaces him with the actual conqueror of Babylon, Cyrus the Great, shown throughout the oratorio as a heroic warrior, in virtuous contrasts with the debauched and vacillating Belshazzar. This whole presentation reflects the librettist’s absorption with the concept of ‘the Patriot King’, a monarchical ideal proposed some years earlier by the Jacobite Lord Bolingbroke, which Jennens probably hoped might be fulfilled by a restored Stuart sovereign. As for the famous biblical episode of the Writing on the Wall, this embodies another of the writer’s preoccupations, equally favoured by Nonjurors, with the significance of prophecy and its fulfilment, already highlighted for us in Messiah. Handel seized avidly on this new libretto, which Jennens was careful to give him act by act, rather than all at once. Returning to London after a month in the country, ‘I immediately perused the Act of the Oratorio with which you favour’d me, and the little time only I had it, it gives me great Pleasure’. Four weeks later, on 21 August, he took delivery of Act 2 – ‘I am greatly pleased with it and shall use my best endeavours to do it Justice’ – and finished a first draft by 13 September. Only on 2 October, acknowledging the last portion of text, does Handel politely suggest a few cuts. ‘I think it a very fine and sublime Oratorio, only it is really too long; if I should extend the Musick, it would last 4 Hours and more’.

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There is plenty of evidence, not just from these letters but from the score itself, that Jennens was continually at Handel’s shoulder during Belshazzar’s various revisions and rewritings. The composer’s characterisation of the words, in his own kind of English, suits the music he provided for them just as well. ‘It is indeed a Noble Piece, very grand and uncommon; it has furnished me with Expressions and has given me Opportunity to some very particular Ideas, besides so many great Chorus’s’. What we need to remember in approaching Belshazzar is the way whereby both musician and wordsmith, in putting their respective creativities together, could exploit each other’s gifts in different ways. Jennens, in a letter to a friend, says of Handel ‘I must take him as I find him & make the best use I can of him’, later declaring of the whole project ‘the truth is, I had a farther view in it’. Handel, for his part, clearly saw in Belshazzar a world of

‘Expressions’ and ‘Opportunity’ which could extend the whole range of the dramatic oratorio medium beyond anything he had achieved before. The blending of forms, aria, recitative and chorus, the deployment of contrasts within the choral medium, giving distinctive utterance to the Jews, Babylonians and Persians, the use of differing orchestral textures to sharpen key moments in the drama, make this one of the most original and compelling of all Handel’s works. If the dreams of Charles Jennens as Jacobite and Non-juror, underscoring the text of Belshazzar, never ultimately came about, then at least he had helped his beloved composer in shaping a masterpiece.

Jonathan Keates Jonathan Keates is chairman of Venice in Peril Fund. Among his many books is Handel: the man and his music. He is the recipient of many distinguished literary awards.

Hillah, Iraq (May, 29th 2003), Saddam Hussein’s former Summer palace with ruins of ancient Babylon in the background US Navy. © Photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Arlo K Abrahamson

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CYRUS & BABYLON

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Handel’s Belshazzar is a swashbuckling masterpiece. Composed in 1744 at the tail end of the Baroque era, it predated the Sturm und Drang movement by several decades yet its subject matter – the fateful conquest of Babylon in 539 BC – lacked neither storm nor drive. Here is the conquering Persian king Cyrus the Great and his carousing, wine-quaffing adversary, Belshazzar, king of Babylon. There is the treacherous noble Gobrias, God-fearing Queen Nitocris and the soulful Jewish prophet Daniel contemplating the liberation of his people. And here are the choruses of Jews, Babylonians, Medes and Persians to make up the numbers and increase the noise. To Handel’s British audience, the word Babylon inevitably would have conjured up some dark, apocalyptic connotations, most of them Biblical. And it was from the Bible that Charles Jennens’ racy libretto was derived. The Bible in general, and Revelations in particular, takes a very hard line on this ancient seat of a world-spanning empire. Employing the CAPS beloved by both President Trump and today’s

social media trolls, the first-century writer of Revelations dismissed Babylon as “The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth”, “a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird”. He was disgusted by the “passion of her immorality” and “the wealth of her sensuality”. If that all sounds rather unfair, which it certainly is, we might pause to observe that the Oxford English Dictionary still refers to Babylon as “the mystical city of the Apocalypse”. At least the authors of the Bible acknowledged Babylon’s unquestioned greatness and power. They were right to do so. Here on the desert plains sixty miles south of Baghdad, where the sun turns horizons into dazzling pools of mercury, was where human history began. Watered by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, this was the Land of the Fertile Crescent, successively the kingdom of Sumer and Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia, Mesopotamia and Iraq. First mentioned in the 23rd century BC, Babylon was the firstborn child in this cradle of civilisation.

The Tower of Babel Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) © public domain

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It was Babylon’s most famous king, that Old Testament anti-hero, the Jew-slaying, templesmashing, gold-loving tyrant Nebuchadnezzar II, who made it the largest, most glorious city of the ancient world. Having succeeded to the throne in 604 BC and plundered much of Egypt and Syria, he threw himself into a monumental building programme. It resulted in a cityscape of towering temples, shrines and palaces clad in blue-glazed tiles, resplendent in gold, silver and bronze, all encircled by city walls so massive, according to the Greek geographer Strabo, that two chariots, each drawn by four horses, could pass each other with ease on the road that ran atop them. Jennens chose to raid the Bible for his libretto, but he might equally have pored over Herodotus, one of the principal sources for Cyrus’s conquest of Babylon. The fifth-century BC Greek historian, so often lampooned for his tall stories and his love of the fantastical, was writing less than a century after the fall of Babylon and devoted ten pages to the city in his Histories. Apart from the usual Herodotean cocktail of fact, likely fantasy and a digression into sex to keep his audience on the edge of their seats, he ranged widely over all aspects of life in the city, from its general geography, street plan and the tradition of brick-baking to the main crops grown (wheat, barley, millet, sesame and dates), the multiple uses of the palm tree (food, wine and honey), religion, medicine and the types of boats used on the Euphrates.

King Nebuchadnezzar II overlooking the city of Babylon 8th century BC. Hand-colored woodcut © North Wind Picture Archives / Alamy Stock Photo

A vintage vignette, almost certainly nonsense, concerns what Herodotus called the “wholly shameful” practice by which every Babylonian woman was required to sit outside the temple of Ishtar and wait until a man threw a silver coin into her lap for the right to have sex with her. Only then was she set free. Herodotus ended his apocryphal anecdote with a characteristic boom-boom flourish. “Tall, handsome women soon manage to get home again but the ugly ones stay a long time… some of them, indeed, as much as three or four years.” Exactly how Cyrus conquered Babylon may never be known. Herodotus described the Persian king draining the Euphrates into a nearby lake and forcing an entrance along the riverbed. Unaware of Cyrus’s manoeuvrings, the Babylonians were apparently celebrating a festival and “continued to dance and enjoy themselves, until they learned the news the hard way”. Too busy with their revels, they were “taken by surprise” (“Amaz’d to find the foe so near” in the libretto) and defeated. The Bible’s Book of Daniel, Xenophon, the soldier and historian writing in the fourth century BC, and Jennens all follow Herodotus in recording the city falling in the middle of a high-spirited festival. Another source for this history-making conquest of Babylon is the famous Cyrus Cylinder, currently residing in the British Museum. This clay cylinder, roughly the size of a rugby ball, contains the Babylonian account of the city’s capture and what today we might call its postconflict reconstruction, including the rebuilding of desecrated shrines. Written in Akkadian cuneiform script, partly in the first person, it introduces Cyrus in megalomaniacal terms: “I am Cyrus, King of the World, Great King, Mighty King, King of Babylon, King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the Four Quarters, the son of Cambyses, Great King, King of Anshan, grandson of Cyrus, Great King, King of Anshan, descendant of Teispes, Great King, King of Anshan, of an eternal line of kingship, whose rule Bel and Nabu love, whose kingship they desire for their hearts’ pleasure.” Since this is a piece of royal propaganda pure and simple, we may discount some of the details that follow: “When I entered Babylon in a peaceful manner, I took up my lordly abode in the royal palace amidst rejoicing and happiness. Marduk, the great lord, established as his fate for me a magnanimous heart of one who loves Babylon, and I daily attended to his worship.”

BELSH A ZZAR

Belshazzar’s Feast. “The writing is indeed on the wall” Rembrandt (1606–1669), oil on canvas © public domain

In fact, this was rather more than an imperial boast. Cyrus was deliberately couching his conquest in the traditional language of Babylonian kingship. We might recall, for instance, the hubristic inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar II, who was not averse to the occasional brag, such as when describing his construction of the 91-metre Ziggurat of Etemenanki, better known as the Tower of Babel, on the top of the Temple of Marduk, the “House of the frontier between heaven and earth”. “I set my hand to build it,” runs the royal inscription. “Great cedars which were on Mount Lebanon in its forest, with my clean hands, I cut down, and placed them for its roof.” Grandiloquent or otherwise, Cyrus had much to boast of. History remembers him – and Handel’s Belshazzar commemorates him – as the liberator of Babylon’s Jews, the descendants of those who had been carted off from Jerusalem and enslaved by Nebuchadnezzar. Taking his lead from Daniel, Jennens has the wine-addled Belshazzar witness a disembodied hand writing on the wall of his royal palace on the eve of his downfall. The writing is indeed on the wall. The horrified Belshazzar, regent of Babylon while his unpopular father Nabonidus, its last king, is holed up in Arabia in self-imposed exile, is duly overthrown and slain amid Handel’s rousing “Martial Symphony”. Apocalypse for Belshazzar, Cyrus’s arrival in Babylon was manna from heaven for its Jewish community. Echoing the Biblical verses of Ezra which detail the restitution of stolen treasures to Babylon’s Jews and the return of the exiles to Jerusalem, the libretto proclaims Cyrus’s magnanimity in victory.

“Be free, ye captives, And to your native land in peace return. Thou, O Jerusalem, shalt be rebuilt; O Temple, thy foundation shall be laid.” Herodotus and Handel were neither the first nor last to be drawn to the story of Cyrus the Great. He fascinated Niccolò Machiavelli in the sixteenth century and Thomas Jefferson in the eighteenth. While Iraq’s most recent dictator likened himself to Babylon’s most infamous (“This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq,” reads an inscription marking the clumsy restoration of Babylon in 1987), the last Shah of Iran preferred to place himself in the lineage of Cyrus, in whose honour he held a lavish party at Persepolis in 1971. A statesman who can unite in admiration leaders as ideologically removed from each other as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and David Ben-Gurion of Israel must be remarkable indeed. As for once mighty, now ruined Babylon, the war-torn, weather-worn city has seen it all before. Having survived the storms of Cyrus in 539 BBC, Alexander the Great in 331 BC and most recently the Americans in 2003, it still slumbers beneath the desert sun, awaiting its next conqueror with perfect equanimity.

Justin Marozzi Justin Marozzi is the author of Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood, winner of the Royal Society of Literature’s 2015 Ondaatje Prize. He has lived and worked in Iraq for much of the past decade.

Alessandra Ferri, guest artist. Photograph by Andrej Uspenski

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Director of Dance@TheGrange Wayne McGregor CBE Produced by Studio Wayne McGregor

PER FOR M ERS

Company Wayne McGregor Joshua Barwick Rebecca Bassett-Graham Camille Bracher Jordan James Bridge Izzac Carroll María Daniela González Benjamin Holloway Chien-Shun Liao Jacob O’Connell

Ballet Black José Alves Isabela Coracy Sayaka Ichikawa Marie-Astrid Mence Mthuthuzeli November Cira Robinson Ebony Thomas

Guest artist Alessandra Ferri Patron of Dance@TheGrange Edward Watson MBE

This evening is made possible by the generosity of our

Corps de Ballet Pioneers and the New Commission Fund

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Dance Programme OU T L I E R

L I T T L E AT L A S

Performed by Company Wayne McGregor Choreographer: Wayne McGregor

Performed by Company Wayne McGregor Choreographer: Alice Topp

‘In 2010 I was asked to create a new work for the New York City Ballet in their architecture and dance series. The Philip Johnson building that houses the David H. Koch Theatre and is home to the New York City Ballet felt like a natural place to look for inspiration. Johnson was not only a great friend of George Balanchine and an influential architect, he championed the architects of the Bauhaus, like Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, in the U.S. I am fascinated by that Bauhaus art period and by abstract minimalist painters like Josef Albers and Barnett Newman. The visual context for the piece has been greatly informed by the minimalist’s notion of simplicity and colour theory.’ – Wayne McGregor CBE Premiere: 14 May 2010, New York City Ballet, David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts, New York, USA

WA S H A : The Burn From The Inside Performed by Ballet Black Choreographer: Mthuthuzeli November WASHA: The Burn From The Inside is a new abstract ballet created by Ballet Black Company dancer and choreographer Mthuthuzeli November. WASHA examines the power and impact music has on us, and how we express this in our own very unique and individual ways. Premiere: 25 June, The Grange Festival, Hampshire UK. WASHA: The Burn From The Inside is a co-commission by Studio Wayne McGregor, Ballet Black and Dance@TheGrange

Interval

CL AY Performed by Company Wayne McGregor Choreographer: Alice Topp ‘This new duet for The Grange will form part of a larger work currently in progress. Clay will look at the way we alter and shift in the presence of pain and grief. The duet will explore a relationship dynamic based on living with someone you love that is suffering. When do their monsters start becoming yours? At what point do you start wearing their demons as your own? Like clay, we sometimes mould ourselves to fit another, in order to ease pain and suffering.’ – Alice Topp Premiere: 25 June, The Grange Festival, Hampshire UK. Clay is a co-commission by Studio Wayne McGregor, The Australian Ballet and Dance@TheGrange

“ Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.” –Joan Didion, Blue Nights “ Such things that disappear in time that we find ourselves longing to see again. We search for them in close-up, as we search for our hands in a dream.” – Patti Smith, M Train ‘Little Atlas is based around the notion of memories and our attempts to recreate or unmake them. It explores our connection to people and places of the past – in particular, our attachment to the way these things made us feel, whether they’re events that continue to plague us or places we return to for sanctuary. It’s as though we keep moments safe in our minds, the only place where long-lost pieces of the past can live on. Together we carry our memories – each a unique map of scars and stories imprinted on our brains – through the trinity of past, present and future, bringing ourselves both comfort and discomfort, burden and blessing.’ – Alice Topp Little Atlas was commissioned and first produced by The Australian Ballet under the artistic directorship of David McAllister. Premiere: 29 April 2016 ,as part of the company’s Symphony in C season, Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia

T H E SU IT Performed by Ballet Black Choreographer: Cathy Marston Matilda and Philemon are married and live in Sophiatown, a suburb of Johannesburg. One morning, Philemon gets up as ever, going through his morning ritual, preparing breakfast in bed for Matilda before heading off to catch the bus to work. No sooner is Philemon on his way, than Simon, Matilda’s lover, comes into the house. At the bus stop, Philemon realises he has left his briefcase behind. He returns home. There he discovers Matilda in bed with another man. Simon jumps out of the window, leaving behind his suit. Matilda begs Philemon for forgiveness. He tells her to take care of the Suit, takes his briefcase and goes to work. At dinner that evening, Philemon insists that the Suit sits down to dinner with them and that must Matilda treat it as an honoured guest. That night Matilda cannot sleep, her dreams haunted by the Suit. The following morning the daily ritual is played out, but now with the Suit as a guest. When they go for a walk in the park, Philemon insists the Suit accompanies them. In the park, Matilda is overcome with shame and tries to keep the Suit hidden from the eyes of passers-by. Nearby a band strikes up and people start to dance. Matilda persuades Philemon to dance with her. For a moment it feels as though their marriage is as it was. But when the next dance begins Philemon insists that Matilda now dances with the Suit. She does so until she can bear it no longer and she runs back home. At home she tries to destroy the Suit but finds she can’t. Philemon returns to find his wife dead. He is left alone with the Suit. The Suit is co-commissioned by the Barbican

Please note that the order of the performances is subject to change

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ALCHEMY IN MOTION

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As we gather together by The Grange’s intimate theatre, hewn from a grand, Greek Revival building, anticipating an extraordinary evening – let us, pause. Soon, we will witness a specially curated programme of ballet and contemporary dance, performed by some of the world’s finest dancers. Not only that, we are, each of us, to participate. (Although, rest assured, only the professionals will be taking to the stage.) Still, every body in this space is crucial to the alchemical wonder to follow. For art does not occur in a vacuum. It is a living, breathing exchange of ideas, intentions and emotions – of energy. Our communal tale, this artistic ecosystem, begins with a symbiotic partnership between The Grange Festival’s Artistic Director, Michael Chance CBE, and the inimitable Wayne McGregor CBE, the Royal Ballet’s Resident Choreographer and founder of Studio Wayne McGregor and touring ensemble, Company Wayne McGregor. Now, McGregor is the Director of Dance@ TheGrange and his creative powerhouse of a Studio, the producers of the programme. Thus, last year, guests enjoyed spectacular performances by Company Wayne McGregor, which was then celebrating its 25th anniversary, and dancers from The Royal Ballet, featuring superstars such as Alessandra Ferri (who returns this year) and the freshly appointed Patron of Dance@The Grange, Edward Watson MBE, who co-curated the programme with McGregor, too. As well as extant ballet and contemporary fragments, an arresting, new piece also debuted: jojo by The Royal Ballet’s Charlotte Edmonds, a preternaturally gifted mentee of McGregor’s. For 2019’s festivities, our Director of Dance has devised a dynamic series of single acts by both his ensemble and Ballet Black – the muchgarlanded British company, founded by Cassa Pancho MBE, composed of dancers of black and Asian descent, with a wholly original repertoire. “I have invited Ballet Black to join Company Wayne McGregor in this year’s Dance@The Grange programme, because Cassa, as Founder and Artistic Director, is leading and disrupting conversations about diversity – not only in

dance, but also throughout the wider arts community in the UK,” says McGregor. “It’s been incredible to see Ballet Black transform from its small beginnings into one of the most interesting ballet companies working today, with talented dancers, including choreographer Mthuthuzeli November, all guided by Cassa’s bold and passionate vision.”

Wayne McGregor CBE. Director of Dance@TheGrange, Founder and Artistic Director of Studio Wayne McGregor Photograph © Pål Hansen

At McGregor’s behest, each company will perform a key work: his own Outlier, and, for Ballet Black, The Suit. Meanwhile, under his guidance and the generous auspices of The Grange Festival’s Ballet Committee, creative opportunities have burgeoned in the guise of a new commission fund that has enabled a work called Clay, to be made on Company Wayne McGregor by Alice Topp, The Australian Ballet’s whip-smart, fast-rising Resident Choreographer and coryphée; with Ballet Black to premiere WASHA: The Burn From The Inside by November, a treasured company member and exhilarating choreographic talent. “It is so valuable for emerging dance artists and choreographers to have access to space to make work and develop their unique practice, but equally important is the ability for their work to be seen,” says McGregor. “The Grange’s new commission fund offers an incredible chance for these two exciting artists: Mthuthuzeli from Ballet Black and Alice from The Australian Ballet, to create something new for its distinctive stage.”

Cira Robinson as Matilda in Cathy Marston’s ‘masterful adaption’ (The Guardian) of Can Themba’s The Suit, performed by Ballet Black Photograph © Bill Cooper

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Let’s skip back again, this time to 2010, when McGregor was commissioned by the New York City Ballet to create a piece for their Architecture of Dance festival – a smart match, for as he says, “The space one inhabits and creates in is inextricably linked to the body, and the mind within that body. The architecture and design of space intrinsically informs and contributes to the creative process, and the way you perceive your work.” As a central focus for Outlier, McGregor alighted on Bauhaus – the minimal, craft-oriented and purposeful design movement that is currently celebrating its centenary. “When I think of minimalism in choreography, Balanchine often comes to mind. You’ve got this pared down, reductive and essential overall aesthetic. It’s very communicative, with the bodies doing all of the talking without an explicitly ‘narrative’ context. Meaning emerges rather than being dictated, and so the audience has to discover the work’s secrets.” Outlier is set to acclaimed, British composer Thomas Adès’ violin concerto ‘Concentric Paths’ (2005), of which McGregor says, “I was captivated by [the score’s] implicit sense of strange-ness. It is full of irregularities and unexpected events, structures that don’t quite obey the rules, circular patterns that

collide and divert your attention – ‘Concentric Paths’ is full of outliers. And I have worked with this concept throughout so there are outliers in the dancing itself, the dance’s form, the set design, the costumes and the lighting plot.” Tonight, this piece will revived to electrifying effect as Alessandra Ferri performs with Company Wayne McGregor for the first time. After which, the work will receive its Los Angeles premiere as part of an unprecedented collaboration between Adès and McGregor, their respective ensembles, the LA Philharmonia, Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Centre and The Royal Ballet. Ferri fondly recalls performing at The Grange last year – “It’s unforgettable! It’s an extraordinary place, and you truly feel it’s a genuine, shared experience with the audience”, and is eager to evolve her ongoing alliance with McGregor since the choreographer coaxed the semi-retired, prima ballerina back to the Royal Opera House for 2015’s rapturously received Woolf Works, as she explains: “Wayne is obviously, incredibly intelligent, but he also has huge humanity. More and more, I’m understanding that his language is full of emotion, even when it’s abstract.” As for Outlier itself, she’s excited to express an “affinity for beauty and lines – acquired simplicity, which is a lifelong journey.”

Autobiography, choreography by Wayne McGregor, performed by Company Wayne McGregor Photograph © Andrej Uspenski

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The Australian Ballet’s Kevin Jackson, Vivienne Wong and Rudy Hawkes in Alice Topp’s Little Atlas, Sydney Opera House, 2016 Photograph © Daniel Boud

Alice Topp’s choreographic journey began in the rehearsal studio at The Australian Ballet in 2009 as the esteemed classical company got to grips with McGregor’s lightning-speed making style during rehearsals of his Dyad 1929. “It was the most thrilling and challenging time,” says Topp, then in the corps de ballet, having joined the company two years prior. “It was a steep learning curve and a really important step in my development. Up until that point, I’d performed multiple classic corps roles, which means being one of 24 swans, or a wili in Giselle, and those pieces are all about unison – about being identical to the other dancers. [Working with] Wayne, I got to exercise my brain in a different way, and I started to believe in myself and accept my uniqueness, which opened up new possibilities.” A few years later, McGregor returned to Sydney for The Australian Ballet’s premiere of Chroma, before Infra debuted on the company in 2017. “I’ve been lucky enough to have been involved in all of these extraordinary works,” Topp shares. “Wayne gave me permission to believe in my artistic voice – the greatest gift I’ve ever received.” In the intervening years, Topp’s voice has grown ever stronger and in 2018, she was announced as the second female Resident Choreographer in The Australian Ballet’s history, having created six pieces of dance for the company, including two fêted, existentially astute, main stage works: Aurum and Little Atlas. And the latter, which is focused on memories – their making and unmaking – will alight

on The Grange’s stage tonight. “Little Atlas explores our connections to the people and places of our past, and our attachments to how they made us feel, whether they continually plague us, or become sources of sanctuary,” says Topp. “[Each of us has] a map of scars and stories imprinted on our brains – burdens and blessings that bring us comfort and discomfort.” As for her Dance@TheGrange premiere, a duet called Clay, the lodestar of a future, full-length ballet, Topp offers a snippet of foundational material: “We will look at how we alter and shift in the presence of pain and grief, [examining] the interpersonal impact of suffering within a relationship dynamic. For example, ‘When do a loved one’s monsters begin to become yours?’ Like clay, we sometimes mould ourselves to fit one another.” Given that Topp is an egalitarian choreographer, Company Wayne McGregor dancers’ experiences will feed into the work. Yet while inevitably suffused with torment, the process promises catharsis, too. “I will reveal my ideas, and then invite the dancers to share their feelings and reflections, so everything is open to interpretation in an environment where they can be vulnerable … Rather than seeking a step that’s technically right, or aesthetically beautiful, I know I’ve hit the mark when I can see the dancers experiencing the concept in that moment … [Company Wayne McGregor] are so quick, limber, agile and talented that it will be really exciting to have these conversations between our bodies as we explore and experiment.”

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Simultaneously, in Ballet Black’s studio, Mthuthuzeli November, another highly collaborative creator, is conducting his own experiments as he sculpts WASHA. “I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of why we respond the way that we do to music,” he says of his tantalising, primary motivation. “Washa means ‘the burn from within’ in the Xhosa language, and so we’ll be exploring this fire inside that makes us move when we hear music … we’re finding rhythms [within ourselves, without music, while seeking to] embody what movement, or music, is.” Having joined Ballet Black as a dancer four years ago, the native South African frequently proved a captivating performer, while intermittently making work for other companies. Earlier this year, Founder and Artistic Director, Pancho, commissioned November to make a piece on his fellow dancers. The result: Ingoma, a powerful, narrative ballet that sensitively depicts the fall out from a tragic landmark in South African history: the black miners’ strike of 1946, which precipitated the Anti-Apartheid movement, and recently debuted at The Barbican to well-deserved plaudits. “He’s a very natural choreographic talent, and it’s my responsibility to ensure that’s nurtured at the right speed,” says Pancho of November’s invitation to create a second Ballet Black piece. “Wayne and The Grange came along at the right time – Ingoma was complete, so I knew that [Mthuthuzeli] would have the creative space … [It was also timely] as in the last few years, I feel that we’ve proven, ad nauseum, that you don’t have to be white to be a great dancer,

you just have to be a great dancer – skin colour doesn’t come into it – and that has opened up new, artistically-fulfilling avenues. [In addition], part of Ballet Black’s aim is to change the entire landscape of ballet, not just who you see on stage, but the people running the companies, making work, producing at different levels. It’s equally as pale behind the scenes, so it’s significant to us as a company, and to me as director and founder, to see someone succeed at something we’re all very passionate about.” “I really enjoy creating, especially in the company. When I heard that Wayne was involved, it meant a bit more, because I’ve always looked up to him,” says November of the prospect of presenting WASHA at Dance@ The Grange. As with Ingoma, this new abstract ballet will be imbued with November’s rich heritage, and he reveals that McGregor’s influence was beneficial in this, too. “When we started choreographing at school, I became very interested in his methods of making movement, the way he approached classical dances and techniques, which [informed how I utilise] my culture and African roots to play around with classical forms … WASHA is partially inspired by the San people from Southern Africa, and the way that music enables them to lose themselves and leave their bodies … It’s spiritual and a bit tribal. [We will be] fusing the worlds of African culture and classical, modern and contemporary dance. I hope that we’ll be able to create an environment where the dancers and the audience – everyone that’s watching, will be able to transcend, to let their inner fire take over.”

Sayaka Ichikawa, Mthuthuzeli November, Isabela Coracy & Cira Robison in Cathy Marston’s The Suit, performed by Ballet Black Photograph © Bill Cooper

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Mthuthuzeli November and Isabela Coracy in Cathy Marston’s The Suit, performed by Ballet Black Photograph © Bill Cooper

This stylistic fusion is also evident in The Suit, the riveting, balletic interpretation of a short story by South African author, Can Themba, by lauded, literary-specialist choreographer, Cathy Marston that she created with Ballet Black. Happily, it entranced public and critics alike, culminating in a Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Male Classical Performance for Senior Artist, José Alves, with the Best Classical Choreography Award bestowed upon Marston. “It immediately felt like the perfect vehicle for Ballet Black, because it’s a simple narrative, but it’s very emotional, dramatic and theatrical,” says the choreographer of her source material, which was suggested by Edward Kemp, Director of RADA and soughtafter dramaturg. “It’s a horrible story – an intense, tragic tale of psychological bullying, but at the same time, I found it highly interesting, because it’s not ultimately clear where your sympathy’s lie … I suspect it depends on your experiences. We don’t come to see things as neutral people.” The toughest voyage of comprehension and empathy falls to Ballet Black’s mesmerising Senior Artist, Cira Robinson, who stars as the unfaithful spouse that meets a terrible demise. “It was initially very difficult for me to connect with this character, because I didn’t like her. I had to identify with a cheating woman, but

once I got over that, I tried to completely feel her pain. As a dancer, you have to relay to the audience that this is the final moment – it’s ripping at your heart and guts, and it’s pure emotion.” In this, she succeeds – they all do, for as Robinson says, “We’re constantly progressing, and that’s because we’re such a supportive group … When we premiered The Suit, we took a step up artistically, [because] to keep the audience engaged throughout – that put another notch in our belt, just knowing you can see the story being told in every viewer’s face.” While ultimately a tragedy, there are lighter moments in The Suit, such as a park-set, party scene – a ballet-friendly addition of Marston’s, in place of the text’s dinner gathering, which proved a joy to choreograph and drew upon November’s embodied knowledge. “It was really fun,” says Marston. “I came in with video links of South African social dances, and as soon as I played them, Mthuthuzeli obviously knew them, which was a gift. He taught us the basics, for example, a foot rhythm, which we also transferred onto our hands and made into a partnering phrase, so it’s embedded in the piece. These references are more authentic from his experience … All of [Ballet Black] were totally invested in the emotional journey and very focused – a lovely atmosphere to work with.”

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Away from the stages and rehearsal spaces, Ballet Black and both Company and Studio Wayne McGregor invest heavily in future generations of dancers. With Pancho having founded a flourishing, progressive ballet school alongside her company and Studio Wayne McGregor’s Learning and Engagement programme having worked with over 100,000 participants via an innovative portfolio of transformative projects. This dedication to inspiring and empowering young people is enshrined in ethos of The Grange and interwoven into its Dance offering, too. In 2018, this resulted in Hampshire school children presenting their work in these bucolic surrounds and receiving feedback from Dance@TheGrange’s phenomenal Patron, Edward Watson; delighting in a performance by Company Wayne McGregor, and watching older students undertake a masterclass by the ensemble’s dancers. This summer, local children will be attending a schools’ matinee by Company Wayne McGregor and Ballet Black, with additional insight provided by a question and answer session. Additionally,

+/- Human, choreography by Wayne McGregor, performed by Company Wayne McGregor and The Royal Ballet at the Roundhouse

nascent partnerships with intrepid youth companies: Hampshire Youth Dance Company and Wessex Dance Academy, promise to reap rewards in the not-too-distant future. See how vast, intricate and vital Dance@ TheGrange’s ecosystem is already proving to be. As you settle into your seat, remember that you too have something to offer – your humanity. The choreographers of tonight’s programme have crafted these works in a bid to connect body with body, mind with mind, soul with soul. They have conveyed inspirations, thoughts, feelings and memories to the dancers, who will embody those concepts, enhancing each gesture with individual expression. And you will engage with their efforts, and feel, well, however you are moved to: there is no improper reaction. Let go. Experience freely. For then, these tiny energetic sparks will flow forth, nourishing the artists, travelling beyond. In this way, together, we conspire in artistry.

Suze Olbrich Suze Olbrich is a freelance journalist, and editor of literary journal, Somesuch Stories

Atomos, choreography by Wayne McGregor, performed by Company Wayne McGregor Photograph © Ravi Deepres

Photograph © Ravi Deepres and Alicia Clarke

Autobiography, choreography by Wayne McGregor, performed by Company Wayne McGregor Photograph © Ravi Deepres and Alicia Clarke

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Gershwin at the Grange illustration by Jon Ashby | wearenoun.com

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G E R S H W I N I N H O L LY WO O D T H E J OH N W I L S ON ORCH E S T RA

Conductor John Wilson

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Vocalist Louise Dearman Vocalist Matt Ford

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Programme

Tonight’s programme will be selected from the following:

Overture from the film Rhapsody in Blue (Warner Bros.) arr: Ray Heindorf – edited from the arranger’s original score by John Wilson

Treat Me Rough (Girl Crazy,MGM) arr: Sy Oliver & Axel Stordahl, reconstructed by Andrew Cottee Vocalists: Louise Dearman & Matt Ford But Not For Me (Girl Crazy MGM) arr: Conrad Salinger, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalist: Louise Dearman

Could You Use Me? (Girl Crazy, MGM) arr: Conrad Salinger, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalists: Louise Dearman & Matt Ford

Slap That Bass (Shall We Dance?) arr: Fud Livingston, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalist: Matt Ford

They Can’t Take That Away From Me (The Barkleys of Broadway, MGM) arr: Conrad Salinger, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalist: Matt Ford

I Was Doin’ Alright (Goldwyn Follies) arr: Edward Powell, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalist: Louise Dearman

I’ve Got Rhythm (Girl Crazy) arr: Conrad Salinger. Reconstructed by Andrew Cottee Interval

Strike Up The Band (Strike Up The Band, MGM) arr: Leo Arnaud and Conrad Salinger, reconstructed by Andrew Cottee Vocalist: Louise Dearman & Matt Ford

Funny Face (Funny Face, Paramount) arr: Conrad Salinger, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalist: Matt Ford

How Long Has This Been Going On? (Funny Face, Paramount) arr: Conrad Salinger, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalist: Louise Dearman

Let’s Kiss and Make Up (Funny Face, Paramount) arr: Conrad Salinger, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalist: Matt Ford

Aren’t You Kind Of Glad We Did? (The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, 20th C Fox) Arr: Herbert Spenser, edited from the arranger’s original score by John Wilson. Vocalists: Louise Dearman & Matt Ford

Oh Lady, Be Good (Artie Shaw’s Symphony in Swing) Arranger unknown, reconstructed by John Wilson

The Man I Love? (The Helen Morgan Story, Warner Bros.) Arr: Ray Heindorf, reconstructed by John Wilson Vocalist: Louise Dearman

For You, For Me, For Evermore (The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, 20th C Fox) Arr: Herbert Spenser, edited from the arranger’s original score by John Wilson Vocalists: Louise Dearman & Matt Ford

Shall We Dance? (Shall We Dance, RKO) Arr: Herbert Spenser, Fud Livingston, Robert Russell Bennett, reconstructed by Andrew Cottee

The John Wilson Orchestra reserves the right to make changes to the published programme

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A NATURAL MUSICAL MIRACLE

G E R S H W I N I N H O L LY WO O D

John Wilson is a natural musical miracle. He was born in 1972 in the North-East and despite coming from an entirely non-musical family – Dad Brian who worked for a building firm, Mum Margaret a housewife and younger sister Amy who he smiles ‘if we want a laugh, we’ll ask Amy to sing…’ the young John gravitated towards music. While still at school he conducted a 96-piece orchestra and choir for a concert version of West Side Story.

Can you remember the moment when you first heard Broadway music? I played Broadway music before I ever heard it because I was asked to play the drums in a local amateur production of Oklahoma. My teacher was an old boy from the Air Force, George, and he didn’t want to do it himself, so he sent me. I was in short trousers, about 11 – I could barely read the music – I didn’t even know what Oklahoma was. The head of music for the area, Mr Barratt, was the conductor and that was my introduction to Broadway music. Did you think ‘Wow’? When you’re 11 everything is wow: the brass band, the youth orchestra, but I did love the theatricality and there was something really thrilling about being in an orchestra pit looking up at the stage. My parents got the call asking me to do Oklahoma – “and that will be £30.” And my dad was like, “We haven’t got £30.” And they were “No, that’s what we give you.” I remember being given a little wage and I spent it on fireworks.

Were you invited back? Whenever I could get a lift to rehearsals I was there. I quickly went from being the drummer to pianist, then the rehearsal pianist and part of putting it all together, rehearsing week after week after week in the village hall and then the conductor left, and I had to step in at the last minute to conduct No, No, Nanette – I was a teenager and I didn’t have a clue. By the time we got to Thursday I felt, this is what I’m going to do. Where did they take place? Village hall, church hall. Back in those days, especially in the North, there was amateur music making, amateur Gilbert and Sullivan, Broadway shows and brass bands – every town, village and area had five or six groups – even the tiny place where I come from, which is a little strip of suburbia between Newcastle and Durham had 4 amateur theatre groups, and even an amateur grand opera and I remember doing Cavalleria Rusticana in the first half and Trial by Jury in the second.

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Who taught you the piano? Me, it just seemed logical. I had piano lessons when I went to the Royal College of Music with a wonderful guy, Alan Rowlands who became a dear friend, but I never liked having lessons, I never liked being told what to do… What about music at home? Not formally, absolutely not, but my mother was bought up in the 40s and 50s so she got lucky with the pop music of her youth, Cole Porter and George Gershwin and all the movies and if she saw one coming on TV or the radio, she would sit me down. Even though she isn’t a musician, there’s something about having absorbed all of that in her youth which gave her a kind of unknowing critical faculty. So how this manifests itself is she’ll come to my concerts and say “I much preferred it when you did this piece with so-and-so” and she’s usually right – sometimes she’s quite tough – she’ll say, “Those violins aren’t as good as they were”, and she’s usually right on the money but I think it’s all instinct. When did you become interested in other classical music? I don’t think I would be exaggerating if I said that I must have listened to pretty much every LP that the Newcastle central library had and got the scores out. I was there four nights a week. And I used to go to concerts – there were visiting orchestras. I had a mate from school called Johnny Shakesby and his Dad was the local vicar, a kindly man and he could see that I was musical. They had a family subscription to the orchestral concerts in Newcastle and they gave me one of their tickets. The sound of those great

big orchestras playing fabulously – and I had that in my ears from watching those old movies. Sound is the most important thing to me – I’m obsessed with all the different colours you can ring out of an orchestra. How do you set about achieving the sound – individually or with everybody’s input? I grew up on a certain set of sounds, Barbirolli and the Halle, George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra – from recordings. I recognised that these performances were special because there was a certain commitment in the playing whether it be a Mozart piano concerto or a number from Singing in the Rain. The styles are all different, but the commitment is the same. Were you composing at this time? I did my degree in composition because I was going to be an arranger and an orchestrator. A lot of the music I play with my orchestra didn’t exist until I recreated it. I think very, very few people are creative – I haven’t had an original thought in my life…… You shared a house with Richard RodneyBennett. Was this a stimulating, fruitful friendship, of composer and conductor with shared passions and ideals? In 1995 I was introduced to Richard when he was playing the piano at Pizza on the Park and I said, “I’ve got some letters written by your father”. His father died when Richard was 12 and he was fascinated. That was the start of our 17-year friendship until the day he died. Richard lived in New York and when he was England he used to stay with a friend, which was no longer an option, so he stayed with me. A few years later a house divided into

G E R S H W I N I N H O L LY WO O D

two in Wimbledon came up for sale. I bought the upstairs and he bought the downstairs. He only spent half his years there, but he was a kind of kindred spirit, and was one of the most gifted musicians I ever met. We worked together on a few occasions. He was also the funniest man – it hurt laughing with Richard. Do you see operatic/Broadway orchestral context in the same frame? If we’re talking about musicals that are in my orbit, ie those pieces written between 1943 and 1958, whilst the styles are different, I would say that my musical aims are largely the same and I would tackle a musical with the same rigour that I would tackle an opera. What was it like conducting your first opera? It was Madama Butterfly at Glyndebourne and I was glad that I arrived at that opportunity having done several hundred symphony concerts as a professional conductor. That experience enabled me to enjoy it and I’ve never enjoyed anything as much because it’s such a great piece. You’ve got three hours when there’s always something going on, and to do it in Glyndebourne you’re working in ideal circumstances with brilliant people. Do you find it easy conducting Cole Porter one night and Puccini the next? I get into the mood of a composer, so I don’t like to chop and change too much. But to make the point again, if I have any strength as a conductor, I don’t make those divisions between highbrow and lowbrow because as far as I’m concerned Cole Porter is as important as Schubert and I’ll argue with anybody who wants to take me on…

What do you look for in a voice? Text. I saw an opera with Sir Thomas Allen on stage for the first twenty minutes and he made the greatest impression of the whole evening. I asked him how he did that, and he said “It’s the words, use the words” and there are lots of people with wonderful voices but I want them to communicate to me. How would you describe yourself in musical terms? I’m a romantic – I love all of that hotblooded late 19th century, 20th century repertoire – that’s not to say that I’m impervious to everything else. I’ll listen to the St Matthew Passion one day and Guys and Dolls the next, and the range of repertoire I’ll conduct is embarrassingly wide… If my musical life is distinguished by one feature, it’s lack of barriers. What music can’t you live without? Elgar’s symphonies. I’m not narrowminded in my view of English music but I’ve always loved Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Delius, Britten. I’m obsessed with Gilbert & Sullivan, but I think Elgar was the genius that everybody had been waiting for after Purcell – it’s something in my blood.

Louise Flind

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International Singing Competition 2019 The Grange Festival is pleased to announce the second Grange Festival International Singing Competition. Musical competitions are seen by many as necessary but unrepresentative in an art form where direct comparison is subjective and direct competition unartistic. However, they can provide a supportive showcase for burgeoning talent and are often the first opportunity a singer has to perform in public in a fully professional context. This competition is shaped in such a way as to reflect the artistic vision behind The Grange Festival, whilst being mindful of the needs of the wider musical world of the 21st century. In order to achieve this, some basic tenets are necessary: powerful vocal communication is transformative to a listener; beauty of sound and strength of projection will be points of reference; clarity of intention, flexibility of delivery, comprehensibility, personality and a passion to communicate should also all be considered as fundamental requirements.

A great singer encapsulates all these and more. This competition encourages judges to focus on all these in their deliberations. The art of singing is also the craft of singing. Different periods of music give singers a variety of opportunities and require diverse strengths. Earlier repertoire lays great store in skills of rhetoric, declamation, improvisation and imagination, where later music focusses on legato line, colour and power. To quote the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “… music prior to 1800 speaks, while subsequent music paints.” Competitors at The Grange are invited to consider these notions, and wherever possible delight their listeners with an awareness of them. Variety of repertoire is therefore encouraged at each stage of the competition.

Singers have one thing available to them which is not available to all other musicians: words. This competition will be concerned as much with celebration of text as celebration of sound. It is intended that every competitor reaching the final stage should be considered a winner. Both the semi-finals and finals will be high-profile public events in London. The award of The Grange Festival contracts, as well as prize money to the three highest placed finalists, also makes this competition an important and useful showcase for young singers on an international level. Our Patron Dame Felicity Palmer says: “A good voice (even a beautiful one) is obviously desirable for a singer. More important, I believe, is what a singer does with the voice given them: how it is used technically and artistically and whether or not he or she seeks to communicate with it. Singing has to be about communication – through voice, text, music, body, heart and soul.”

S E A S O N P RO G R A M M E 2 019

THEME The Grange Festival International Singing Competition is biennial. The orchestra for the 2019 Final is The Academy of Ancient Music, celebrated as one of the finest period instrument ensembles in the world. (The Final of the 2021 competition will be accompanied by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra). Appropriate repertoire for the 2019 competition is anything composed up until 1830, including therefore Purcell, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Schubert, Rossini, Beethoven, early Donizetti. Applicants are encouraged to be imaginative with their choices, (not limited to these composers) but also to be aware of the special opportunities provided in collaborating with period instruments, whose core values are most potently demonstrated in music from the Baroque and Classical periods.

Monday 21 October 2019 Semi-final with piano or harpsichord (maximum 12 singers) before a public audience: Merchant Taylors’ Hall, London

Thursday 31 October 2019 Final of 6 singers (with Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Peter Robinson) before a public audience: Great Hall, Merchant Taylors’ Hall, London

• 1st Prize £10,000 • 2nd Prize £5,000 • 3rd Prize £2,500 plus the offer of a role in a production at The Grange Festival • £1,000 All other finalists Audience Prize £2,000

Academy of Ancient Music Prize (one finalist of AAM’s choice will be offered an engagement with the orchestra)

The Jury

Dame Felicity Palmer Patron Michael Chance The Grange Festival (Chairman) Scott Cooper The Grange Festival Hugh Canning Sunday Times David Gowland Royal Opera House John Graham Hall Tenor Helen Hogh Groves Artists Rosa Mannion Royal College of Music Mary Miller Bergen National Opera Peter Robinson Conductor Alexander van Ingen The Academy of Ancient Music

• Waynflete Singers Prize and other performance prizes

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AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T S

F O R T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L BOA R D OF T RUST EES Chairman The Rt Hon Sir Charles Haddon-Cave The Hon Mark Baring Daniel Benton Rosamund Horwood-Smart QC Owen Jonathan Malcolm Le May Richard Morse Tim Parker Louise Verrill Company Secretary Annabel Ross

DEV ELOPM ENT COU NCI L Chairman Malcolm Le May Vice-Chair Sophie Grenville Sophie Boden Robert Bordeaux-Groult Nick Bowers Robert Boyle Peter Foy Katie Holmes Andrew Joy Barry O’Brien The Countess of Portsmouth Peter Ralls QC John Trueman

DA NCE @ T H E GR A NGE COM M IT T EE Chair Louise Verrill Sophie Caruth Judith Foy Amanda Haddon-Cave Kiki McDonough

AM ER ICA N BOA R D I N WA IT I NG Emily Andrewes Bente Strong Louise Verrill

COM PA N Y Digital Marketing Officer Alice Blincoe

Chief Operations Officer Michael Moody

Chief Executive Officer and Artistic Director Michael Chance CBE

Production Manager Tom Nickson

Director of Artistic Administration Scott Cooper Head of Learning Susan Hamilton Front of House Mananger Sophie Hayes Office Assistant Holly Jeffery-Goodall

Development Officer Cornelia Norie-Miller Director of Development Rachel Pearson Company Manager Steven Phillips Production Assistant Becky Reynolds Finance Officer Annabel Ross Box Office Manager Caroline Sheahan

B AC K S TAG E WA R DROBE

W IGS

STAGE

LIGHT I NG

Head of Wardrobe Kat Day-Smith

Head of Wigs Helen Keelan / Rebecca Rungen

Technical Manager Ben Nickson

Chief Lx Teresa Nagel

Head of Props Robyn Hardy

Dep Lx Paddy Hepplewhite

Surtitle Operator Issy Thorne

Programmer David Ayton

Crew Steve Andrews Seb Baynes James Boyd Matthew Clay Carys Davies Seb Money Tim Turnbull Jak Kellaway

LX Crew Maria Chirca

Dep Head of Wardrobe Emma Hughes Dresser Celia Grenville Dresser Laila Jam

Dep Head of Wigs Charlotte Mullen / Eloise Robinson

Production LX Charlie Hayday

C O S T U M E & P RO P M A K E R S LE NOZZE DI F IGA RO

Costume makers and alterations Claire Emerson Kate E Lyons Eva Mallet Emma Burke Eleanor Platt Carmen Whiteley Nancy Knapp Julia Buckmiller

Thais Demontrand Kat Goodall Marni Perkins David Lothian Julia Fallon Kathy Osiecki Lorraine Murray Dan Ashworth Nicolina Griffiths Amy Towle Mariane Roesdal Ana Heau Steffney O’Connor

S C E N E RY

T R A N S P O RT

All scenery Visual Scenery LTD Ross White

Boom Couriers Paul Matthews Transport KD Transport

Costumes hired from Cosprop and Angels Costumiers

Mia Walldén Jane O’Donnell Mathew MooreHalushka Millinery Jen Levet Millinery Wigs Darren Ware & Pav Stalmach-Ware at The Wig Room

FA LSTA F F

BELSH A ZZA R

Falstaff costumes Sallyann Dixie

Persian Uniforms History in the Making

Student Intern/ Alterations Assistant Maddie Skinner

Principle Costume Maker Kirsti Read

Costume props maker Nedine O’Brien

Falstaff antlers Jane Smith Bardolph dress Carol Coates Cloaks Katy Adeney and Lydia cawson Alterations Sue Bradley and Mhairi Mckechnie

Principle Costume Maker Madeline Fry Sudent Intern Eleanor Banasik

Metal Worker John Wills Costume Assistant Sonia Odedra Alterations Assistant Simone Knol

Hair and Makeup Darren Ware

S TAG E M A N AG E M E N T LE NOZZE DI F IGA RO Stage Manager Saskia Godwin Deputy Stage Manager Lucy Topham Assistant Stage Manager Zoe Doy

FA LSTA F F

BELSH A ZZA R

JOH N W I LSON

Stage Manager Di Holt

Stage Manager Luis Henson

Deputy Stage Manager Helen Clarkson

Deputy Stage Manager Tanith MacKenzie

Stage Management Tomos Pierce Helen Clarkson Lucy Topham

Assistant Stage Manager Samantha Gardiner

Assistant Stage Manager Kim Shep

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DI N I NG@T H EGR A NGE BECK A COOPER @T H EGR A NGE My wonderful team of cooks and front of house staff The Grange Festival Team, particularly Michael Moody, Alice Blincoe & Holly Jeffery-Goodall

Ali Booth Allens Hire, particularly Mark Emmerson Jasmine China Hire Tim & Penny Cooper Victoria Blashford-Snell

Emma & Colin La Fontaine Jackson Richard Loader Mark & Sophie Baring Julia Mitchell Mel Linter Ian & Victoria Cammack

CH AM PAGN E

ENGLISH SPA R K LI NG

WINE

Champagne Bollinger Mentzendorff & Co Alan MontagueDennis Bryonie Grieveson

The Grange, Hampshire

Stone, Vine & Sun

Zam Baring

Simon & Alison Taylor

All my suppliers particularly Nigel, Miranda & Sam at Evans

G RO U N D S

HOUSE

GROU N DS M A I NT ENA NCE

M A RQU EES & T ENTS

Richard Loader John License Colin Luff Felicity Urquhart Di Threlfall Jo Seligman Jude Mezgar

John M Carter Ltd Phil Heather

SIT E ST RUCT U R ES John Waterworth Richard Morgan Michael Odysseos Joel Shepherd Steve Turner Mike Holland

T H EAT R E T ER R ACE T R EE Martin Gillie Di Threlfall

F LOOR PA I NT I NG A N D F IT OU T John Waterworth F EST IVA L VOLU NT EERS Volunteer Co-ordinator Nicky Cambrook Judy Bishop Annabel Blake Hugh Brown Sue Brown Jan Burgess Nick Cambrook Henrietta Cooke Ruthie Coombs Pru de Lavison Janie Deal Jules Flory Martin Gillie Jenny Gove Andrea Harris Natalia Hazeldine Lizzie Holmes Charmian Jones Lynwen JonesThomas Penelope Kellie Gordon King Angela Larard

Derek Lintott Susie Lintott Sue Mackenzie Charrington Catherine Maddock Jenny Makins Brigid McManus Jude Mezger Belinda Mitchell Tricia Neri Peter Paice Sue Paice Diana Peisley Steve Penn Caroline Perry Hugh Powlett Jane Powlett Clare Read Jo Seligman Katherine Sellon John Theophilus Marie-Caroline Theophilus Di Threlfall Felicity Urquhart Sarah Vey

CLEA N I NG HOUSE & AU DITOR IU M E&E Services F EST IVA L EV ENTS Michele BeinyHarkins, New York Robert & Caroline Bordeaux- Groult Carlton Club Chelsea Arts Club Gieves & Hawkes, Savile Row The Hong Kong Club Mary Caroe, Vann The Ned New Club Edinburgh Quadrant Chambers Savile Club Sir James & Lady Scott Studio Wayne McGregor Summerdown Mints The Vineyard Hotel Waddington Custot

M A R K ET ING & PR F EST IVA L SHOP

ACCOMMODAT ION

DESIGN & PR I NT I NG

PR & M A R K ET I NG

SOCI A L M EDI A

Festival Shop Sally Ashburton

Sarah & Peter Vey for Michael Moody

John & Wendy Trueman for Steven Phillips

Programme Design Jon Ashby | Noun Ltd wearenoun.com

Desmond Chewyn

Daniel & Alison Benton for Richard Egarr

Richard & Chrissie Morse for Tom Nickson & Robyn Hardy

Programme Printers Generation Press

Valerie Barber PR Valerie Barber Elena Dante Jacqueline De Ferrars Sabina Nielsen

Festival Shop Set Up Felicity Buchanan The Grange Festival Merchandise Alice Blincoe All our suppliers

2Forks Anna Kibbey Annica Wainright

IT SU PPORT Chelsea Connected Dudley Rees

Gabrielle Shaw Communications Gabrielle Shaw Helen Arathoon Daisy Vispi Tatiana Krotovskaya

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T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L C H O RU S CHORUS M AST ER

SOPR A NOS

M EZZO SOPR A NOS

Anthony Kraus

Jennifer Clark Emily Garland Frances Israel Nicola Said Roisin Walsh Cally Youdell

Rebecca Barry Caroline Daggett Sarah Denbee Emily Gray Amy Lyddon Leila Zanette

T ENORS

BASS

Dominic Bevan Kamil Bien Benjamin Durrant Ranald McCusker Will Smith Ryan Vaughan Davies

René Bloice-Sanders Meilir Jones Aaron O’Hare Stuart Orme Michael Ronan James Wafer

AC A D E M Y O F A N C I E N T M U S I C V IOLI N 1

V IOLI N 2

V IOLA

CELLO

DOU BLE BASS

F LU T E

Leader Bojan Čičić Elin White Persephone Gibbs Liz MacCarthy Iona Davies Iwona Muszynska

Kinga Ujszászi Sijie Chen Alice Evans William Thorp Joanna Lawrence Dominika Fehér

Jane Rogers Jordan Bowron Clare Barwick Emma Alter

Joseph Crouch Imogen Seth-Smith Jonathan Rees Anna Holmes

Judith Evans Dawn Baker

Rachel Brown Guy Williams

OBOE

CLA R I N ET

BASSOON

HOR N

T RU M PET

Leo Duarte Lars Henriksson

Emily Worthington Fiona Mitchell

Ursula Leveaux Joe Qiu

Daniele Bolzonella Christos Maltezos

David Blackadder Robert Vanryne

T IM PA N I Benedict Hoffnung

Education & Outreach Manager Chloë Wennersten

Freelance Orchestra Manager Alice Pusey

Engagement Manager Hal Hutchison

Concerts & Projects Co-ordinator Sue Pope

Marketing & Audience Lorna Salmon

A A M M A N AG E M E N T Music Director Richard Egarr

Chief Executive Alexander Van Ingen

Hogwood Fellow 2018–2019 Sandy Burnett

Head of Concerts & Planning Alexander Van Ingen

Development Consultant John Bickley

Fundraising & Marketing Assistant Kemper Edwards Finance Manager Elaine Hendrie Librarian Emilia Benjamin

B O U R N E M O U T H S Y M P H O N Y O RC H E S T R A V IOLI N 1

V IOLI N 2

Leader Amyn Merchant Mark Derudder Edward Brenton Kate Turnbull Magdalena GrucaBroadbent Jennifer Curiel Tim Fisher Julie Gillett-Smith Kate Hawes Joan Martinez

Carol Paige Jens Lynen Aysen Alucan Lara Carter Rebecca Clark Agnieszka Gesler Ines Montero Fuentes Janice Thorgilson

OBOE/ COR A NGLA IS Edward Kay Holly Randall Rebecca Kozam

CLA R I N ET/ BASS CLA R I N ET Charlie Dale-Harris Elizabeth Drew Helen Paskins

BASS T ROMBON E Kevin Smith

T U BA Elliot Launn

V IOLA Tom Beer Jacoba Gale Eva Malmbom Liam Buckley John Murphy Judith Preston

CELLO Jesper Svedberg Thomas Isaac Garry Stevens Hannah Innes Philippa Stevens Judith Burgin

DOU BLE BASS David Daly Nicole Boyesen David Kenihan Nickie Dixon

F LU T E/ PICCOLO Anna Pyne Robert Manasse Owain Bailey

BASSOON

HOR N

T RU M PET

T ROMBON E

Tammy Thorn Kim Murphy

Ben Hulme Ruth Spicer Robert Harris Edward Lockwood Kevin Pritchard

Chris Avison Peter Turnbull Rob Johnston

Kevin Morgan Robb Tooley

T IM PA N I Geoff Prentice

PERCUSSION Matt King Helen Edordu

HARP Eluned Pierce

GU ITA R Huw Davies

S E A S O N P RO G R A M M E 2 019

B S O M A N AG E M E N T Chief Executive Dougie Scarfe Head of Concerts & Programming Heather Duncan

Head of BSO Participate Lisa Tregale Head of Marketing Anthony Brown

Orchestra Manager Liz Williams

Senior Stage Manager Scott Caines

Orchestra Manager Adam Glynn

Stage Manager Emily Trevett

T ENOR Jeremy Budd Joshua Cooter Ryan Vaughan Davies Benjamin Durrant Ranald McCusker George Pooley

BASS René Bloice-Sanders Robert Clark Ben Davies Meilir Jones James Wafer Stuart Young

T HE SI XT EEN SOPR A NO Jennifer Clark Julie Cooper Katy Hill Kirsty Hopkins Alexandra Kidgell Charlotte Mobbs Nicola Said Cally Youdell

A LTO Caroline Daggett Emily Gray Rebecca Leggett Amy Lyddon Edward McMullan Kim Porter

T H E O RC H E S T R A O F T H E S I X T E E N 1ST V IOLI N

2N D V IOLI N

V IOLA

CELLO

V IOLON E

OBOE

Leader Sarah Sexton

Daniel Edgar Jean Paterson Rebecca Miles Theresa Caudle

Martin Kelly Stefanie Heichelheim Jane Norman Emilia Benjamin

Joseph Crouch Gavin Kibble

Carina Cosgrove

Hannah McLaughlin Catherine Latham

BASSOON

T RU M PET

T IM PA N I

T H EOR BO

HARP

ORGA N

Sally Jackson Zoe Shevlin

Neil Brough John Hutchins Simon Mundy

Robert Kendell

David Miller

Frances Kelly

Tom Foster Alastair Ross

Sarah Moffatt Sophie Barber Ellen O’Dell Andrea Jones

T H E S I X T E E N M A N AG E M E N T Season Patron Marquess of Salisbury

Founder & Conductor Harry Christophers CBE

Development Director Carol McCormack

Development Manager Christina McMaster

Genesis Sixteen Manager Jessica Haig

Concerts & Tours Coordinator Amy Donaldson

Anniversary Patron Alexander Armstrong

Associate Conductor Eamonn Dougan Chief Executive Marie-Sophie Willis

Education & Outreach Manager Amanda MacLeod

Box Office & Marketing Coordinator Bethan Thomas

Office Coordinator Isabel Crawley

Anniversary Patron Michael Watt

Concerts & Artistic Planning Manager Emily Walker Marketing Manager Jessica Tomkins

Media Relations Rebecca Driver

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F O R T H E P RO D U C T I O N S L E N O Z Z E D I F I GA RO PRODUCT ION T EAM

CAST

Conductor Richard Egarr

Lighting design Peter Mumford

Movement Director Mitchell Harper

Count Almaviva Toby Girling

Cherubino Wallis Giunta

Antonio Richard Suart

Director Martin Lloyd-Evans

Assistant Conductor Tom Primrose

Repetiteur Lisa Engelbrecht

Countess Almaviva Simona Mihai

Marcellina Louise Winter

Barbarina Rowan Pierce

Designer Tim Reed

Assistant Director William Edelsten

Production Manager Tom Nickson

Susanna Ellie Laugharne

Don Basilio Ben Johnson

Wardrobe Supervisor Kate Lyons

Figaro Roberto Lorenzi

Dr Bartolo Jonathan Best

FA L S TA F F PRODUCT ION T EAM

CAST

Conductor Francesco Cilluffo

Lighting design Peter Mumford

Movement Director Mitchell Harper

Sir John Falstaff Robert Hayward

Bardolfo Christopher Gillett

Nannetta Rhian Lois

Director Christopher Luscombe

Assistant Conductor William Cole

Repetiteur Nicholas Bosworth

Master Ford Nicholas Lester

Pistola Pietro di Bianco

Mistress Quickly Susan Bickley

Assistant Director Louise Bakker

Production Manager Tom Nickson

Fenton Alessandro Fisher

Alice Ford Elin Pritchard

Meg Page Angela Simkin

Wardrobe Supervisor Karen Large

Dr Caius Graham Clark

Designer Simon Higlett

BELSH A ZZA R PRODUCT ION T EAM

CAST

Conductor Harry Christophers

Lighting design Peter Mumford

Choreographer Tim Claydon

Belshazzar Robert Murray

Gobrias Henry Waddington

Acrobat Craig Dagostino

Director Daniel Slater

Assistant Conductor Anthony Kraus

Repetiteur Oliver John Ruthven

Nitocris Claire Booth

Daniel James Laing

Acrobat Felipe Reyes

Designer Robert Innes Hopkins

Assistant Director Larah Simpson

Production Manager Tom Nickson

Cyrus Christopher Ainslie

Acrobat Haylee Ann

Wardrobe Supervisor Josie Thomas

DA N C E @ T H E G R A N G E FOR ST U DIO WAY N E McGR EGOR Founder & Artistic Director Wayne McGregor

Finance & Operations Director Marcel Jenkins

Executive Director Rebecca Marshall

Administrative Director Hazel Singleton

Associate Director Odette Hughes Director of Engagement Jasmine Wilson Director of Development & Communications Polly Hunt

Principal Restager Antoine Vereecken Technical Director Christopher Charles Design Associate Catherine Smith Company Producer Lucy Glover

BA LLET BLACK Company Manager Bethan Ecclestone Technical Manager Ashley Bolitho Relighter Geneviève Giron Technician Niamh Percy Stage Manager

Communications & Content Manager Kate McCurdy

Founder & Artistic Director Cassa Pancho MBE

Finance Administrator Nicola Worrell

Chief Lighting Designer & Technical Manager David Plater

Studio Manager Kathryn Stephens Dance Animateur Lily Dettmer

(for Dance@TheGrange)

Executive Assistant Valeria Carrassa

Wardrobe Supervisor

Studio Administrator Frankie Glace

Ellie Williams

(for Dance@TheGrange)

Miwa Mitsuhashi

Development Manager Leigh Mac Laughlin

Producer Kelly Quintyne

Administrator Hannah Gibbs Finance Manager Richard Bolton Operations Manager Deborah Bourne Stage Manager Francesca Finney

Archive Assistant Chelsea Reeves

COM PA N Y WAY N E McGR EGOR

ST U DIO WAY N E McGR EGOR

Company Wayne McGregor is McGregor’s ensemble of highly skilled dancers. Founded in 1993, this was the original instrument through which McGregor evolved his distinctive visual style, revealing the movement possibilities of the body in ever more precise degrees of articulation. McGregor has made over thirty works for the company and today it continues to be his laboratory for ambitious and experimental new choreography, touring his work across the UK and around the world. Company Wayne McGregor is Resident Company at Sadler’s Wells, and is based at Studio Wayne McGregor on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London.

Studio Wayne McGregor is the creative engine of McGregor’s lifelong choreographic enquiry into thinking through and with the body. It encompasses his own touring company of dancers, Company Wayne McGregor; creative collaborations across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science; and highly specialized learning, engagement and research programmes. In April 2017 Studio Wayne McGregor moved into its own newly created studio space at Here East in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, a shared space for making where the creative brains of the day can exchange knowledge and invent together.

S E A S O N P RO G R A M M E 2 019

F O R T H E DA N C E @ T H E G R A N G E P RO D U C T I O N S OU T LI ER PRODUCT ION T EAM Concept, Choreography Wayne McGregor

Lighting Design

Music Thomas Adès

Costume Design Moritz Junge

(adapted from the original)

Lucy Carter

Restager/ Rehearsal Director Antoine Vereecken

MUSIC

CAST

Thomas Adès Violin Concerto – Concentric Paths

Company Wayne McGregor María Daniela Joshua Barwick González Rebecca Benjamin Holloway Bassett-Graham Chien-Shun Liao Camille Bracher Jacob O’Connell Jordan James Bridge Izzac Carroll Guest Artist

By arrangement with Faber Music, London Concentric Paths : I, II, III. Rings performed by Anthony Marwood, Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Thomas Adès courtesy of Warner Music UK Ltd.

Alessandra Ferri

WA S H A : T H E B U R N F RO M T H E I N S I D E PRODUCT ION T EAM Choreography & Design Mthuthuzeli November

Composer Peter Johnson

Lighting Designer David Plater

C L AY

CAST

MUSIC

Dancers José Alves Isabela Coracy Sayaka Ichikawa Marie-Astrid Mence Cira Robinson Ebony Thomas

Peter Johnson (b. 1986) WASHA: The Burn From The Inside

L I T T L E AT L A S

(work in progress)

PRODUCT ION T EAM Choreographer Alice Topp

CAST

MUSIC

Dancers Company Wayne McGregor

Ludovico Einaudi Whirling Winds

PRODUCT ION T EAM Choreographer Alice Topp

Music Ludovico Einaudi

Lighting Design (for Dance@ theGrange) Geneviève Giron

Lighting (adapted from the original) Jon Buswell

CAST

MUSIC

Dancers Company Wayne McGregor

Ludovico Einaudi Fly

Juan García Esquivel (b. 1918) Mini Skirt (1968) – arr. Osvaldo Goliyov (b.1960)

Jon Hassell (b.1937) Pano Da Costa (cloth from the coast) (1986)

Ludovico Einaudi Experience

Costumes Alice Topp

Costumes The Australian Ballet

T HE SU IT PRODUCT ION T EAM Director/ Choreographer Cathy Marston Lighting Director David Plater Designer Jane Heather

Dramaturg Edward Kemp Additional Music Composition Philip Feeney

CAST

MUSIC

Ballet Black José Alves Isabela Coracy Sayaka Ichikawa Marie-Astrid Mence Mthuthuzeli November Cira Robinson Ebony Thomas

Kevin Volans (b.1942) White Man Sleeps – Movement 1 (1982), Movement 5 (1986) Carlos Parades (b.1967) Canção verdes anos (2000) – arr. Osvaldo Goliyov (b.1960)

Ariel Guzik (b.1960) Plasmaht (2003) – arr. Kronos Quartet Charles Ives (1874–1954) Scherzo: Holding your own!

Thomos Oboe Lee (b.1945) Morango… Almost a Tango (1983) Margarita Lecuona (1910–1981) Tabú (1934) – arr. Osvaldo Goliyov (b.1960)

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F O R T H E P RO D U C T I O N S T H E J O H N W I L S O N O RC H E S T R A CON DUCTOR

V IOLI N

V IOLA

CELLO

DOU BLE BASS

John Wilson

Leader John Mills Macy Buta Hannah Dawson Peter Graham Jack Greed Iain Gibbs Andrew Harvey Jeremy Isaac Charis Jenson

Cerys Jones Michael Jones Jens Lynen Miranda Playfair Ruth Rogers Roberto Ruisi Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux Michael Trainor Steven Wilkie

Principal Vicci Wardman Thomas Beer Ann Beilby Lydia LowndesNorthcott Benjamin Newton Matthew Quenby

Principal Pierre Doumenge James Barralet William ClarkMaxwell Timothy Lowe Jessie Ann Richardson Benedict Rogerson

Principal David Stark Sebastian Pennar Genna Spink

F LU T E

OBOE/COR A NGLA IS

CLA R I N ET

BASS CLA R I N ET

SA XOPHON E

HOR N

Charlotte Ashton Helen Wilson

John Anderson

Jernej Albreht

Emily Hultmark

Howard McGill Colin Skinner Luke Annesley Mark Crooks Mikey Davis

Benjamin Goldscheider Andrew Littlemore

T RU M PET

T ROMBON E

T U BA

T IM PA N I

PERCUSSION

HARP

Michael Lovatt Russell Bennett Danny Marsden Andrew Gathercole

Gordon Campbell Jonathan Stokes Liam Kirkman Peter North

David Kendall

Grahame King

Owen Gunnell Timothy Gunnell

Hugh Webb

PI A NO/ CELESTA

GU ITA R

R HY T HM BASS

DRU MS

Colin Oxley

Matthew Skelton

VOCA LIST Louise Dearman VOCA LIST Matt Ford

Ian Buckle Matthew Regan

NB The orchestra list is correct at the time of going to press

T H E J O H N W I L S O N O RC H E S T R A M A N AG E M E N T Orchestra Manager Tom Croxon

Orchestra Assistant Patrick McEntee Julia Vivian

Stage Manager Tomos Pierce Orchestra Administrator Jeanne Croxon

Legal Counsel David Gentle

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Ballet Black for Dance@TheGrange © ASH

Carmen, The Grange Festival 2017 © Robert Workman

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T H E G R A N G E F E S T I VA L A RT I S T IC B IO G R A P H I E S

ThomaS Adès

Christopher Ainslie

DANCE@THEGRANGE

BELSHAZZAR

English composer, conductor and pianist Thomas Adès was born in London and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and King’s College, Cambridge. His first opera Powder her Face (1995) has been performed more than two hundred times worldwide. Adès made his Royal Opera debut in 2004 conducting the world premiere of his second opera The Tempest. He has since returned to Covent Garden conduct The Rake’s Progress, a revival of The Tempest in 2007 and in 2017 his third opera, The Exterminating Angel, a co-commission between The Royal Opera, Salzburg Festival and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. His second opera, Powder her Face was performed at the ROH in 2008. The Tempest has been seen in Strasbourg, Copenhagen, Sante Fe, Toronto, Frankfurt, Budapest, Luebeck and New York. The Metropolitan Opera’s recording of the opera with Deutsche Grammophon won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. His most performed orchestral work, Asyla, was commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Simon Rattle. Other works include America (New York Philharmonic), Polaris (New World Symphony) and Totentanz (BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Proms). Much of his music has been choreographed for ballet. Adès was Music Director of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group 1998–2000, Artistic Director of Aldeburgh Festival 1999–2008, and in September 2016 becomes Boston Symphony Orchestra’s first Artistic Partner. He regularly conducts for orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Concertgebouw, and there have been many international festivals dedicated to his music. Appearances as a pianist include recitals at Carnegie Hall and the Barbican. His many awards include the 2015 Sonning Prize and the 2000 Grawemeyer Award. He coaches piano and chamber music annually at the International Musicians Seminar.

Supported by Geoffrey Barnett

MUSIC | OUTLIER

CYRUS

Christopher Ainslie started his singing career as a chorister in Cape Town, and now lives between the USA, Germany, and the UK, performing at leading venues around the world. Ainslie’s significant opera roles include Orfeo Orfeo ed Euridice (Opéra de Lyon and Opéra National de Lorraine), Ottone L’incoronazione di Poppea, David Saul, and Eustazio Rinaldo (Glyndebourne), Oberon Midsummer Night’s Dream (Opera North), Ottone Agrippina and the title role in Tamerlano (Göttingen Handel Festival), the title role in Amadigi (Central City Opera, Wigmore Hall), Unulfo Rodelinda (Teatro Real, ENO), the title role in Artaxerxes (ROH), and world premieres as Antonio The Merchant of Venice (Bregenzer Festspiele), Theseus/Messenger Thebans (ENO), and Innocent 4 The Minotaur (ROH). In 2017/18, he sang Giulio Cesare (ETO), Oberon (ENO), Ottone (The Grange Festival), and appeared with Les Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski. Recent and future engagements include Unulfo Rodelinda in his return to Opera de Lyon, as well as debuts at Semperoper Dresden, National Opera of Chile, and Théâtre du Châtelet.

José Alves

BALLET BLACK

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Born in Brazil, José started ballet at the age of 13 at the Adalgisa Rolim Ballet School. In 2007 he joined the Bolshoi Theatre School in Brazil and graduated in 2008. In 2010 he attended the Youth American Grand Prix in New York, where he was awarded a scholarship to train with the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company. When he was unable to raise the funds to travel to New Zealand, he joined the Ballet Company of the Young (Palace of Arts) in Belo, Brazil where he remained until 2011. During this time he was also the featured dancer in Ricky Martin’s music video, Samba. In 2012 he joined the Teatr Muzyczny w Łódz in Poland. José joined Ballet Black

for the 2012/13 season and was promoted to Senior Artist in 2014. He has danced in original choreography by Javier de Frutos, Will Tuckett, Ludovic Ondiviela and created the roles of Demetrius and Bottom in A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream by Arthur Pita, and The Son in Mark Bruce’s Second Coming. José then joined Polski Teatr Tańca (Polish Dance Theatre) for a year before returning to Ballet Black in September 2016. In 2017, José was featured in the Company’s revival of Martin Lawrance’s Captured and created the role of Grandma, danced en pointe, in Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa’s Red Riding Hood. He was also one of the lead dancers in the Company’s first live stream on World Ballet Day 2017, dancing in the revival of Dopamine (you make my levels go silly) by Ludovic Ondiviela (2013), broadcast by the BBC. In 2018, José danced the role of Oberon in A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream (Arthur Pita) and created the role of Philemon in Cathy Marston’s The Suit, for which he won the 2018 Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Male Classical Dancer.

Joshua Barwick

COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Joshua is from Yorkshire, England and trained locally before he joined Northern Ballet’s Academy at age 14. At 16 he began training at Elmhurst, School of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Upon graduating in 2010 Joshua moved back to Leeds to join Northern Ballet where he performed extensively throughout the UK and across Europe, dancing in many productions by David Nixon and creating a role in Kenneth Tindall’s The Ultimate Form. In 2013 Joshua moved to London to perform a guest contract with New English Ballet Theatre for a gala at The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Joshua joined Rambert in 2014, during his 4 years with the company he was part of many creations and re-stagings, working with many choreographers including Mark Baldwin, Merce Cunningham, Didy Veldman and Kim Brandstrup, including performing the title role in Christopher Bruce’s Ghost Dances. Alongside his professional dance career, Joshua is a freelance teacher and rehearsal director. Joshua joined Company Wayne McGregor in 2019.

Rebecca Bassett-Graham COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Born in Ontario, Canada, Rebecca trained at the New Zealand School of Dance, graduating in 2011. She interned with New Zealand Dance Company during their 2012 Rotunda development project, and with DanceNorth during director Raewyn Hill’s work Bolera. She performed in DanceNorth’s Townsville Queensland season and through the Australian Ballet’s Melbourne season. Rebecca moved to London in 2013 where she worked with Lewis Major, performing at Sadler’s Wells and the TEDx conference in London. She performed her own works When All is Said and Done at the Australian & New Zealand Festival of Literature and Arts in London, and It’s Complicated and the assessor, the latter co-choreographed by Jono Selvadurai, at the C12 Dance Theatre Emerge Festival in 2015. She has worked closely with Beyond Repair Dance Company and has participated in research and development for The Light Surgeons. Rebecca joined Company Wayne McGregor in 2017.

Jonathan Best DR BARTOLO

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Jonathan Best studied at St John’s College‚ Cambridge and at the Guildhall School of Music. He made his operatic debut in 1983 with WNO‚ and has since sung with all the major British Opera companies and beyond. Most recent engagements include Father Traurnacht (Festival d’Aix en Provence), Sarastro The Magic Flute‚ Alcindoro La boème and Le Bailli Werther (Scottish Opera‚ Judge Turpin Sweeney Todd (Théâtre du Châtelet‚ Paris and Münchner Rundfunkorchester)‚ Drunken Poet The Fairy Queen (Handel and Haydn Society‚ Boston)‚ title role Saul (The Sixteen)‚ Capellio I Capuleti e i Montecchi‚ Don Fernando Leonore‚ Zebul Jephtha (Buxton Festival)‚ Don Alfonso Così fan tutte and Lord Henry The Picture of Dorian Gray (Den Jyske Opera)‚ Quince A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Speaker The Magic Flute (Garsington)‚ Achilla Giulio Cesare (Opera North)‚ Pastor Oberlin Jakob Lenz and

A RT I S T I C B I O G R A P H I E S

Bartolo The Marriage of Figaro (ENO)‚ The Adventures of Mr Broucek (Opera North/ Scottish Opera and the world première of Sally Beamish’s The Sins (Psappha).

Susan Bickley

MISTRESS QUICKLY

FALSTAFF

Highlights of the 2017–18 season include Eduige Rodelinda (ENO under Christian Curnyn), Auntie Peter Grimes (Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival), Eurycleia Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Royal Opera at the Roundhouse), and Carmen in David Sawer’s world premiere The Skating Rink (Garsington). Recent operatic highlights include Matron The Nose (ROH) Paulina The Winter’s Tale (ENO), and Genevieve Pelléas et Mélisande (Garsington). Bickley has performed with Opera North as Jenufa, as well as Waltraute Götterdämmerung and Fricka Die Walküre in Wagner’s Ring Cycle; she also returned to Welsh National Opera to sing Marcellina The Marriage of Figaro, a role she reprised in summer 2016 at Glyndebourn. Previous highlights include Herodias Salome (Dallas Opera and San Francisco Opera, Messagiera Orfeo (Royal Opera at The Roundhouse); Mother Between Worlds, and Jocasta Thebans, (ENO); Kabanicha Katya Kabanova (Opéra de Paris), Kostelnicka Jenůfa, Baba the Turk The Rake’s Progress and Mrs Grose The Turn of the Screw (Glyndebourne), Irene Theodora, Ludmilla The Bartered Bride, Aksinya Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Babulenka The Gambler; Virgie Anna Nicole (ROH) Madre in Nono’s Al gran sole carico d’amore at the Staatsoper Berlin and Salzburg Festival.

Claire Booth NITOCRIS

BELSHAZZAR

Claire Booth is known internationally for her commitment to an astonishing breadth of repertoire, together with the vitality and musicianship she brings to performance. Having gained a double first in modern history from Oxford University, Claire studied at both the Guildhall and National Opera Studio. Opera appearances include Elle La Voix Humaine, Rosina Il barbiere di Siviglia, Elcia Mose in Egitto and Pakati Wagner Dream (WNO), Vixen Cunning Little Vixen (Garsington), Nora Riders to the Sea

(ENO), Romilda Xerse (EOC), Dorinda Orlando (Scottish Opera), Despina Così fan tutte (Nantes) and Max Where the Wild Things Are (Barbican / LA Phil). She has a busy concert schedule, having delivered numerous world premieres by composers including Elliot Carter, Oliver Knussen, George Benjamin, Harrison Birtwistle, and Ryan Wigglesworth, and performed with the Boston Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Halle, Deutches Symphonie, Mahler Chamber, CBSO, Tokyo Philharmonic, Stockholm and LA Philharmonic orchestras. Recital appearances include London’s South Bank and Wigmore Hall, the Holland, Lucerne, Edinburgh and Aldeburgh Festivals. This season she sings Mrs Foran in The Silver Tassie (BBCSO/Barbican), the title role in Handel’s Berenice (ROH), broadcasts works by Henze and Benjamin with the BBC Philharmonic, makes her debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, performs with the Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall and returns to the Aldeburgh Festival for a tribute to the late Oliver Knussen.

Camille Bracher COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Camille grew up in Johannesburg and came to dance at a very early age through her mother, a contemporary dancer and choreographer. She trained privately with Martin Schonberg at Ballet Theatre Afrikan and aged 15 won the Outstanding Contemporary Dancer Award at the 2007 Youth America Grand Prix in New York. That year she also won the Junior Contemporary Division at the South African International Ballet Competition in Cape Town. In her final year at school she was awarded the second prize in the Junior Girls Division at the 2009 Helsinki International Ballet Competition. She joined The Royal Ballet in 2019 after training privately in South Africa and was to promoted to First Artist in 2015. Camille’s repertory with The Royal Ballet includes Wayne McGregor’s Infra, as well as White Cat (The Sleeping Beauty), Entertainer (The Invitation) and roles in The Nutcracker, Onegin, Swan Lake, The Rite of Spring, Giselle and Scènes de Ballet. She has created roles in McGregor’s Woolf Works and Carbon Life, as well as ‘Diana and Actaeon’ (Metamorphosis: Titian 2012). Camille joined Company Wayne McGregor in 2019..

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Jordan James Bridge

Lucy Carter

COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR LIGHTING DESIGN | OUTLIER

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Born in Manchester, Jordan started dancing at the age of 14. He went on to train at London Contemporary Dance School where he worked with Kerry Nicholls, Richard Alston and Tony Adigun. After graduating, Jordan joined Alexander Whitley Dance Company performing The Measures Taken and The Grit In The Oyster nationally and internationally. Jordan has also toured with Tavaziva Dance Company in 2015/16 and 2017 in the evocative work Africarmen. In 2016 he joined Michael Clark Company, performing a featured role in LAND during the critically acclaimed To a Simple, Rock and Roll… Song which toured nationally and internationally. Jordan has been commissioned to create his own work at various institutions and he is currently Resident Choreographer for Berkshire County Dance Company Youth, which was awarded ‘Best Performance’ at the 2016 U.Dance Awards from Youth Dance England. He has also taught extensively in the UK. Jordan joined Company Wayne McGregor in 2017.

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Lucy Carter is a multi-award winning, critically acclaimed Lighting Designer. She was awarded the 2018 Critics Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Contribution to Dance. She is a two-time winner of the prestigious Knight of Illumination Award for Dance for Chroma (2008) and for Woolf Works (2015) both by choreographer and director Wayne McGregor CBE for The Royal Ballet; winner of the 2013 TMA Achievement award in Opera for Lohengrin; and the 2004 Olivier Dance Award for 2 Human (McGregor). Opera credits includes Katya Kabanova and Hansel and Gretel (The Royal Opera House), Werther (Bergen National Opera), Elektra (Goteborge Opera), Lohengrin (Greek National Opera, Polish National Opera, and Welsh National Opera), La finta giardiniera (Glyndebourne and Teatro alla Scala), Peter Grimes on Aldeburgh beach, Salomé and The Dream of Gerontius for ENO at The Royal Festival Hall. Dance credits include Woolf Works, Obsidian Tear, +/- Human, AfteRite, Yugen, Multiverse, Atomos COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR and Autobiography with long-term collaborator Wayne McGregor; DANCE@THEGRANGE Threshold (Le Patin Libre), Infra Izzac was born in the (Australian Ballet, The Most small country town of Incredible Thing (Charlotte Ballet). Warialda in New South Theatre credits include The Wales, Australia. At 14 Almighty Sometimes and Persuasion years he moved to (Royal Exchange), Home I’m Darling Brisbane to pursue a (NT and West End), Husbands career as a performing and Sons, Medea and Emil and the artist, where he studied dance full-time Detectives (NT), Everybody’s Talking at the Australian Dance Performance About Jamie (Apollo), Oil (Almeida) Institute. Upon completion of his The End of Longing (Playhouse). Advanced Diploma in Performing Arts, Other credits include: lighting he successfully auditioned for a place in design for Gareth Pugh’s Women’s Sydney Dance Company’s PreCollection in London Fashion Professional Year in 2015. He continued Week 2017 and Paloma Faith’s his studies with a full scholarship in performance at the Brit Awards 2015 2016, before commencing a trainee (choreographed by McGregor). professional contract with Sydney Dance Company later that year. In 2017–2018 he worked as a full time professional company member of CONDUCTOR Sydney Dance Company and performed BELSHAZZAR in repertory works including 2 One Harry Christophers Another and Full Moon. Izzac moved to stands among today’s London and joined Company Wayne great champions of McGregor in 2019. choral music. In partnership with The Sixteen, he has set benchmark standards for the performance of everything from late medieval polyphony to

Izzac Carroll

Harry Christophers

important new works by contemporary composers. Under his leadership The Sixteen has established its hugely successful annual Choral Pilgrimage, created the Sacred Music series for BBC television, and developed an acclaimed periodinstrument orchestra. Highlights of their recent work include an Artist Residency at Wigmore Hall, a largescale tour of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, and the world premiere of James MacMillan’s Stabat mater; including a live-streamed performance from the Sistine Chapel. Their future projects, meanwhile, comprise a new series devoted to Purcell and an ongoing survey of Handel’s dramatic oratorios. Harry Christophers has served as Artistic Director of the Handel and Haydn Society since 2008, is Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Granada Orchestra and has worked as guest conductor with, among others, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsches Kammerphilharmonie. Christophers’ extensive commitment to opera has embraced productions for English National Opera and Lisbon Opera and work with the Granada, Buxton and Grange Park festivals. Harry Christophers was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s 2012 Birthday Honours list. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, as well as the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and has Honorary Doctorates in Music from the Universities of Leicester and Canterbury Christ Church.

Francesco Cilluffo CONDUCTOR

FALSTAFF

Supported by Peter & Nancy Thompson

Francesco Cilluffo’s future engagements include Isabeau (OHP and New York City Opera), L’Oracolo and Mala Vita (Wexford Festival), La Voix Humaine (featuring Anna Caterina Antonacci) and Cavalleria Rusticana for the OperaLombardia in Italy. Recent operatic engagements include: Tosca (Tulsa Opera), Roméo et Juliette, Madama Butterfly and La bohème (Israeli Opera), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona, Reggio Emilia and OperaLombardia), Risurrezione (Wexford Festival), L’italiana in Algeri (Opera Toulon), Napoli Milionaria (Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa), Rigoletto (Israeli Opera), La traviata (Opéra Royal de Wallonie), Il barbiere di Siviglia (Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa); Wolf-Ferrari’s Il Campiello (Opera di Firenze and Teatro Verdi diTrieste); L’elisir d’amore (Teatro

Regio diParma, Teatro Comunale di Modena and New Israeli Opera); Tutino’s Le braci (Festival della Valle d’Itria, Martina Franca and Opera di Firenze); Nabucco (Theater Kiel); and Mascagni’s Guglielmo Ratcliff (Wexford Festival broadcast on BBC Radio 3). Born in Turin, he received his conducting and composition degree from the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi and graduated in Musicology from Turin University. He continued his studies in London, where he was awarded Master in Composition (with distinction) Guildhall School of Musicand Drama and a PhD in Composition King’s College, London.

Graham Clark DR CAIUS

FALSTAFF

Born in Littleborough in Lancashire, Graham Clark studied with Bruce Boyce and began his operatic career with Scottish Opera in 1975. He was a Company Principal at ENO (1978–85). He has performed with all the leading UK opera houses and has also had an extensive international career at the Bayreuth Festival, where he has performed over a hundred and twenty times and at The Metropolitan Opera, where he has performed 82 times. Graham Clark is especially associated with the works of Wagner and has performed Loge and Mime Der Ring des Nibelungen over 275 times Recent and future operatic engagements include Wozzeck, Metanoia, Lulu and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Staatsoper Berlin), Reimann’s Lear, Capriccio and Makropoulos Case (Oper Frankfurt), Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber (De Nederlandse Opera) Der Traum ein Leben (Theater Bonn), Capriccio, Falstaff, From the House of the Dead (Paris Opera, ROH, Brussels and Lyon), Hänsel und Gretel (Northern Ireland Opera), Falstaff (Glyndebourne), La Fanciulla del West (ENO), a new commission by Iain Bell In parenthesis (WNO), Capriccio and Tristan und Isolde (ROH). Concert engagements include a concert performance of Tristan und Isolde (West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Seville), Falstaff (CBSO), Der Rosenkavalier (Boston Symphony Orchestra) and Oedipe (LPO in London and Bucharest).

A RT I S T I C B I O G R A P H I E S

Tim Claydon

CHOREOGRAPHER

BELSHAZZAR

Trained in classical dance and was an aerialist/trapeze artist. He has choreographed productions including 5 of the ‘6 little greats’ (Opera North), Romeo and Juliet (The Globe) Pyramusand Thisbe (Canadian Opera Co); Latraviata, Don Carlos (Houston Grand Opera); Parsifal (Chicago Lyric); Andrea Chenier (Opera North); Carmen (Vlaamse Opera); La rondine, Albert Herring (Opera North); The Elixir of Love (WNO, Opera North, HGO and Oviedo); Falstaff and I Capuleti e iMontecchi (Opera North, Melbourne and Sydney); and La bohème, The Bartered Bride (Opera North, Valencia and New Zealand); Rusalka and The Fortunes of King Croesus (Opera North and Minnesota). As Assistant Director for Opera North, The Bartered Bride, Orfeo ed Euridice, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, The Merry Widow, Das Rheingold, La clemenza di Tito, his revival of Peter Grimes, and Gianni Schicchi, Additional choreography includes: Il turco in Italia and Veronique (Buxton Opera House); The Tales of Hoffmann (Malmö Opera); Grimes on the Beach (AldeburghMusic); The Magic Flute, Così fan Tutti, Idomeneo (Garsington); and Madam Butterfly (Oviedo).

Isabela Coracy BALLET BLACK

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Isabela was born in Brazil and began her vocational training at the Centro De Dança Rio. She has taken part in many festivals and competitions, including the Joinville Festival and Youth America Grand Prix. As a professional, Isabela has danced with Project Deborah Colker, São Paulo Dance Company, Youth Ballet of Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian Company of Ballet and has toured Russia extensively. She has danced in many classics: Don Quixote, Raymonda, Swan Lake and Serenade, as well as modern works, Gnawa (Nacho Duato) and The Double (Mauricio de Oliveira). In 2009, Isabela was featured in the documentary, Only When I Dance, directed by Beaide Finzi. Isabela joined Ballet Black as a Junior Artist in 2013 and has since danced in works by Christopher Marney, Javier de Frutos and Martin Lawrance. In 2014, Isabela created the role of Puck in A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream by

Arthur Pita and danced in Martin Lawrance’s ballet, Limbo. In 2015, she was promoted to Senior Artist and created the role of The Maiden in Mark Bruce’s production of Second Coming. In 2016 Isabela was featured in ballets by Christopher Marney and danced the role of Burlesque Dancer and Lulu White in Storyville by Christopher Hampson. In 2017 Isabela was a featured dancer in Martin Lawrance’s Captured and created the role of Mother in Red Riding Hood by Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa. In 2018, Isabela created roles in Cathy Marston’s The Suit and reprised her role as Puck in BB’s 2018 restaging of Dream.

María Daniela González

COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR

DANCE@THEGRANGE

María Daniela was born in Mexico City, Mexico. A dancer and singer, she studied at Escuela Superior de Musica y Danza de Monterrey (ESMDM), before starting her professional career with Ballet de Monterrey, 2010–2013. Also in 2010 she was awarded a scholarship by Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FONCA) and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA), which allowed her to produce her first independent work. She has performed as a dancer and singer in the Broadway musicals Wicked (2014–15) and The Lion King (2015–16). María Daniela has also worked as a freelance artist from 2016–2019 performing in Europe in galas and festivals, and as a guest artist with Bayerisches Staatsballett, Bayerisches Staatsoper and Gärtnerplatz Theater. María Daniela joined Company Wayne McGregor in 2019.

Louise Dearman VOCALIST

GERSHWIN IN HOLLYWOOD

Louise Dearman is a leading actress and international concert soloist. She has appeared as Elphaba and Glinda in Wicked, Eva Peron in Evita, performed with orchestras worldwide including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the John Wilson Orchestra at the BBC Proms. She has published her own book and recorded four albums, her latest called For You For Me which was released in May last year.

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Pietro Di Bianco PISTOLA

FALSTAFF

Italian born bassbaritone Pietro Di Bianco’s upcoming and recent engagements include Thoas Iphigénie en Tauride, Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte, Lully’s Armide (Innsbruck Alte Musik Festival), Selim Il Turco in Italia (Salzburger Landestheater), Don Profondo Il Viaggio a Reims (Teatro Coccia of Novara as part of Milan EXPO 2015) and Fiorello in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Opéra national de Paris Bastille where he will be back as Spinelloccio in Gianni Schicchi next to Placido Domingo in the title-role, Biscroma Viva la Mamma (Opéra de Lyon), Nicholas in Vanessa and Don Annibale in Il campanello (Wexford Festival Opera). Other recent roles include Collatinus the Rape of Lucretia (Theatre de l’Athénée in Paris) and Beaupertuis Il cappello di Paglia (Petruzzelli Theatre Bari). In 2014 he also won first prize at the Paris Opera Awards Competition.

Richard Egarr CONDUCTOR

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Egarr was appointed Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music in 2006, and shortly thereafter he established the Choir of the AAM. Together they have brought semi-staged productions of Mozart’s La Finta Giardinera, Monteverdi and Purcell cycles to the Barbican (performing Dido and Aeneas earlier this season). Egarr made his Glyndebourne debut in 2007 with a staged St Matthew Passion, and has conducted La clemenza di Tito, Le nozze di Figaro and Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino (Netherlands Opera Academy). He conducts leading symphony orchestras such as London Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw and Philadelphia, as well as period ensembles such as Handel and Haydn Society Boston. He was Associate Artist with the Scottish Chamber 2011–2017, and was recently appointed Principal Guest of the Residentie Orkest The Hague from 2019. A sought-after keyboard player, he regularly plays at Wigmore and Carnegie Hall, and has recorded many discs for Harmonia Mundi and latterly for Linn Records. He trained as a choirboy at York Minster, was organ scholar at Clare College Cambridge, and

later studied with Gustav and Marie Leonhardt. He teaches at the Amsterdam Conservatoire and is Visiting Artist at the Juilliard School in New York.

Ludovico Einaudi MUSIC | CLAY, LITTLE ATLAS

DANCE@THEGRANGE

His phenomenal CD sales and ability to sell out major concert halls worldwide are confirmation that Einaudi is one of classical music’s success stories. After studying at the Conservatory in Milan, and subsequently with Luciano Berio, he spent several years composing in traditional forms. In the mid-1980s he began to search for a more personal expression in a series of works for dance and multimedia, and later for piano. His music is ambient, meditative and often introspective, drawing on minimalism, world music and contemporary pop. He has made a significant impact in the film world, with four international awards to his name.

Phillip Feeney

MUSIC | THE SUIT

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Composer and Pianist, Philip Feeney (b.1954), studied composition at the University of Cambridge with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood, and later with Franco Donatoni in Rome at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. He is best known for his work in dance, which he first encountered in Italy and has since worked with many companies, including Northern Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, the White Oak Project and the Martha Graham Company. He has collaborated with many choreographers including Michael Pink, Didy Veldman, Michael Keegan-Dolan, Derek Williams, David Nixon, Adam Cooper and Sara Matthews, and his works have been performed by dance companies as diverse as Northern Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, Cullberg Ballet, Boston Ballet, Fabulous Beast, Scottish Dance Theatre, Milwaukee Ballet, in addition to more than forty works for Ballet Central. Clearly inspired by image and movement, Feeney’s output is remarkable, apart from anything else, for its range and scope. Extending from full-length orchestral ballet scores to electro-acoustic soundscapes, even

to jazz and hip hop scores, his works exhibit a capacity for making style work for him, by reinventing past styles in a post-modern way. For him, the crucial thing is that music for dance needs to make sense as pure music at all times. It needs to have that kinetic musicality and parallel logic that makes one feel that the music is right, and that it is the only possible music that could work for that particular choreography. From 1991–95 he lectured in composition at Reading University. He is currently composer in residence for Ballet Central and has been a longstanding accompanist at the London Contemporary Dance School.

Alessandra Ferri GUEST ARTIST

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Italian dancer Alessandra Ferri is a former Principal of The Royal Ballet. Ferri was born in Milan and trained first at La Scala Ballet School, Milan, followed by The Royal Ballet School. She entered The Royal Ballet in 1980, promoted to Soloist in 1983 and to Principal in 1984 aged 19. She left the company in 1985, returning in 2003 to dance Juliet (Romeo and Juliet) as a Guest Artist. She returned in 2015 as a Guest Artist to create a role in Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works for The Royal Ballet, for which she was awarded the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Best Female Dancer and a second Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance. She performed in The Royal Ballet’s revival of Woolf Works at the Royal Opera House in 2017. With The Royal Ballet, she has performed key roles in Mayerling, Manon, L’Invitation au voyage, Valley of Shadows and Different Drummer. In 1985 she joined American Ballet Theatre on the invitation of Mikhail Baryshnikov and went on to form a famed dance partnership with Julio Bocca. She joined La Scala Ballet, Milan, as a guest principal in 1992, remaining with ABT as a guest principal. Ferri starred in AfteRite, Wayne McGregor’s first commission for American Ballet Theatre in 2018, based on Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’, and in 2019 she performed the lead role of La Scala Ballet’s re-staging of Woolf Works. Other works with Wayne McGregor include Witness with Herman Cornejo, the Boots No.7 campaign in 2016, and a performance in McGregor’s 2018 BBC film Winged Bull in the Elephant Case filmed at the National Gallery, London.

Alessandro Fisher FENTON

FALSTAFF

Supported by Nigel Beale & Anthony Lowrey

A member of the BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists Scheme and Winner of First Prize at the 2016 Kathleen Ferrier Awards, Alessandro Fisher read Modern and Medieval Languages at the University of Cambidge, furthering his studies at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He sang Alindo/Delmiro Hipermestra (Glyndebourne), and his engagements have further included Lucano/First Soldier L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Salzburg Festival), the title role in Dardanus (English Touring Opera), Count Bandiera in Salieri’s La scuola de’ gelosi (Bampton Classical Opera), Roussel Evocations (BBC Philharmonic, now available on Chandos CD), BBC Radio 3’s Big Chamber Day and recitals (Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery, Oxford Lieder and London’s Wigmore Hall). His recordings further include Theodore in Edward Loder’s Raymond and Agnes with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by Richard Bonynge for Retrospect Opera. He is an Associate Artist of Classical Opera for whom he has sung Bastien Bastien und Bastienne, Don Polidoro La finta semplice and Christian The First Commandment.

Matt Ford VOCALIST

GERSHWIN IN HOLLYWOOD

Matt Ford is widely regarded as the finest big band singer in the UK and is also celebrated for his interpretation of songs from the golden age of Hollywood film musicals and classic Broadway musicals. In 2006 Matt was voted ‘Best UK Male Big Band Vocalist’ and was nominated as ‘Best Male Vocalist’ alongside Jamie Cullum at the inaugural Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Awards. As a soloist Matt performs with The Halle, The John Wilson Orchestra, the RTE Concert Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra and Orchestre National de Lyon. Matt appears internationally at festivals including the BBC Proms, Musikfest Berlin, Hampton Court, Cheltenham, Harrogate, Aldeburgh Festival and the Grafenegg Festival. Matt has worked

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with conductors John Wilson, Neil Thompson, David Brophy, Robert Ziegler, Richard Balcombe, Gavin Sutherland, David Firman, Stephen Bell and Larry Blank. Matt appears on the Warner Classics recordings That’s Entertainment and Gershwin in Hollywood with the John Wilson Orchestra. In 2013 Matt made is American debut in Los Angeles alongside Seth MacFarlane in a show celebrating the MGM film musicals. Matt appears regularly on British TV and radio.

Christopher Gillett BARDOLFO

FALSTAFF

Most recent and forthcoming engagements of British tenor Christopher Gillett include Triquet Eugene Onegin (Scottish Opera)‚ Henri Clerval Frankenstein and Beadle Banford Sweeney Todd (La Monnaie), Red Whiskers Billy Budd (Teatro Real‚ Madrid‚ ROH)‚ and Snout A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Festival d’Aix en Provence and Beijing Music Festival). Other important recent appearances have included Rev. Horace Adams Peter Grimes (Teatro alla Scala and Aldeburgh Festival)‚ Valzacchi Der Rosenkavalier (Glyndebourne), Emperor Turandot (Northern Ireland Opera)‚ Mr Lovelace A Harlot’s Progress (world premiere at Theater an der Wien)‚ Cura Il Postino (world premiere) Arnalta L’incoronazione di Poppea and Basilio Le nozze di Figaro (Los Angeles Opera), Flute A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Teatro alla Scala)‚ Sellem The Rake’s Progress (Birmingham Symphony), Nutrice Poppea (Dutch National Opera Amsterdam) and Pisandro Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Amsterdam‚ Antwerp‚ Lisbon‚ Sydney and New York). On CD/DVD‚ Christopher recorded the title roles of Albert Herring and The Martyrdom of St Magnus‚ as well as roles in Billy Budd‚ The Beggar’s Opera‚ Peter Grimes‚ A Midsummer Night’s Dream‚ King Priam‚ Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria‚ and operas by Oliver Knussen and Tan Dun. He has filmed Britten’s The Journey of the Magi with Pierre Audi and directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the University of Illinois. A regular contributor to various magazines, he has written two books, Who’s My Bottom? and Scraping The Bottom, with a third on the way.

Toby Girling

COUNT ALMAVIVA

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Toby Girling’s current and future engagements include Nicomedes Der König Kandaules and Pallante Agrippina (De Vlaamse Opera), Belcore l’elisir d’amore (Scottish Opera), Angelo Das Liebesverbot (Chelsea Opera Group at Cadogan Hall), Sam Trouble in Tahiti (Oper Leipzig on tour in Bolzano, Wexford Festival and Teatro Pérez Galdós in Gran Canaria). Recent engagements include Evangelist/Watchful/First Shepherd Pilgrim’s Progress (ENO), Masetto Don Giovanni, Ruggero La Juive, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, a staged version of Winterreise and Junkman/Hermann Augustus Candide (Vlaamse Opera Antwerp), Top The Tenderland (Opéra de Lyon), Marcello La bohème and Morales Carmen (Neville Holt), Guglielmo Così fan tutte (English Touring Opera), and Il Chirurgo/Alcade La Forza del Destino (Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg). For the Glyndebourne Opera Festival Chorus, he sang Arthur Jones and covered Donald Billy Budd in the Michael Grandage production. Toby is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Geneviève Giron

LIGHTING DESIGN (FOR THE GRANGE FESTIVAL) | CLAY

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Geneviève grew up in Brittany, France. After studying English Literature and Arts Philosophy she started training professionally as a dancer and choreographer in Montpellier and Toulouse (France). She then moved to London and obtained a First Class BA (Hons) in Modern Theatre Dance. Whilst working as a Dance Artist Gene developed a growing interest in lighting design and theatre work which have now become her main activity. Her design experience includes work with choreographers such as Tara D’Arquian, Gary Clarke, Marie˗Gabrielle Rotie, Theo Lowe and Mathias Sperling, and with Dirty Market Theatre. She has worked as a technician in various venues in London including Trinity Laban, Greenwich Dance, Theatre Delicatessen, Goldsmiths University, Tate Modern and Southwark Playhouse. Past touring and relighting works include Retina Dance Company, Hagit Yakira Dance, Transitions Dance Company, Dance Research Studio,

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Tilted Productions and Rhiannon Faith. Geneviève joined Studio Wayne McGregor’s technical team in 2018.

Wallis Giunta CHERUBINO

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta was the winner of the “Young Singer” category at the 2018 International Opera Awards and “Breakthrough Artist in UK Opera” in the 2017 WhatsOnStage Awards. Highlights in the 2018/19 season include role debuts as the title role Carmen, Rosina The Barber of Seville, and Octavian Der Rosenkavalier (Oper Leipzig), Idamante Idomeneo (Opera Atelier, Toronto), Flora La traviata with Placido Domingo (Royal Opera House, Muscat). Giunta will also appear at the BBC Proms, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Edinburgh Festival. Recent highlights include the title role in Ravel L’enfant et les sortilèges and as Dinah in Bernstein Trouble in Tahiti for Opera North, and Gymnasiast in a new production of Berg Lulu, and Angelina La Cenerentola and Cherubino Le nozze di Figaro (Oper Leipzig).

Mitchell Harper

MOVEMENT DIRECTOR

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO FALSTAFF

Mitchell trained at Laine Theatre Arts. Performance credits include; Ensemble u/s Hook in Peter Pan (Theatre Royal, Newcastle) Ensemble u/s Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk (Kings Theatre, Edinburgh) Toy Soldier in The Nutcracker (MAC, UK & Ireland) Playlist Performer (Carnival Cruise Line) FT Ensemble in Snow White (Bristol Hippodrome) Ensemble u/s Prince Charming in Cinderella (New Theatre Cardiff) Ensemble u/s Robin in Robin Hood (Theatre Royal Plymouth). Television includes; Handsome Bell Boy in Dr. Who (BBC) Dave in Being Human (BBC). Mitchell has also modelled for Spa Experience, Rhys Giles, Burton, Bound To You, Chisel Cheeks, Barry M, Ynad Javier and L’Oreal. Creative credits include; Choreographer Dick Whittington (Lighthouse Poole) Choreographer Around the World in 80 Days (The Union Theatre) Choreographer Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Grange Festival) Offie Nomination; Best Choreographer Twang!! (The Union Theatre) Choreographer HMS Pinafore (UK Tour) Choreographer The

Mikado (UK Tour) Associate Director Fabulous 50 (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre) Choreographer Goldilocks (Ivy Arts Centre) Choreographer Loserville (Ivy Arts Centre and Electric Theatre) and Choreographer Jack and the Beanstalk (Freshwater Entertainment). Mitchell is delighted to be back at The Grange Festival this year.

Robert Hayward SIR JOHN FALSTAFF

FALSTAFF

Robert Hayward made his professional opera debut singing the title role in Don Giovanni for Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1986. He has performed at the ROH, ENO, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Frankfurt Opera, Stuttgart Opera, WNO, Opera North, Scottish Opera and Glyndebourne in a wide repertoire including Wotan The Ring, Amfortas Parsifal, Jokanaan Salome, the title roles in Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni, Mazeppa, Der fliegende Holländer, Falstaff and Macbeth; Iago Otello, Scarpia Tosca, Marcello La bohème, Escamillo Carmen, Tomsky The Queen of Spades, Nick Shadow The Rake’s Progress, Mandryka Arabella, Golaud Pelleas et Melisande, Kurwenal Tristan, Prince Ivan Khovansky Khovanshchina, Simone in Zemlinsky’s Florentine Tragedy and Telramund Lohengrin. Recent and forthcoming operatic engagements include Fidelio, Moses und Aaron, Khovanschina (WNO), The Makropulous Case, Tosca, Peter Grimes, Die Walküre, Andréa Chenier, Jokannen and Scarpia (Opera North), Lady Macbeth and the Chief of Police Jack the Ripper (ENO), Jokannen (Northern Ireland Opera), title role in Bluebeard’s Castle and Telramund (Frankfurt Opera), Damnation of Faust (Staatstheater Stuttgart), the title role in Mazeppa and Moses, Moses und Aron (Komische Oper Berlin), Bluebeard’s Castle (Scottish Opera, Los Angeles Opera and in concert with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain).

Jane Heather

DESIGNER | THE SUIT

DANCE@THEGRANGE

The Suit is Jane Heather’s first design for ballet but characteristic of her essential design style which uses a minimal visual language to evoke a wider world. Her training as an Illustrator and skill in drawing has supported her

through a diverse range of projects: installations for musical performance, educational projects in schools, as Artist in Residence at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, more recently as a Garden Designer. Theatre credits include: Stuff Happens, A Little Night Music, The Sea, In Flame, King Lear, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice (RADA), Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London (King’s Head and international tour), Peer Gynt, Mr Vertigo (North Wall), Islands (Lipsynch), The Oklahoma Outlaw (Northern Stage), Beautiful People (Scarborough), Doctor Faustus, The Accrington Pals (Chichester). She was a joint artistic director of The Table Show, designing Wanted Man (BAC), Coventry (National Theatre), Missing Reel (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Traverse) Design for screen includes costumes for This Filthy Earth (Film 4), Something to Make You Sing, Market of the Dead (BBC TV), Tales from the Underground (MTV). Design of music theatre includes Earth Receive an Honoured Guest (Hoxton New Music Days) and Red Herring at Wilton’s Music Hall. She has designed private and public gardens in London and East Anglia.

Simon Higlett DESIGNER

FALSTAFF

Forthcoming, current and most recent designs – The Price (Theatre Royal Bath), The Chalk Garden and The Midnight Gang (Chichester Festival Theatre), Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night (Royal Shakespeare Company), An Ideal Husband (West End) and Schonberg in Hollywood (Boston Lyric Opera). Simon has designed for the Royal Court, the Almeida, the Donmar, the Old Vic, Hampstead Theatre, many productions in the West End, and has numerous credits at Chichester Festival Theatre and most of the major regional theatres in the UK. Highlights include The Marriage of Figaro (Scottish Opera),The Earthly Paradise (Almeida), The Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Donmar), The Force of Change (Royal Court), The Merry Wives of Windsor (Stockholm), Haunted (NYC/ Brits Off Broadway), Pygmalion (Old Vic), Singer (RSC), The Brothers Karamazov (Manchester Royal Exchange) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (major UK tour). Simon designs for opera worldwide and is the winner of the Manchester Theatre Award for Best Design, two TMA Best Design Awards, and the Helen Hayes Best Design Award in the United States.

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dancer in ballets by Jonathan Watkins, Henri Oguike and Martin Lawrance. In 2014 she created the role of Helena in COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR Arthur Pita’s production of A Dream DANCE@THEGRANGE Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream. After a year off to have her first child, Benjamin trained at Sayaka returned to Ballet Black for the Rambert School of 2015/16 season, where she danced in Ballet and featured roles for Arthur Pita, Contemporary Dance, Christopher Marney and as Lulu White London, and at Adele in Christopher Hampson’s Storyville. In Taylor School of Dance, 2017, Sayaka was a featured dancer in Huddersfield. As part of the Michael Corder quartet, House of his professional training with Rambert Dreams and danced the roles of Wolf School, he performed in Itzik Galili’s A Acolyte and Red in Annabelle LopezLinha Curva with Rambert Dance Ochoa’s Red Riding Hood. In 2018 she Company in the 2017/2018 tour, and in returned to the role of Helena in Dan Wagoner’s White Heat restaged by Dream, and danced the part of Matilda Paul Liburd MBE, performed at the in The Suit. She was also one of the lead Lilian Baylis Theatre. In 2016 and 2017 dancers in the Company’s first live he performed Richard Alston CBE’s stream on World Ballet Day 2017, Glint at The Woking New Victoria dancing in the revival of Dopamine (you Theatre and Sadlers Wells. He make my levels go silly) by Ludovic choreographed and performed work in Ondiviela (2013), broadcast by the BBC. collaboration with the RADA Lighting Alongside working for Ballet Black, Team in 2017. In 2018 Benjamin Sayaka is currently studying for the performed Jenna Lee’s Ardor at the Royal Ballet School’s Diploma of request of Darcey Bussell and Carlos Dance Teaching. Acosta for ‘An Evening With Darcey Bussell’ at The Gillian Lynne Theatre 2018. Also in 2018, he performed in Wayne Eagling’s Rememberance and DESIGNER Jenna Lee’s Four Seasons for New BELSHAZZAR English Ballet Theatre. Benjamin joined Company Wayne McGregor in 2019. Opera: Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Rigoletto (Lyric Opera Chicago); In Parenthesis, War and BALLET BLACK Peace, Rigoletto, Flying DANCE@THEGRANGE Dutchman (WNO); Madame Butterfly (Den Sayaka was born in Jyske Opera); Charodeika (Teatro di San Chiba, Japan, where she Carlo, Naples); The Italian Girl in Algier, began dancing at the Peter Grimes, Billy Budd (Santa Fe age of two. She trained Opera); Tosca, Lohengrin, The Cunning in New York and in Little Vixen (San Francisco Opera); 2003 moved to London Tristan und Isolde (La Fenice Venice); to study at the Rambert Aida (Opera Holland Park); The School of Ballet and Contemporary Cunning Little Vixen, Mamoetto II Dance. Sayaka graduated in 2006 with (Garsington Opera). a First Class BA (Hons) degree. Since Theatre: Julius Caesar, Anthony graduating, she has performed with and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, Vienna Festival Ballet and Ballet Coriolanus, Don Quixote, Oppenheimer Theatre UK as a Principal Dancer in (RSC); Neville’s Island, Speed the Plow, Coppélia, Sleeping Beauty, The Clybourne Park (West End); Kenny Nutcracker and Swan Lake and in 2009 Morgan (Arcola); Other Desert Cities performed Le Corsaire with American (Old Vic); Noises Off (Nottingham Ballet Theatre at the London Coliseum. Playhouse/Northern Stage/Nuffield Sayaka performed in Ross McKim’s Southampton); The Crucible, Swallows Moving Visions Dance Theatre at and Amazons (Bristol Old Vic); Lady St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and York In The Van, Kafka’s Dick (Theatre Minster. She has also danced for ENO Royal Bath); King Lear (Chichester and Opera North in their production of Festival Theatre/BAM ); The Boy in the Madam Butterfly. Sayaka appeared in Striped Pyjamas (Chichester Festival the musical The King and I and in the Theatre/UK Tour); A Doll’s House (NT film, StreetDance: the Movie. She has Scotland); The Crucible (Bristol Old also been a Guest Principal Dancer and Vic); Twelfth Night, Romeo And Juliet Guest Teacher for Ballet Riviera in (Regent’s Park); Arturo Ui (New York); Switzerland since 2008. Sayaka was a The Weavers (Awarded Critics Circle member of the Ballet Black Associate Designer Of The Year at The Gate) The Programme for several years before Member Of The Wedding (Young Vic). becoming a Senior Artist with Ballet

Benjamin Holloway

Robert Innes Hopkins

Sayaka Ichikawa

Black in 2011. Since joining the Company, Sayaka has been a featured

Ben Johnson DON BASILIO

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Acclaimed tenor Ben Johnson represented England in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2013 and won the Audience Prize. A former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and 2008 winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award, Johnson trained as an English National Opera Harewood Artist and was also a Wigmore Hall Emerging Talent. His 2017/18 season included a return to ENO as Earl Tolloller in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe as well as performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Britten Canticles with Fundacion Juan March in Madrid. Recent highlights include Eisenstein Die Fledermaus and Don Ottavio Don Giovanni for Opera Holland Park as well as Alfredo La traviata, Tamino Die Zauberflöte, and Nemorino L’elisir d’amore, for ENO. He has also performed Don Ottavio Don Giovanni for Glyndebourne as well as Novice in their production of Billy Budd directed by Michael Grandage, Lysander A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Bergen National Opera, Bénédict Béatrice et Bénédict for Chelsea Opera Group, Copland’s performances of The Tender Land at Opéra de Lyon and Britten’s War Requiem at De Doelen and the Concertgebouw Brugge. Upcoming engagements for 18/19 include Tamino in a UK tour of The Magic Flute for WNO.

Peter Johnson

COMPOSER | WASHA

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Peter Johnson is a South African based musician, composer and producer. Born in Cape Town, he began studying classical piano and tap dancing while at school. He later pursued his love for the piano and spent some time furthering his studies at the University of Cape Town under the guidance of Dr. Franklin Larey. It was during this time that he decided to broaden his dance studies joined the Cape Academy of Performing Arts, graduating in 2009 with a Diploma in Musical Theatre and Dance Related Studies. Peter was introduced to vocal studies, drama and dance genres such as ballet, contemporary, Spanish and various other dance techniques under the guidance of Debbie Turner and her faculty. He was privileged to have worked with South African choreographers such as Adele Blank, Ananda Fuchs, Sbonakaliso Ndaba

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and international choreographers such as Michael Thomas. As a self-taught composer learning all the technical aspects of digital music recording and production, Peter is actively involved in various projects and collaborations with artists and choreographers. In 2011 he composed the commissioned work for the Baxter Dance Festival. Ingoma is his third collaboration with Mthuthuzeli November. November’s Visceral and Sun, choreographed for the Cape Dance Company and composed by Johnson, have laid the foundation for the artistic vision each one has. He is always looking for new emotive and unique ways of expression in music.

Moritz Junge

COSTUME DESIGN | OUTLIER

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Costume designer Moritz Junge was born in Germany and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts and the Slade School of Fine Art. He won the Linbury Prize for stage design in 2001. Costume designs for ballet include McGregor’s Anatomie de la Sensation (Paris Opera Ballet), Dyad 1929 (Australian Ballet), Outlier (New York City Ballet), Kairos (Ballett Zürich) and Sunyata (Bayerisches Staatsballett, Munich). Junge collaborates regularly Wayne McGregor, at The ROH on Chroma (2006), Infra (2008), Limen (2009), Live Fire Exercise (2011), Woolf Works (2015) and Multiverse (2016) for The Royal Ballet, and with Company Wayne McGregor on FAR, Atomos, Future Self, Azimuth, and Rain Room. Junge made his ROH debut in 2004 creating costume designs for the world premiere of Adès’s The Tempest. Credits since include Aida (2010) and Les Troyens (2012), directed by David McVicar, for The Royal Opera. In theatre his work includes The Kitchen, Dido, Queen of Carthage and The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other (National Theatre) and All About My Mother (Old Vic). Opera work includes La Cenerentola (Glyndebourne Festival and Deutsche Oper Berlin), King Roger (Mainz), The Winter’s Tale and The Messiah (ENO), Un ballo in maschera and Adriana Lecouvreur (Freiburg), Rigoletto (Hanover), Die Zauberflöte (Lucerne), Macbeth(Konzert Theater Bern) and Béatrice et Bénédict (Theater an der Wien). Junge’s other credits including designing the costumes for the London 2012 Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony. Recent costume work includes: Pure Dance (Sadler’s Wells); Songs of Bukovina

(American Ballet Theatre), Sunyata (Munich Staatsballet), L’Anatomie de la sensation (Paris Opera Ballet), Outlier (NYCB), Dyad 1929 (Australian Ballet). For the Royal Ballet, costume work includes Woolf Works, Multiverse, Live Fire Exercise, Limen, Infra and Chroma. Work in opera includes set and costumes for Three Oranges (Staatstheater Mainz), Così fan tutte (Opera Australia), Powder Her Face (Theater Aachen); and costumes for Norma, Roberto Devereux, Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci (Metropolitan Opera, New York), Les Troyens (Royal Opera, San Francisco, Vienna). Designs for theatre include Dance Nation, Judgment Day (Almeida), Aristocrats (Donmar), Macbeth, The Kitchen, Dido, Queen of Carthage (NT), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe), In the Republic of Happiness (Royal Court), All About my Mother (Old Vic). He was an overall winner of the Linbury Prize for Stage Design.

Edward Kemp

DRAMATURG | THE SUIT

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Is a writer, director, dramaturg and translator. Since 2008 he has been Director of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Collaborations with Cathy Marston include Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Grands Ballets Canadiens), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Royal Danish Ballet), Ghosts, Echo and Narcissus (ROH2), A Tale of Two Cities (Northern Ballet Theatre), Blood Wedding (Helsinki Ballet), Firebird, Juliet and Romeo, Wuthering Heights, Ein Winternachtstraum, Clara, Hexenhatz (Bern Ballet). He has written text for Julian Philips’s How the Whale Became (ROH) and The Yellow Sofa (Glyndebourne), Victoria Borisova Ollas’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet (Manchester Festival), Jason Carr’s Six Pictures of Lee Miller (Chichester), Prokofiev’s Ivan the Terrible (BBC Proms). Plays and adaptations include: Racine’s Andromache (RADA/BBC Radio), Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita (Chichester/Complicite), King James Bible (National Theatre), Kleist’s Penthesilea, Goldoni’s Holiday Trilogy, Lorca’s House of Bernarda Alba (RADA), Brecht’s Turandot (Hampstead), 5/11 (Chichester), Lessing’s Nathan the Wise (Chichester/BBC Radio), WG Sebald’s The Emigrants (BBC Radio), Moliere’s Don Juan and The Hypochondriac (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (Young Vic), The Mysteries (RSC/ BBC Radio). As a director, productions include Romeo & Juliet, Stuff Happens, A

Little Night Music, Andromache, The Sea, Six Pictures of Lee Miller, King Lear, The Young Idea, Company, Penthesilea (RADA), Macbeth (Regent’s Park), Office Suite, Dr Faustus, Wild Orchids, Accrington Pals (Chichester), Beautiful People (Scarborough), As I Lay Dying (Louisiana), Mommsens Block, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (Vermont), Missing Reel, Wanted Man, Coventry (National Theatre Studio). Future plans include new ballets with Cathy Marston for the Royal Ballet and San Francisco Ballet.

Kronos Quartet MUSIC | THE SUIT

DANCE@THEGRANGE

For 45 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet – David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello) – has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts, releasing more than 60 recordings, collaborating with an eclectic mix of composers and performers, and commissioning over 1000 works and arrangements for string quartet. The group has won over 40 awards, including two Grammys, the prestigious Polar Music and Avery Fisher Prizes, and the WOMEX (World Music Expo) Artist Award. The nonprofit Kronos Performing Arts Association manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including the commissioning of new works, concert tours and home season performances, education programs, and the annual Kronos Festival. In 2015, Kronos launched 50 for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an education and legacy project that is commissioning—and distributing online for free—50 new works for string quartet composed by 25 women and 25 men.

James Laing DANIEL

BELSHAZZAR

Supported by Anonymous

James Laing has sung for companies including the Royal Opera, London, Classical Opera, the Early Opera Company, ENO, Garsington Opera, Glyndebourne, GPO, OHP, Opera North and WNO. International engagements have included the Göttingen Festival, the Opéra de Nice and the Dresden Semperoper.

Concert engagements have included performances with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Dunedin Consort, the Hallé, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Spain, the Netherlands Bach Society, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Royal Northern Sinfonia. North American engagements have included performances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Arion Baroque of Montréal and Tafelmusik in Toronto. Current engagements include creating Peter in Daniel Bjarnason’s Brødre for Den Jyske Opera, also for the Icelandic Opera, Apollo Death in Venice at the Landestheater Linz, The Refugee Flight for Scottish Opera, Tolomeo Giulio Cesare for Opera North and a return to ENO to create Terry in Nico Muhly’s Marnie. His recordings include J. S. Bach Magnificat (Atma CD), The Adventures of Pinocchio (Opus Arte Blu Ray / DVD) and Tobias and the Angel (Chandos CD).

Ellie Laugharne SUSANNA

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Supported by Gilly Drummond

Ellie Laugharne studied on the Guildhall School of Music & Drama Opera course after graduating from Birmingham University and Birmingham Conservatoire. In 2012 she was a Jerwood Young Artist for the Glyndebourne Festival and more recently an Associate Artist for Opera North. Recent engagements include Gretel Hänsel und Gretel (Opera North), and Zerlina Don Giovanni (Opera Holland Park and the Classical Opera Company). Last season Ellie returned to ENO as Phyllis in a new production of Iolanthe directed by Cal McCrystal, and sang Temperantia in Haydn’s rarely performed one-act cantata Applausus with Classical Opera. Highlights in the 2018–19 season include a return to Opera North to sing Pamina The Magic Flute and Polissena in Handel’s Radamisto (English Touring Opera). On the concert platform Ellie sings Mozart Requeim with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as a concert performance of Mozart’s one-act comic opera Bastien and Bastienne with Classical Opera Company at the Wigmore Hall.

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Nicholas Lester

Martin Lloyd-Evans

FALSTAFF

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Nicholas Lester studied at the Adelaide Conservatorium of Music and the National Opera Studio, London (where he lives as a dual Australian/British Citizen)‚ sponsored by Glyndebourne. He was a State Opera of South Australia Young Artist. Recent and future plans include title role Eugene Onegin and Figaro Il barbiere di Siviglia (WNO)‚ Guglielmo Così fan tutte‚ Dandini La Cenerentola, Figaro Il barbiere di Siviglia and Frédéric Lakmé (Opera Holland Park), Marcello, Valentin Faust (Dorset Opera Festival)‚ Josef K in Philip Glass’s The Trial‚ Germano La Scala di Seta‚ Dr Malatesta Don Pasquale and Ping Turandot (Scottish Opera)‚ Marcello (ENO)‚ Guglielmo (Danish National Opera)‚ Daddy Bear Goldilocks and the Three Little Pigs (The Opera Story), Escamillo Carmen (Mid Wales Opera) and Gianni Schicchi (Amsterdam). Notable concerts include Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen for Maurice Béjart’s ballet Song of a Wayfarer (ENB), Brahms Requiem (Beijing)‚ Vaughan-Williams Five Mystical Songs (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra)‚ Fauré Requiem (St Martin-in-the-Fields) and Messiah under Laurence Cummings. Nicholas was a recipient of an Independent Opera/NOS Postgraduate Voice Fellowship‚ awards from the Simon Fletcher and Tait Memorial Trusts, Glyndebourne’s Anne Woods/Johanna Peters award and is grateful for support from Chris Ball and Serena Fenwick.

Training: Physics at Manchester University and Theatre Arts at Bretton Hall College. Martin worked for three years with Cheek by Jowl theatre company. Opera Credits: recent productions include A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Barbican, Feeks for Opera Holland in the Netherlands. Romeo et Juliette for Operosa in Bulgaria and Mitridate, Re di Ponto for Classical Opera Company at Sadler’s Wells and Buxton Festival. For OHP Martin has directed La Wally, Francesca da Rimini, Un Ballo in Maschera, La Gioconda, l’Amore dei Tre Re, The Queen of Spades, Andrea Chenier, Le nozze di figaro, Stiffelio and Don Giovanni. For Mid Wales Opera Falstaff, Le Nozze di Figaro, La bohème, Rigoletto and La traviata. For GSMD productions include Rita/Iolanta, Cherubin, The King Goes Forth to France, La Vie Parisienne, Capriccio, the British premiere of Dove’s The Little Green Swallow, the UK premiere of The Aspern Papers (RPS Award nominee); BYO includes The Rape of Lucretia, Flight, Cosí fan tutte; Garden Opera La Bohème, Cosí fan tutte, Cenerentola, Don Giovanni, Carmen, The Barber of Seville amongst many others; Essential Scottish Opera; the premiere of Spirit Child for Lontano; Carmen, The Mikado Penang State Festival; RPS award-winning premiere of On London Fields with HMDT. Other Credits: theatre work includes The Articulate Hand at The Welcome Trust and TEDMED, Wallace and Gromit: Alive on Stage on tour and the West End.

Chien-Shun Liao

Rhian Lois

DANCE@THEGRANGE

FALSTAFF

Born in Taiwan Taichung, Chien-Shun studied Dance at Taipei National University of the Arts. He has performed in Gala by Jérôme Bel and he has also worked with Danish choreographer Simone Wierød and Tim Panduro. In 2017 he worked with Need company in Taipei International Festival for the Arts. Chien-Shun moved to London and joined Company Wayne McGregor in 2019.

In 2018/19 Lois will make some major role and house debuts, including Nanetta Falstaff, and Valencienne The Merry Widow. She will also perform in concert at the International Enescu Festival. 2017/18 was a season of major debuts, with a house debut at Grand Théâtre de Genève as Angellka in the European premiere of Figaro gets a Divorce, and two role debuts at ENO as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Governess in The Turn of the Screw.

MASTER FORD

DIRECTOR

COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR NANNETTA

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Recent highlights include Susanna and Barbarina Le Nozze di Figaro, the world premiere of Figaro gets a Divorce, and the Adele Die Fledermaus (WNO). Concert performances included a recital for the International Opera Awards Foundation as well as a performance at the Royal Albert Hall alongside Kings College Cambridge Choir as part of the Raymond Gubbay Christmas Festival. A graduate of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Royal College of Music and National Opera Studio, her appearances also include Atalanta Xerxes, Musetta La boème, Frasquita Carmen, Young Woman Between Worlds , First Niece Peter Grimes, Papagena The Magic Fluteand Yvette The Passenger, all for ENO. Elsewhere she has sung Papagena at ROH, Pamina The Magic Flute for Nevill Holt and Eurydice in Telemann’s Orpheus with Classical Opera at the London Handel Festival.

Roberto Lorenzi FIGARO

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Roberto Lorenzi is a graduate of the Luigi Boccherini Institute of Musical Studies in Lucca, Italy. He won the First Prize in the AsLiCo’s Competition and was awarded with the role of Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia performed in a tour in Italy. He is also a prize winner Riccardo Zandonai contest, and he was finalist of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2017. In summer 2013 Lorenzi took part at the prestigious Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival; afterwards he joined Opernhaus Zürich, where he was a member of the ensemble having graduated from the theatre’s International Opera Studio in the summer of 2015. In these years he had the occasion to performed: Lorenzo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi (F. Luisi conducting; DVD for Accentus), La Vengeance in Médée by Charpentier (W. Christie conducting), Otello, Caronte in Orlando Paladino, Geronimo in Il matrimonio segreto (R. Minasi conducting), Priore in La Straniera, Alidoro in La Cenerentola, Don Prudenzio in a new production of Il Viaggio a Reims, Le Gouvernuer in Le Comte Ory, Zuniga in Carmen and Publio in La clemenza di Tito (O. Dantone conducting). Lorenzi made his La Scala debut in Franco Zeffirelli’s acclaimed production of La bohème, under the baton of Daniele Rustioni. Elsewhere he appeared as Angelotti in Tosca, Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni (title role) in Lucca; as well as

Alidoro in La Cenerentola in Tuscany and Lille; Ferrando in Il Trovatore for AsLiCo; Daland in Der fliegende Holländer as part of the Opera Domani project in Rome, in Bologna, in Turin; Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv; Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle in Pesaro; Past engagements include also: Priore in La Straniera at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; Gualtiero Valton in I Puritani in Palermo. In concert he performed the Verdi’s Requiem in Pisa; Mozart’s Requiem in Lucca and Händel’s Messiah in Madrid, Gdansk and Sevilla with Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante. Future plans: Il Viaggio a Reims at the Wien Musikeverein; Masetto in Don Giovanni in Bologna; Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro at the Norske Opera in Oslo.

Christopher Luscombe DIRECTOR

FALSTAFF

Christopher Luscombe began his career as an actor, spending seven years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He went on to appear at the National Theatre, the Old Vic and in the West End. Whilst at Stratford, he devised and directed The Shakespeare Revue, and this transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in London. His subsequent productions at Stratford include Twelfth Night, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing, the last two transferring to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He is an Associate Artist of the RSC. Other credits include Star Quality and The Madness of George III (Apollo); Home and Beauty (Lyric); Fascinating Aïda (Harold Pinter – Olivier Award nomination for Best Entertainment); The Comedy of Errors and The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare’s Globe); Nell Gwynn (Shakespeare’s Globe and Apollo – Olivier Award for Best New Comedy); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regent’s Park); Enjoy (Gielgud); Alphabetical Order (Hampstead); When We Are Married (Garrick – Olivier Award nomination for Best Revival); Travels With My Aunt (Menier Chocolate Factory); The Rocky Horror Show and Spamalot (Playhouse), Hay Fever (Minneapolis); Henry V (Chicago) and The Winter’s Tale (Cincinnati). He directed a concert performance of Bernstein’s Candide for the 2018 Grange Festival.

Cathy Marston

CHOREOGRAPHER | THE SUIT

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Cathy Marston is a choreographer, artistic director and Clore Cultural Leadership Fellow. After education in Cambridge, she spent two years at the Royal Ballet School, before launching a successful international career now spanning over twenty years. Cathy’s great gift is to join artistic dots, creating form for stories, emotions and ideas. She inherited a passion for literature from her Englishteacher parents. For Cathy, stories inform dance. As Associate Artist of the ROH for five years, she created a critically acclaimed interpretation of Ibsen’s Ghosts. During her six-year tenure in Switzerland directing the Bern Ballett, her British ‘respect for the playwright’ became influenced by the ideas of German theatre and ‘Director’s Theatre’, resulting in her unique, hybrid signature. Lending new perspectives to old narratives in her versions of Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Narbokov’s Lolita, Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, or in her historicallyinspired Witch-hunt: all are dancedstories stripped back to their essence and displaying high quality technique and unflinching expressive integrity. “She has let the drama bleed through the dance.” Telegraph Passionate about opening original ideas to new audiences, Cathy crafts unexpected matches between classical and contemporary art forms, for example, commissioning a new score for soprano voice and female beatboxer by Dave Maric, or commissioning composer, Gabriel Prokofiev, to write for orchestra and DJ for her fulllength ballet, Ein Winternachtstraum. Cathy’s proudest moments include major creations for San Francisco Ballet, Northern Ballet, Danish Royal Ballet (and many more) as well as launching her charitable company, The Cathy Marston Project. Cathy’s works have been commissioned by the following organizations: UK: The Royal Ballet; the ROH; Royal Opera, Northern Ballet; Ballet Black; English National Ballet; George Piper Dances (Ballet Boyz); David Hughes Dance; The Ensemble Group; Central Ballet; Images of Dance; Encore Dance Company; Royal Ballet School; London Children’s Ballet; GPO; Sonia Friedman productions, BBC4, Channel 4. Switzerland: Bern Ballett; Ballett Basel; Ballett des Theater St Gallen. Germany: Ballett im Revier – Gelsenkirchen; Ballett des Theater Koblenz. Austria: Graz

Oper Ballett. Finland: Finnish National Ballet. Denmark: Danish Royal Ballet; Copenhagen Summer Ballet. Poland: Ballet of the Castle Opera, Sczeczin. USA: American Ballet Theatre; San Francisco Ballet; Joffrey Ballet; Washington Ballet. Canada: National Ballet of Canada; Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Cuba: Cuban National Ballet; Danza Contemporanea de Cuba. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. Australia: Opera Australia.

Wayne McGregor CBE

DIRECTOR OF DANCE@ THEGRANGE / FOUNDER & ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF STUDIO WAYNE McGREGOR, CHOREOGRAPHER | OUTLIER

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Wayne McGregor CBE is a multi award winning British choreographer and director, internationally renowned for trailblazing innovations in performance that have radically redefined dance for over twentyfive years. Wayne McGregor is Artistic Director of Studio Wayne McGregor, the creative engine of his life-long choreographic enquiry into thinking through and with the body. It encompasses his own touring company of dancers, Company Wayne McGregor; creative collaborations across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science; and highly specialized learning, engagement and research programmes. The first arts organization to be based on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Studio Wayne McGregor is a shared space for making where the creative brains of the day can exchange knowledge and invent together. McGregor is also Resident Choreographer at The Royal Ballet, where his productions are acclaimed for their daring reconfiguring of classical language. McGregor is the first and only Resident Choreographer from a contemporary background. He is also regularly commissioned by and has works in the repertories of the most important ballet companies in the world, including Paris Opera Ballet, Munich Ballet, New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Bolshoi Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, NDT 1, Australian Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. He is in demand as a choreographer for theatre (Old Vic, NT, Royal Court, Donmar) opera (La Scala/Royal Opera, ENO), film (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Tarzan, Fantastic Beasts 1 & 2, Sing, Mary Queen of Scots), music videos (Radiohead, The Chemical

A RT I S T I C B I O G R A P H I E S

Brothers), fashion shows (Gareth Pugh at London Fashion Week 2017), campaigns (everyBODY for Selfridges) and TV (The 2016 Brit Awards Opening Sequence, Paloma Faith’s Brit Awards performance 2015). McGregor is Professor of Choreography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, has an Honorary Doctor of Science from Plymouth University, an Honorary Doctor of Letters from University of Leeds, and is part of the Circle of Cultural Fellows at King’s College London. McGregor’s work has earned him a multitude of awards including four Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards, two Time Out Awards, two South Bank Show Awards, two Olivier Awards, a prix Benois de la Danse and two Golden Mask Awards. In 2011 McGregor was awarded a CBE for Services to Dance.

Marie-Astrid Mence BALLET BLACK

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Marie-Astrid was born in Paris, France where she began dancing at a private dance school before continuing to the Higher National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris. She was a member of the Junior Ballet of Paris and danced in works by Jiří Kylián, William Forsythe, Larry Keigwin, Christopher Hampson and Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa. She continued her training as a scholarship student at Alvin Ailey School in 2012 and was invited to dance in Revelations for Judith Jamison’s (Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre) birthday. Marie Astrid joined Ballet Black in September 2014 and performed the lead role of Anna in the children’s ballet, Dogs Don’t Do Ballet (Christopher Marney, 2014), the re-staging of Will Tuckett’s 2009 ballet, Depouillement, and Second Coming, created by Mark Bruce. In the summer of 2015, Marie joined Phoenix Dance Company and had the opportunity to dance in Tearfall and Melt by Artistic Director, Sharon Watson as well as Mapping (Darshan Singh Buller), Undivided Love (Kate Flatt) and Until Without Enough (Itzik Galili). Marie returned to Ballet Black in September 2016 and danced in new ballets by Christopher Marney and Christopher Hampson. In February 2017, Marie was Dancer of the Month in the British dance magazine, Dancing Times. She was also was one of the principal dancers in Michael Corder’s 2017 ballet, House of Dreams, and danced numerous parts in Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa’s Red Riding Hood. In 2018 Marie created roles in The Suit (Cathy Marston) and took on the role of Hermia in Dream.

Simona Mihai

COUNTESS ALMAVIVA

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

A 2010 graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the ROH, RomanianBritish Soprano Simona Mihai began her studies in the UK, attending the Royal College of Music as a Queen Mother Scholar. Major operatic roles have included Nedda I Pagliacci, Musetta and Mimi La bohème, Poussette Manon and Frasquita Carmen (ROH), Mimi La boème (Frankfurt and Perm), Adina L’Elisir d’Amore (Salzburg), 2nd Niece Peter Grimes and Pousette (La Scala, Milan), Governess The Turn of the Screw (Santiago, Chile), Roksana Krol Roger (Palermo) and Despina Così fan Tutte (Glyndebourne on Tour). Most recently, in 2018 she sang Nedda at the ROH, before making her debut at La Monnaie, Brussels in the same role. At the end of 2017, Simona sang Musetta in the premiere of Richard Jones’ new La bohème at the ROH, also singing Mimi later in the run. She returned to Covent Garden this summer for further performances as Mimi.

Peter Mumford

LIGHTING DESIGNER

ALL OPERAS

Recent opera and dance includes Carmen (The Grange Festival); Corybantic Games (Royal Ballet); The King Dances, Edward II, E=mc2 and Faster (BRB); Carmen (Miami City Ballet); Ein Reigen (Vienna State Ballet); Katya Kabanova (Boston Lyric Opera); Manon Lescaut, Werther, Carmen (Metropolitan Opera, NYC); La traviata (Glyndebourne); Damnation of Faust and Madame Butterfly (ENO). He directed and designed concert stagings of The Ring Cycle (Opera North), Otello (Bergen National Opera) and Fidelio (Orchestre de Chambre de Paris). Theatre includes My Name Is Lucy Barton (The Bridge); The Way Of The World (Donmar Warehouse), Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Ferryman and 42nd Street (West End), The Stepmother (Chichester) and The Slaves of Solitude (Hampstead). Awards include Oliviers for Outstanding Achievement in Dance, 1995, Best Lighting Design, 2005. The South Bank Sky Arts Opera Award (The Ring Cycle (Opera North), 2017) and the Helpmann and Green Room Awards for Best Lighting (King Kong, 2013).

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Robert Murray BELSHAZZAR

BELSHAZZAR

Supported by Michael & Sue Pragnell

Robert Murray studied at the Royal College of Music and National Opera Studio. He won second prize in the Kathleen Ferrier awards 2003 and was a Jette Parker Young Artist at the ROH. He has sung for the ROH, ENO, Opera North, Garsington, WNO, Norwegian Opera, Hamburg State Opera and Salzburg Festival; in recital at the Wigmore Hall, and the Newbury, Two Moors, Brighton, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh festivals; in concert with the London Symphony Orchestra (Rattle), Simon Bolivar (Dudamel), Le Concert D’Astrée (Haïm), City of Birmingham Symphony (Mackerras), Rotterdam Philharmonic (Nezet-Seguin) Philharmonia (Salonen) and BBC Proms (Gardiner). He sang Dream of Gerontius with the Seattle Symphony (Gardner). This season he sings Tom Rakewell at the Wilton’s Music Hall with Laurence Cummings conducting, returns to ENO as Flute A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and performs in a staging of the St John Passion by Calixto Bieito in Bilbao; in concert he appears with the Boston Philharmonic (Benjamin Zander), Gabrieli Consort (Paul McCreesh) and Handel & Haydn Society (Harry Christophers).

Mthuthuzeli November

CHOREOGRAPHER | WASHA: THE BURN FROM THE INSIDE, BALLET BLACK

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Mthuthu was born in Cape Town, South Africa and started dancing at the age of 15 with the outreach programme, Dance For All. In 2011 he was awarded a scholarship to attend the Cape Academy of Performing Arts (CAPA), where he graduated with a Distinction in 2014. Mthuthu won a gold medal in the Contemporary category in the South Africa International Ballet Competition as a Junior in 2012, and as a senior in 2014. He has worked with Cape Dance Company under the direction of Debbie Turner, with choreographers including

Bradley Shelver and Christopher Huggins. In 2015 he travelled to the UK to perform with Central School of Ballet’s third year touring company, Ballet Central, performing all over the country. Mthuthu is also a choreographer and has won an award for his first professional work Calligraphy for the Cape Dance Company 2 (CDC2). He danced in the production of West Side Story before joining BB as First Year Apprentice in September 2015 and was promoted to Junior Artist in 2016 where he created roles in Arthur Pita’s Cristaux and Christopher Hampson’s Storyville. He made his first ballet for BB, Interrupted in July 2016 and created his own choreographic platform, M22 Movement Lab, collaborating with musicians, composers and designers to create new choreography for stage and film. Mthuthu got an award as South Africa’s Emerging artist at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) for his solo work. In 2017 he was a lead dancer in the revival of Martin Lawrance’s Captured, and created the role of The Wolf in Annabelle LopezOchoa’s Red Riding Hood. In 2017, Mthuthu was commissioned by the Cape Dance Company to create a new work, funded by the National Arts Council of South Africa, which premiered at Artscape Theatre in Cape Town. In 2018, Mthuthu created a solo for Precious Adams of ENB, for the Emerging Dancer competition.

Cassa Pancho MBE

BALLET BLACK, FOUNDER AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Of Trinidadian and British parents, Cassa trained at the Royal Academy of Dance, gaining a degree in classical ballet from Durham University. Upon graduating in 2001, she founded Ballet Black in order to provide role models to young, aspiring black and Asian dancers. A year later, she opened the BB Junior School in Shepherd’s Bush. Cassa is also a graduate of the 2009 National Theatre cultural leadership programme, Step Change. Since starting the Company, she has commissioned work from a wide range of choreographers, including Liam Scarlett, Richard Alston, Javier de Frutos, Annabelle Lopez- Ochoa, Shobana Jeyasingh, Henri Oguike, and Will Tuckett. Ballet Black won both the Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Outstanding Company in 2009 and Best Independent Company in 2012. Cassa was awarded an MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours List for Services to Classical Ballet and has served as a judge on the panels of both the Kenneth Macmillan Choreographic and BBC Young Dancer competitions. In 2015, Cassa was appointed a Patron of Central School of Ballet and in May 2016 became a vice president of The London Ballet Circle. In 2017, she COMPANY WAYNE MCGREGOR joined the Ballet Now consortium in DANCE@THEGRANGE association with Birmingham Royal Ballet and is a Fellow of the Royal Born in Swindon, of Society of Arts (RSA). Also that year, Irish and Jamaican Cassa, along with Senior Artist Cira descent, Jacob studied Robinson, collaborated with renowned at Swindon Dance for British ballet shoe manufacturer, Freed five years whilst of London, to create two brand new performing with pointe shoe colours to enable dancers Swindon Youth Dance of black descent to buy skin-tone Company, In 2015, Jacob was awarded pointe shoes ready-made. In 2018, the BBC Young Dancer title in the Cassa was awarded the Freedom of the contemporary category, where he City of London. To date, she has performed solos by Amanda Britton and commissioned 34 choreographers, to Alexander Whitley at Sadler’s Wells, create over 46 new ballets for the broadcast on BBC2. During and after Company. In both 2017 & 2018 Cassa studying at Rambert School of Ballet was included in The Evening Standards and Contemporary Dance, Jacob The Progress 1000: London’s most performed with Rambert Company in influential people. She also teaches Tomorrow and Other Works, and toured regularly at the BB Junior School in with Ross McKim’s Moving Vision Shepherd’s Bush, West London. Company, and internationally with INALA, choreographed by Mark Baldwin. He has also created and collaborated on choreographic works at Sadler’s Wells, Mr Wonderful, and at Cloud Dance Festival. Jacob joined Company Wayne McGregor in 2017.

Jacob O’Connell

Rowan Pierce BARBARINA

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Yorkshire born soprano Rowan Pierce was awarded the President’s Award by HRH Prince of Wales at the Royal College of Music in 2017. She won both the Song Prize and First Prize at the inaugural Grange Festival International Singing Competition, the Van Someren Godfery Prize at the RCM and the first Schubert Society Singer Prize in 2014. She has recently been made a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and is a Harewood artist at ENO. Operatic roles have included Drusilla in L’incoronazione di Poppea, Galatea Acis & Galatea, Iris Semele, Susanna The Marriage of Figaro, Miss Wordsworth, Emmie and Cis Albert Herring and Princess L’enfant et les sortilèges. Future operatic roles include Tiny Paul Bunyan and Papagena The Magic Flute (ENO), Barbarina Le nozze di Figaro (Nevill Holt Opera), various roles in performances and recordings of both Purcell’s King Arthur and The Fairy Queen with the Gabrieli Consort. Festival performances include collaborations with Sir Thomas Allen and Christopher Glynn in the Ryedale Festival, Dame Ann Murray and Malcolm Martineau in the Oxford Lieder Festival and Roger Vignoles in Leeds Lieder. Recording plans include sessions with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gabrieli Consort and the Academy of Ancient Music. Rowan is a Samling Artist and was generously supported by the Countess of Munster Award and Midori Nishiura at the RCM.

David Plater

LIGHTING DIRECTOR | THE SUIT, WASHA: THE BURN FROM THE INSIDE

DANCE@THEGRANGE

David trained at RADA and was previously Head of Lighting at the Donmar Warehouse. He has been resident lighting designer for Ballet Black since 2001 lighting over forty dance commissions at the Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House and Barbican, as well as all over the UK, Holland, Germany, Italy and Bermuda. David’s nominations for lighting design include: an Olivier, Tony and Drama Desk for Best Lighting Design for Bring Up The Bodies in Winter Gardens Broadway & Aldwych West End; a Knight of Illumination Award for Richard II (Best Lighting in a Play in 2012) and for This Is My Family (Best Lighting for a Musical) in 2013.

A RT I S T I C B I O G R A P H I E S

His designs include: The Mother (for Arthur Pita) The Mentalists, Wyndhams, The Effect, Sheffield Theatres, Terra, The Cocktail Party, Terra, Deathwatch, Lovely Sunday and Outside Blixen at the Coronet Notting Hill, Bring Up The Bodies Winter Garden Theatre, New York, Aldwych and RSC Swan. This Is My Family Sheffield Lyceum, Outside Mullingar Bath Ustinov, Brass Leeds City Varieties, The Glass Supper Hampstead, Billy Liar Manchester Royal Exchange, The Dishwashers Birmingham Rep. Richard III/Twelfth Night, Roger Rees: What You Will, 13 The Musical, Jason Robert Brown in Concert, (all at the Apollo, West End). Further work includes: Sondheim at 80 Queens West End, Michael Ball in Concert Haymarket West End. Dark Tales, Beautiful Thing Arts West End, Richard II, Four Quartets and Three Days of Rain, for the Donmar Warehouse, Loyal Women Royal Court Theatre, Macbeth Sheffield Crucible, Quiz Show Traverse Theatre, Mrs Lowry & Son, The Silence of the Sea, Stacy/Fanny & Faggot, for the Trafalgar Studios, The Chair Plays, Lyric Hammersmith, Arab–Israeli Cookbook, Tricycle Theatre, When We Are Married and A Passionate Woman at the York Theatre Royal, Dick Whittington, Beauty & The Beast, Robin Hood and Sinbad the Sailor for Theatre Royal Stratford East, and My Night with Reg and Dancing at Lughnasa for the New Vic Theatre in Stoke. In 2018, David was the recipient of the Knight of Illumination Award for Dance for his designs for The Suit (Cathy Marston/Ballet Black).

Elin Pritchard ALICE FORD

FALSTAFF

Supported by Roger & Virginie Phillimore

Welsh Soprano Elin Pritchard is a graduate of the Alexander Gibson Opera School at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she was awarded a Master of Opera with distinction and a Master of Music, and of London’s National Opera Studio. She is also a Samling Artist. Her operatic roles have included Micaëla Carmen (Mid Wales Opera), Female Chorus The Rape of Lucretia (British Youth Opera), Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw, Nella Gianni Schicchi, Giorgetta Il tabarro, Stella I Gioielli della Madonna and Musetta La bohème (OHP), Lucia Lucia di Lammermoor (Buxton Festival Opera), Fiordiligi Così fan tutte (Den Jyske Opera), and Donna Elvira Don Giovanni (Finnish National Opera). For Scottish Opera, she has sung Donna Elvira, Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress and Violetta La traviata. Elin is equally in demand on the concert platform with repertoire

including Bruckner Mass in F Minor, Brahms Requiem, Dvorak Te Deum, Fauré Requiem, Mendelssohn Elijah, Mozart Coronation Mass, Mass in C Minor and Requiem, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater, Rutter Requiem and Verdi Requiem. Recent and future engagements include Kupava The Snow Maiden and Nedda I Pagliacci (Opera North), Violetta and Tatyana Eugene Onegin (Den Jyske Opera), Tosca (English Touring Opera), Miss Jessel (ENO at the Regent’s Park Theatre), Adalgisa in a concert performance of Norma (Chelsea Opera Group), Marie /Daughter of the Regiment for Opera della Luna (Buxton Festival), Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra), Poulenc Gloria (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Haydn St Nicholas (English Chamber Orchestra), Mahler Symphony No. 4 (Northern Chords Festival), Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony (Brighton Philharmonic), Hathaway – Eight Arias for a Bardic Life (Buxton Festival), Brahms Requiem (Ulster Orchestra) and at St John’s Smith Square and Opera Galas (Clonter Opera and the Samling Foundation at the Wigmore Hall).

Tim Reed DESIGNER

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Tim Reed has an international reputation as an opera and theatre designer. His opera credits include production for Paris Opera Docteur Faustus, Netherlands Opera L’Ormindo, ENO The Merry Widow, WNO Die Fledermaus and OHP Madam Butterfly. He has worked extensively in Sweden, designing Don Giovanni and L’elisir d’amore for Gothenburg Opera, and The Coronation of Poppea for Norrlands Opera. In Ireland he has designed many productions for Wexford Festival Opera and as Head of Design for Opera Northern Ireland Macbeth and Falstaff, Ariadne auf Naxos, La boème, The Cunning Little Vixen and Le nozze di Figaro, also for the Kirov Opera. La traviata for New Israeli Opera. His is productions have also been seen in Madrid, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Monte Carlo and Marseilles. He works regularly with prominent theatres in London’s West End and beyond, designing Stephen Bill’s Curtains, (Hampstead & Whitehall Theatres), Frank McGuinness’s Bag Lady (Traverse Theatre Edinburgh), The York Mystery Cycle with Steven Pimlott, a Tom Murphy series at Irish National Theatre and the premiere of Anthony Minghella’s Two Planks and a Passion (Northcott Theatre Exeter). For The Grange Festival he has designed Albert Herring and The Abduction from the Seraglio.

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Cira Robinson

Angela Simkin

DANCE@THEGRANGE

FALSTAFF

Cira was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she began dancing at the age of eight. After graduating from the Performing Arts School in 2004, she moved to New York to dance full-time with the Dance Theater of Harlem. During her three years there, she performed at the White House for the President of the United States, as well as the Protégé Festival. In 2008, Cira travelled to the United Kingdom for the first time to join Ballet Black. In the summer that year, she danced with Ballet Identity in Los Angeles, before returning to Ballet Black in November. Since 2008, she has danced in Ballet Black commissions by Martin Lawrance, Richard Alston, Henri Oguike, Liam Scarlett and Robert Binet to name a few. She created the role of one of the Furies in Will Tuckett’s Orpheus (2011) and the lead role of Nola in Ballet Black’s production of Storyville, choreographed for BB by Christopher Hampson in 2012 and reprised the part in 2016. In 2013 she was featured in War Letters (Christopher Marney) and received her first nomination for Outstanding Classical dancer at the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards in 2014. She also created the role of Titania in Arthur Pita’s Ballet Black production of A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Serpent in Second Coming (choreographed by Mark Bruce). In 2016, she was a featured dancer in Arthur Pita’s Cristaux, and in 2017, was a lead dancer in the revival of Martin Lawrance’s Captured. She also created the role of Red in Red Riding Hood by Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa. In 2017, Cira, along with Company Founder, Cassa Pancho, collaborated with renowned British ballet shoe manufacturer, Freed of London, to create two brand new pointe shoe colours to enable dancers of black descent to buy skin-tone pointe shoes ready-made. These are now available to buy worldwide. In 2018, Cira reprised her part as Titania in Dream and created the role of Matilda in The Suit (Cathy Marston). She also teaches regularly at the Ballet Black Junior School and for the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School.

Angela Simkin began her training at the Royal Northern College of Music, furthering her studies at the International Opera School of the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio. Her engagements have included Nancy Albert Herring, Second Lady Die Zauberflöte, Conceptión L’heure espagnole and Madama la Rose La Gazzetta (RCM), Teseo Arianna in Creta and Iside Giove in Argo (London Handel Festival), Lucilla Il Vologeso and Messiah (Classical Opera), Messiah by Candlelight (Raymond Gubbay Ltd at the Royal Festival Hall) and Mozart Requiem (Orion Orchestra). Between 2016 and 2018, Angela Simkin was a member of the Jette Parker Programme at the ROH, where she has sung Mlle Dangeville Adriana Lecouvreur, the title role in Handel’s Oreste (at Wilton’s Music Hall), Second Lady Die Zauberflöte, Annina Der Rosenkavalier, Tebaldo Don Carlo and Flora Bervoix La traviata. She returns to the ROH in 2018 / 2019 to sing Flosshilde Der Ring des Nibelungen and will also sing Siegrune Die Walküre (London Philharmonic Orchestra).

BALLET BLACK

MEG PAGE

Daniel Slater DIRECTOR

BELSHAZZAR

Daniel studied at Bristol and Cambridge. Opera productions include: Peter Grimes (Brisbane Festival/ Opera Queensland); L’elisir d’amore (Pittsburgh Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera North, Oviedo, WNO, New Zealand Festival (Yekaterinburg Opera, Graz Opera); Fidelio (Royal Festival Hall); Salome, Wozzeck (Santa Fe Opera); Aida, Eugene Onegin (Opera Holland Park); Xerxes (Royal Opera, Stockholm); The Bartered Bride (Opera North, New Zealand Opera, Valencia, Opéra National du Rhin); Fortunio, Rigoletto, Falstaff (Grange Park Opera); Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni, A Midsummer

Night’s Dream, La Cenerentola, La gazza ladra (Garsington Opera); Tannhäuser (Estonian National Opera); Nabucco (Vlaamse Opera); Lohengrin (San Francisco, Houston, Geneva); Tristan und Isolde (Norwegian National Opera); La traviata (Houston); Peter Grimes and Don Pasquale (Geneva); L’Arbore di Diana (Valencia); Samson (Buxton Festival);The Betrothal in a Monastery (Glyndebourne Festival, Valencia); Manon Lescaut (Oviedo, Norwegian National Opera, Opera North); Manon (Opera North); The Cunning Little Vixen (Bregenz Festival, San Francisco, Geneva, Garsington); Der Vogelhändler, The Barber of Seville (Komische Oper, Berlin); La bohème (Opera North, Scottish Opera, Opera Ireland).

Richard Suart ANTONIO

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Supported by Richard & Chrissie Morse

Richard Suart studied at Cambridge University‚ and the Royal Academy of Music‚ where he was elected a Fellow in 2004. Recent and future engagements include Pangloss (Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, LA Philharmonic‚ Hollywood Bowl and Opera di Firenze,)‚ Lord Chancellor Iolanthe (San Francisco Symphony), Baron Zeta The Merry Widow (Michigan Opera Theatre)‚ Judge Trial by Jury (ENO)‚ Ko-Ko The Mikado (ENO and Scottish Opera)‚ MajorGeneral The Pirates of Penzance (Scottish Opera)‚ title role Gianni Schicchi (Diva Opera)‚ Bartolo The Barber of Seville (Charles Court Opera)‚ Judge Turpin Sweeney Todd (Reisopera)‚ Jack Point The Yeomen of the Guard and MajorGeneral (RTE Concert Orchestra). Further engagements include Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre (Salzburg Festival and Châtelet)‚ Koko (New York City Opera‚ Vancouver and Penang), Major-General‚ Frank Die Fledermaus, Baron Zeta‚ Lesbo Agrippina and Benoit/Alcindoro La bohème (ENO); Jack Point (WNO and ROH) ‚ Barabashkin Paradise Moscow (Opera North and Bregenz)‚ Stan Stock in the premiere of Benedict Mason’s Playing Away (ON‚ Bregenz and St Pölten)‚ Magnifico La Cenerentola‚ Lord Chancellor‚ Don Inigo Gomez L’Heure Espagnole (Grange Park Opera) and Antonio Le nozze di Figaro (Garsington).

Ebony Thomas BALLET BLACK

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Ebony was born in London and started dancing at the age of 5 at the Kingston Ballet School run by Louise Jefferson. He joined The Royal Ballet School Junior Associates where he took classes for three years and was chosen to perform several times with The Royal Ballet Company. At the age of 11, he joined Elmhurst Ballet School where he had the opportunity to perform with Birmingham Royal Ballet, and is featured in the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus DVDs. Ebony has also danced overseas at the Virginia Arts Festival in the USA. He has performed a wide variety of repertoire, including David Bintley’s Argonauts, Sir Peter Wright’s Coppélia and the Don Quioxte pas de deux choreographed by Marius Petipa. He is delighted to be a member of Ballet Black, and since joining in 2017, has danced in ballets by Martin Lawrance, Annabelle Lopez-Ochoa and Arthur Pita, and created roles in The Suit by Cathy Marston.

Alice Topp

CHOREOGRAPHER | CLAY, LITTLE ATLAS

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Alice was born and raised in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia and started dancing at the age of four. She began her dance studies at a local school before attending the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School for a year in 1998; she then undertook four years of full-time classical training at Ballet Theatre of Victoria. After two years with Royal New Zealand Ballet, Alice joined The Australian Ballet in 2007 and has danced in a wide range of classical and contemporary repertoire. She has performed in three works by Wayne McGregor: Infra, Chroma and Dyad 1929. Alice has a passion for choreography and has created four critically acclaimed works for the company’s Bodytorque seasons. In 2014

A RT I S T I C B I O G R A P H I E S

she choreographed an intimate pas de deux, performed by Rudy Hawkes and Vivienne Wong, for Megan Washington’s Begin Again music video; in 2016 her first mainstage work, Little Atlas, premiered at the Sydney Opera House as part of The Australian Ballet’s Symphony in C program. In 2017, she choreographed the music video for Ben Folds’ Capable of Anything, and was promoted to coryphée. In 2018 her work Aurum had its world premiere as part of The Australian Ballet’s Verve program; later that year, Alice became one of the company’s resident choreographers.

Antoine Vereecken PRINCIPAL RESTAGER / REHEARSAL DIRECTOR FOR STUDIO WAYNE McGREGOR

DANCE@THEGRANGE

Born in Gent, Belgium, Antoine trained at the Royal Ballet School of Antwerp. From 1993–1997 he performed with Les Ballets C. de la B. In 1997, he joined Renaissance de la Danse in Frankfurt and later joined the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Israel. From 2001–2003 Antoine performed with the Richard Alston Dance Company and danced for Company Wayne McGregor, from 2004–2011. Since 2011 he is the Principal Restager at Studio Wayne McGregor and has worked on projects including the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and opera Dido and Aeneas (La Scala), as well as re-staging McGregor’s repertoire with the National Ballet of Canada, The Bolshoi Ballet, The Mariinsky Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Royal Danish Ballet and Hong Kong Ballet. In 2012 he won the Isadora Duncan Award for his re-staging of Chroma at the San Francisco Ballet.

Henry Waddington GOBRIAS

BELSHAZZAR

Henry Waddington studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. He has sung regularly with all the major UK opera companies as well as with La Monnaie Brussels, Liceu Barcelona, de Nederlandse Opera, Teatro Real Madrid and Stuttgart Staatstheater. His repertoire includes Baron Ochs Der Rosenkavalier, the title role in Saul, Banquo Macbeth, Colline La bohème, Don Basilio Il barbiere di Siviglia, Tutor Le comte Ory, Geronimo The Secret Marriage, Publio La clemenza di Tito, Plutone Orfeo, Valens Theodora, Soljony Three Sisters (Eotvos), Leporello Don Giovanni, Don Magnifico Cenerentola, Don Fernando Fidelio, Don Alfonso Così fan tutte, Pallante Agrippina, Frère Laurent Roméo et Juliette as well as Quince and Bottom A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Recent/future operatic engagements include Man at window/ Old man Youth/Beggar in Martinu’s Julietta, Jupiter Castor and Pollux, Sacristan Tosca and Lt. Ratcliffe Billy Budd (ENO), Spinellocchio Gianni Schicci (ROH), Bartolo Figaro (WNO), Lt. Ratcliffe (Netherlands Opera), Pallante (Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona), Pastor Oberlin Jakob Lenz (Staatstheater Stuttgart, La Monnaie and Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin), Kothner Die Meistersingers and the title role Saul (Glyndebourne), Publio La clemenza di Tito, Lodovico Otello, Handel Joshua, Bottom A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Baron Ochs and Don Magnifico (Opera North), Priest Cunning Little Vixen and title role Falstaff (Garsington, Swallow Peter Grimes (Aldeburgh), Quince (Aix en Provence Festival), Bottom (New National Theatre, Tokyo), Baron Ochs (Norwegian Opera) as well as concert performances of Wozzeck (Philharmonia under Esa Pekka Salonen in Europe and the US), Messiah (Ulster Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Cleveland Orchestra), Beethoven 9 (Classical Opera Company and The Creation with Huddersfield Choral Society).

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Edward Watson MBE PATRON OF DANCE@THEGRANGE

DANCE@THEGRANGE

English dancer Edward Watson is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. His repertory with the Company includes major roles in works by Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan, and numerous role creations for choreographers including Wayne McGregor, Christopher Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky. Watson was born in Bromley, South London. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and graduated into The Royal Ballet in 1994 and was promoted to Principal in 2005. His many role creations for McGregor include in Symbiont(s), Qualia, Chroma, Infra, Limen, Carbon Life, Raven Girl, Tetractys, Woolf Works, Obsidian Tearand Multiverse, and for Wheeldon Lewis Carroll/ The White Rabbit (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Leontes (The Winter’s Tale) and John Singer Sargent (Strapless). Watson has worked with numerous other choreographers, including Siobhan Davies, David Dawson, Javier De Frutos, Alastair Marriott, Cathy Marston, Ashley Page and Arthur Pita. His numerous awards include the 2012 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance, the 2015 Benois de la danse and Critics’ Circle Awards in 2001 and 2008. He was awarded an MBE in 2015.

John Wilson

Louise Winter

GERSHWIN IN HOLLYWOOD

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

Conductor and arranger John Wilson formed the John Wilson Orchestra in 1994. The orchestra is celebrated internationally for its performances and recordings of classic Hollywood film musicals, music for the silver screen & Broadway musicals. Outside of the concert hall the orchestra has contributed to sound track recordings for films including The Gathering Storm, and in 2007 was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack for Beyond the Sea. In August 2009 the John Wilson Orchestra made its debut at the BBC Proms in a concert celebrating the 75th anniversary of the MGM Film musicals. The concert was broadcast live on British television by the BBC and has since been seen and heard by millions around the world. The orchestra has returned to the Proms every year since with celebrations of Rodgers & Hammerstein film musicals (2010) Hooray for Hollywood (2011), the Broadway Sound (2012), Hollywood Rhapsody (2013), Cole Porter in Hollywood (2014), tributes for Frank Sinatra & Leonard Bernstein (2015), George & Ira Gershwin (2016), West Side Story in concert (2018) as well as semi-staged productions of My Fair Lady (2012), Kiss Me Kate (2014) and Oklahoma (2017). The John Wilson Orchestra undertakes regular tours of all the major UK concert halls. In 2013 the orchestra made its debut in Los Angeles and in 2016 made its debut at the Berlin Philharmonie as part of Musikfest Berlin. The orchestra records for Warner Classics and in 2016 the orchestra received an ECHO Klassik Award for its recording Cole Porter in Hollywood. The orchestra’s other recordings have also attracted widespread critical acclaim – That’s Entertainment; A Celebration of the MGM Film Musicals, Rodgers & Hammerstein at the Movies and Gershwin in Hollywood.

Louise Winter studied at the RNCM, winning the Esso Glyndebourne and John Christie Awards. Since her debut as Dorabella with Glyndebourne Touring Opera, she has sung with major companies including the Royal Opera, ENO, Glyndebourne, Canadian Opera Company, Opera Frankfurt, Berlin Staatsoper and La Monnaie. Her most recent roles include Marcellina Le Nozze di Figaro (ROH), Gertrude in Brett Dean’s Hamlet (Glyndebourne on Tour), Madame Larina Eugene Onegin and Pilar in David Sawer’s The Skating Rink (Garsington), Kabanicha Kat’a Kabanova (Longborough) and Wife in Turnage’s Greek (Music Theatre Wales/Linbury/ Korea). Performances on DVD include the Goddess Diana La Calisto conducted by René Jacobs. She has performed with many leading orchestras and conductors, including the CBSO with Sir Simon Rattle, the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sir Andrew Davis, the Hallé Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder, and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Sir Charles Mackerras. 2018/19 includes Governess The Queen of Spades (ROH) and Maya in Howard Moody’s Agreed for Glyndebourne.

CONDUCTOR

MARCELLINA

Photos: Wayne McGregor by Pål Hansen. Company Wayne McGregor photographs by Camilla Greenwell. Cassa Pancho by Holly McGlynn. Ballet Black photographs by ASH. Alessandra Ferri by Lucas Chilczuk. Antoine Vereecken by Ravi Deepres. Thomas Adès by Brian Voce. Lucy Carter by The Fifth Estate. Moritz Junge by Brinknoff/Mögenburg. Alice Topp by Kate Longley. Ludovico Einaudi by Beniamino Barrese.

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Art at The Grange

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Adam Roud Born in Hampshire in 1971, Adam Roud returned to live and work there after graduating from John Moores University Liverpool studying Fine Art. Initially working at The Morris Singer foundry learning the process of lost wax and sand casting, where the major figures of the last century have had their sculpture cast; Hepworth, Caro, Paulozzi, Frink, Nemon and Henry Moore. Since 2000 he has had a studio and workshop on Lord Portsmouth’s estate and Adam has developed his work with large and small commissions, figure studies, portraits and the main body of abstract pieces.

At the heart of his work is drawing from the nude with pencil. This leads to chisel and stone, clay and knife. Weight, balance, light and shadow are at the core of the work and fuel the process in the studio. The individual pieces are part of a time line, an evolving group. The pieces are the resolve, evidence, product of the activity, and 3D sketch book. The figurative fuels the abstract and the abstract fuels the figurative. With the completion and installation of Lord Rockley’s Red Deer pieces from 2013 he has enjoyed his continuing patronage to allow full time commitment to the studio and career.

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Duncan MacAskill Shadows in the Landscape

The Grange was first built in the 17th century, and added to in the 18th and early 19th, by Robert Adam and others, and remodelled in neo-Classical style by William Wilkins. Around it, the pleasure grounds and terraces were laid out, looking over woodland and farmland, once worked and peopled, now empty – a landscape tamed and designed, a rural idyll. Now, most of us live in the city. I grew up in Clydebank; for me the stories of the land were of the Highland Clearances, and of mythical, dramatic mountainous terrain devoid of people. I was nine when I first saw paintings of workers in the field – at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. Paintings by Courbet, Millet and Corot, the Barbizon School of painters in the mid-19th century who worked out doors and – as Gainsborough and Constable had before them – populated their landscapes not with figures from classical myth but with real people, labourers working the land.

Shadows in the Landscape, 2018 Plywood,Black Paint

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There are few if any figures to be seen now if you look out from The Grange. I have brought some back, repopulating the landscape with figures, twodimensional, black (for the moment at least), their poses taken from those famous nineteenth-century paintings. Upright shadows, in the middle distance. They are to be looked at through the apertures I have cut in simple shallow boxes facing out across the grounds windows making a picture in the landscape: like birdwatchers’ hides; like picture frames or film screens; like the proscenium arch; setting the stage; composing the view. The placement, the composition, the framing may be mine, but the drama of the scene, the memories or imaginings triggered by these two-way mirrors, are the viewer’s own.

Duncan MacAskill is represented by Vigo Gallery +44 (0) 2074933492 vigogallery.com

Shadows in the Landscape, 2018 Plywood,Black Paint

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Mark Antony Haden Ford & Rebecca Ford Witenagemoot 2019 Mark and Rebecca Ford are Two Circles Design, a working partnership creating contemporary woven environments for both public and private sectors. The surreal installations and ambiguous sculptures, often in conversation with each other, encompass a wide range of traditional skills and practices. Environmental art has the power to transform our view of the natural world and questions our relationship within it. www.twocirclesdesign.co.uk You are invited to enter the henge circle of twelve woven trees, on the lakeview terrace. In days of old the wise and the powerful would meet in such a circle to question and discuss. These sculptures are inspired by Hernes Oak and the trees of Windsor Great Park where Falstaff proclaims the world is nothing more than a jest.

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Joanna Cohn Picturing The Grange Joanna is an actress, singer and painter. She performed in the chorus at The Grange as a young singer, before pursuing a career in jazz and the West End with the stage name Joanna Strand. Recent appearances include Phantom of the Opera and solo jazz cabaret shows at The Pheasantry, The Crazy Coqs and Birdland New York. Jo has always split her time between singing and painting, and her performance informs her painting and etchings. She is currently a Masters Student at Central Saint Martins specialising in oils and print making. For sales and commissions please contact her at joannastrand@icloud.com www.jostrand.com

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Rick Guest R ICK G U E S T

O L I V I A P OM P

Rick Guest is the pre-eminent dance photographer of his generation. His photographs of dancers and dance seek to reveal both the beauty and brutality of this incredible art form. He aims not only to capture the ephemeral nature of dance, to freeze in time such fleeting beauty, but also to lay bare the dancer’s vulnerabilities and soul. A dancer’s sacrifice and the defiant spirit that overcomes such sacrifice, is etched into their very skin, their bodies carved by it, their minds honed by it and is revealed both through their physicality and transcendent performance. These photographs celebrate the emotional and physical determination that is required to succeed in an art form that is the very zenith of the human spirit, that in the words of Martha Graham, is truly “the language of the soul”. It is a great honour to exhibit these works at The Grange, itself an incredible display of beautiful structure with a life time of experience openly carved into its very being, as part of its inaugural season of dance. Many of the works on display are held in prestigious private collections the world over, as well as national institutions such as The National Portrait Gallery and The Royal Ballet.

Olivia and Rick have a unique working relationship which has developed over many years of collaboration on international editorial commissions. Olivia is a highly experienced international stylist and Fashion Editor. Born in Germany, she studied languages and the art of couture tailoring in Munich. She was fashion editor of German GQ before moving to the UK and becoming fashion director at British Esquire and has been a contributing fashion editor for the Financial Times HTSI magazine. Olivia is currently a contributing fashion editor to 1843 Magazine. This is Rick’s sixth solo exhibition of ballet photography with Olivia, with two books to accompany the body of work. The National Portrait Gallery exhibited three portraits of dancers as part of their new acquisitions display.

Wayne McGregor

Eric Underwood

Wayne McGregor & Edward Watson

Edward Watson

Melissa Hamilton

Photography by Rick Guest, with Olivia Pomp

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The Grange Festival Quiz 2019 • The letters to spell FALSTAFF are in a single row only

• The letters to spell MOZART appear (two each) in three adjacent columns

• The letters to spell BELSHAZZAR are in two rows only

• The words DUBS and HAY can be read straight downwards in adjacent squares

• The letters to spell THE GRANGE FESTIVAL are in three rows only, and…

• The word COX can be read in adjacent squares in a single row (either forwards or backwards)

• one of those three rows has its letters in alphabetical order reading from left to right

• Every row and every column must include one of the vowels (AEIOU)

• The letters to spell HOLLYWOOD appear in every column

Each square in the 5x5 grid above must be filled with a different letter of the alphabet (excluding Q), such that no letter is in a square adjacent (orthogonally or diagonally) to any letter next to it in the alphabet (this also applies to P&R and A&Z) and the following conditions are met:

Safety Curtain Cartoon by Oliver Preston

• The four corner squares must all contain Roman numerals • The letters K and P are in the same row

Send your name, address, email and telephone alongn with a copy of your completed solution to Rachel@thegrangefestival.co.uk The Grange Festival, Folly Hill Farm, Itchen Stoke, Hants SO24 9TF

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A life in the day… of a Wigs Mistress Ever since I saw the musical Cats as a young girl, I have wanted to be a Hair and Make-up Artist. After I finished a foundation course at Winchester School of Art, I was lucky enough to get a place at The London College of Fashion where I qualified with a degree in ‘Hair and Make-up for the Performing Arts’. There we learnt everything from wig making and period hair styling to creating prosthetic body parts! My first opportunity in theatre was The Lion King, a new West End musical that was just opening and I fell in love with the theatre and the excitement of being back stage. I soon became interested in historical hairstyling and wig dressing, which has become my speciality.

Since then I have been lucky enough to work at The Royal Opera House, English National Opera and The National Theatre as well as many West End productions and international tours. As a Hair and Make-up Artist in theatre, you are expected to be skilled in many different areas, from cutting hair to casualty makeup. However, one of the most important skills is to have a calm and confident manner. Performers are often nervous before going on stage and rely on you to stay focused. A typical day for me usually starts well before the performers get to the theatre. On a big production the numbers can vary from a just a few wigs and hair pieces up to shows that could have 80 wigs or more. At The Grange, I usually have a team of just myself and my deputy, Bex, so there can be a lot to prepare. Each wig must be individually inspected and redressed for every show. This can involve putting the hair in rollers and baking it in a ‘wig oven’ to set the curl, then it is dressed into whatever style is required for the performance.

Once all the wigs have been styled, and dressing rooms and quickchange areas have been prepared, the performers are given a time slot to come to the wig room and have their hair and make-up done. This can mean using a wig or the performer might use their own hair. This depends on how complicated the hairstyle is and if the performers own hair will go into the style that is required. Getting a performer ready for the show can involve creative make-up or even creating wounds, cuts and bruises. Often the performers are in more than one show. The men might be required to have a beard or moustache in one show and be clean shaven in another, this is when we can use false beards and moustaches that are individually styled and glued on. It’s amazing how a very small amount of hair such as a moustache can completely alter a person’s appearance.

During the rehearsal process, I work closely with amazing designers and wig makers, ensuring that both the designer is happy and the performer is confident with their finished look. It is important that the performer feels comfortable, as their appearance can completely change how they feel about their character on stage. I am sometimes asked if during the performance I can watch the show, but the answer is no, it is always very busy for us back stage. It might just be one person that needs to have their hair and make-up re-done, or we could have the whole chorus and most of the principal performers changing at the same time. It is my job to make sure that this runs smoothly, and that the performer is never late going back on stage!

A L I F E I N T H E DAY

During the show there can be quick changes when the performer needs to alter their hair and makeup, they might even be playing a completely different character. This is when we can have several wigs ready to change a performers appearance in just a few seconds. The wigs I use at The Grange Festival are hand made using special lace, with each individual hair knotted onto the lace. Therefore, the wigs are very delicate and must be taken off in the wig room with special glue remover, then they are cleaned, restyled and whole process starts again ready for the next performance.

Helen Keelan

“ It’s amazing how a very small amount of hair such as a moustache can completely alter a person’s appearance”

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My Grange The Grange has been an integral part of our summer for almost two decades; anticipation heightens as we get out of the car to join other opera goers. Men wear black tie and ladies look glamorous, many of us having run the gamut of the seasons to suit the weather over the years. But although most people dress formally, The Grange has never been stuffy. It has always had a quirky sense of humour bubbling beneath the surface. Last year, we were greeted by the sight of The Barber of Seville’s moustache hanging over the rather formidable façade of this extraordinary pile, and when we finally left after a glorious evening, his moustache was lit up in red.

During the interval, picnic tents of all shapes and sizes bustle with chat and laughter and the sound of hampers being unpacked. Opera goers, glass in hand, meander across the lawn or linger on the terrace by the new Champagne Bar, admiring the spectacular view of the lake. Now that it’s been opened up, it looks just like it did to the owners who enjoyed the very same sweep of stunning countryside in centuries past. All around there’s a convivial, inclusive party atmosphere, but I love the sense of other lives in other centuries having lived here, and the way this seeps through the walls of what was originally a 17th century house, later remodelled in the 19th century. As time went on, it became impractical to live in and fell into disrepair, so it’s been fascinating to watch it emerge from years of neglect to become a hub of culture.

It was thrilling to see its magnificent staircase restored to its rightful place in 2009, then slowly completed stair by stair through the generosity of Grange members. Of course, being part ruin is what gives this palatial country house its unique character. Recent restorations have made it even more evocative as you wander along the gallery on the first floor, peering into empty rooms with plaster hanging off the brick walls. Incongruity is also a huge part of the charm – take the restaurant, so elegant with its chandeliers and white tablecloths, but with netting hanging like billowing white spinnakers to prevent masonry from the roof falling onto the floor. But underneath the frivolity and fun is the serious business of putting on a production. This massive undertaking takes a leap of faith, intense dedication and a profound knowledge of the work being staged. The last couple of years, under the inspired vision of Michael Chance, have seen the Festival burgeoning with talent and an exciting explosion of new productions, including concerts and dance, that have garnered impressive reviews and star ratings.

How does the tiny creative team at the heart of The Grange Festival produce these shows from scratch? In order to find out, we formed a syndicate last year to help fund a production. We finally decided on The Marriage of Figaro, and so ‘Club Figaro’ was born. In return we’ve been discovering what goes on behind the scenes and meeting the people that make things happen. The minute detail involved is astonishing. We held a dinner at which Michael explained how he casts the singers, and chooses the combination of singers and orchestra (playing on instruments of the period) and conductor which he thinks can bring this masterpiece to life for a modern audience. He wants us all get get fully immersed in the story, and with a richly informed sense of how it might have been originally performed. The main roles are chosen first with singers flying in from all over the world to audition. For the Festival chorus alone, there were 400 applicants to fill just 24 places. In addition to the all important stage presence, Michael looks for animation and a voice that is both full of personality and fits in with the others to create the harmony he’s after. He then hands over to the director Martin Lloyd-Evans, and the designer Tim Reed. They produced their model box, which represents the stage and is about the same size as a doll’s house, without the roof or façade.

“ It all seems so fiddly and intricate, but I learned that every art form responds to space differently”

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As well as designing the costumes, Tim also makes this, crafting each set and each figure so the entire Figaro production is in miniature. The sets have strings attached to them so they can be moved from above. Tim and Martin spend hours moving each set and each character so that the setting and action not only enhances the narrative but also the music, to get that elusive visceral frisson that sends shivers down your back. It all seems so fiddly and intricate, but I learned that every art form responds to space differently, and the box is used to illustrate the three-dimensional space that music needs to breathe – a screen image is too ‘flat’. It’s painted black inside and out but lit from within. Lighting is crucial, the closest thing we have on stage to music because the effect of a lighting cue works subliminally. And for this entire season Michael has engaged the world-renowned lighting designer, Peter Mumford. Martin believes that the gold standard for a director is to respect your audience and understand what they actually experience. ‘In opera, it’s the words and the way the words are set to music’, he says, ‘so you tend to that first and then allow your interpretation.’ He adds that interpretations differ, because we all see things in our own unique way.

He says you can’t work with singers unless they know the opera inside out. They have to be immersed in their part so they can interpret it. If it’s in a foreign language they have to learn it in their own language first, then study it in a new language for six or seven weeks. I realise it’s the love of what they do that fires the creative energy of The Grange Festival. Enthusiasm, musicality and empathy with each production simply pours out of Michael and his team. We haven’t come to the end of our Figaro quest yet, but so far it has been fascinating, stimulating and a lot of fun.

Fiona Boyle

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T H E G RA N G E F E S T I VA L 2020 PROGR AMME

5 June — 12 July 2020

L A CE N E R E N TO L A RO S S I N I —

A M I D S U M M E R N IG H T ’S D R E A M BR IT TEN —

M A N ON L E S CAU T P U CCI N I —

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M Y FA I R L A DY LER N ER & LOEW E

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