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The Parting & Buster's Trip
Saturday 21 September 2024 matinée 16:30 evening 19:00 (performance lasts about 30 minutes) The Cockpit, London NW8 8EH as part of Tête-à-Tête: The Opera Festival Two operatic vignettes adapted from texts by Federico García Lorca. The Parting (Quimera) tells of a man who is leaving his wife and children to go on a journey. He’s accompanied by a mysterious old man and it’s not clear where they’re going or if they’re coming back. Buster’s Trip features a brainstorming session to develop a screenplay for Buster Keaton. He cycles and he walks through the countryside. Clearly, he’ll get up to all kinds of mischief and the feds will make their usual appearance. But will he fall for his leading lady? Words: Federico Garcîa Lorca Music: Edward Lambert The Wife: Naomi Kilby (soprano) Enrique: James Schouten (tenor) The Old Man: Martin Nelson (bass) Leading Lady: Rosalind Dobson (soprano) Buster Keaton: Will Diggle (tenor) The Producer: Peter Lidbetter (bass-baritone) Director (The Parting): Jonny Danciger Director (Buster’s Trip): Walter Hall Accordion: Alise Siliņa |
Dementia-friendly performances & workshops (free)
in association with the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory
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meet the cast...
Naomi Kilby trained at Birmingham Conservatoire and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Opera work includes regular chorus and Comprimario roles for Opera Holland Park, and founding Opera Alegrìa, most recently singing Aurora in The Portrait of Manon and Pamina in The Magic Flute. In 2024, Naomi sang the title role in Handel’s Semele with Richmond Opera, and Geraldine in Barber's A Hand Of Bridge for OHP/Opera Alegrìa. Naomi also regularly works with OHP’s award winning Inspire outreach programme, and with the Dementia Charity, Lost Chord. A keen recitalist, Naomi has performed all over the UK and in Europe.
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James Schouten studied at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Recent operatic roles include: Prince Charmant Cendrillon (RCS Opera), Idomeneo Idomeneo (RCS Opera), Sellem (cover) The Rake's Progress (The Grange Festival), Don José Carmen (Opera in Oborne), Laca Jenufa (Fulham Opera). This will be James's 3rd outing of Ed Lambert's music - having previously performed as ‘Manuel’ in ‘Opera with a Title’ (Tête a Tête, 2015) and ‘The Book’ in ‘The Oval Portrait’ (The Opera Box, 2017). Upcoming performances include Loge Das Rheingold (Regents Opera, 2025) and Eisenstein Die Fledermaus (Merry Opera, 2025).
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Will Diggle trained at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. His notable engagements include playing Germano in Rossini's La Scala di Seta at Teatro Signorelli in Italy, performing recitals at Tsaritsyno Palace in Moscow, portraying Vacuo in Edward Lambert’s Masque of Vengeance, and taking on the male role in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti as well as Tony in his West Side Story. Additionally, Will has covered roles such as Macduff in Verdi’s Macbeth, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Spoletta in Puccini’s Tosca. He has also performed at the Sydney Opera House in Opera Australia’s productions of Don Giovanni, La Traviata, and Lohengrin.
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Peter Lidbetter is an international British/Irish bass-baritone from London. 2023-24 operatic roles include Germont (La traviata - Musique Cordiale), Bartolo and Antonio (le Nozze di Figaro) Kecal (Bartered Bride) Basilio (il barbiere di Siviglia - all Garsington Festival Opera) and Simone (Gianni Schicchi) and Haly (l’italiana in Algeri – both Wexford Festival Opera). Peter is a Principal Guest Artist with the Edvard Grieg Vokalensemble in Bergen, Norway and performs regularly with Bergen Nasjionale Opera. He studied at the Royal Northern College of Music where he was a Gold Medal finalist and won the Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award for final year singers.
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Rosalind Dobson was a 2023/24 Young Artist at the National Opera Studio in London, performing scenes in collaboration with Opera North, ENO, WNO, Scottish Opera and Glyndebourne. She completed her studies at the Alexander Gibson Opera Studio at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2023. Prior to that, she pursued English Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and then earned her Master of Performance degree at the Royal College of Music, graduating with distinction. She studies under Wilma MacDougall.Rosalind is based between London and Zurich and is obsessed with contemporary fiction, tarot, and good salad dressings.
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Martin Nelson has sung principal roles for the Royal Opera and other UK and European regional companies and festivals, created several roles, and has a wide experience of contemporary music theatre, West End musicals, film and theatre. He recently set up a local Memory Singing Circle for those living with dementia. Martin has developed three environmental projects for which he was elected FRGS: Scrap and Scratch Opera, which mounted large-scale al fresco community events for children; Cycle Orbital, https://london-cycle-orbital.org.uk and EQ – promoting equinoxes as the Earth Days they truly are https://martinnelson.co.uk/eq/.
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Alise Siliņa is a Latvian classical accordionist who has performed in theatre and opera productions, contemporary and classical chamber music projects, and collaborated with dancers, writers, and creative light designers. She has performed projects at the Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London Contemporary Dance School and the University of Cambridge. In 2023 Alise presented her first solo concert in London with “New Stages Creations” delivering a multi-art performance including solo accordion, narration, and creative light design. In Summer 2024 she performed in “Much Ado About Nothing” at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London.
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Jonny Danciger read music at St Peter’s College, Oxford. Training includes placements with the Royal Opera House and British Youth Opera, assisting Keith Warner. He was artistic director of the OSO Arts Centre from 2020-22, and is an associate director with Orchestra Vox and Cumbria Opera. He runs a theatre company with poet Roger McGough, winning Best Children’s Show at the 2023 EdFringe. He has performed in the West End in Billy Elliot (Victoria Palace) and Twisted Tales (Lyric Hammersmith). Jonny has over 50 professional design credits at venues including the Tokyo Metropolitan, Birmingham Old Rep and London's Peacock Theatre.
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Walter Hall is an opera and theatre director who has recently graduated from the University of Bristol. While studying there, he directed three operas (Die Fledermaus, The Elixir of Love and Ethel Smyth’s Fête Galante), a new play (There’s a Ram in our Kitchen) and an outdoor production of Sophocles’ Antigone. In 2022-3, he was the president of the Bristol University Opera Society. He is going to be assistant directing Merry Opera’s Die Fledermaus next year.
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Recently...
The Duchess of Padua at The Space, London and other venues
"Lambert’s music is spot on, fusing a traditionally dynamic Bel Canto score without feeling the least bit dated. It is always dramatic and flows seamlessly… glimpses of stunning beauty in the love-focused duets and arias... a tight score that never drops the excitement, Lambert’s gothic-inspired music fits so well, and the performers do such a strong job, that it is difficult not to enjoy it." (Broadway World) |
Masque of Vengeance at The Cockpit, London and The Stoller Hall, Manchester "... a taut and driven eighty minutes in which there is very little dead time. Powered along by a dynamic, pulsating score for piano duet, with soaring bel canto vocals and dramatic recitatives, there was never a dull moment to be experienced..." (Planet Hugill, November 2023) 
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Fleeting shots of recent productions...
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The Music Troupe was founded in 2014 by composer Edward Lambert and colleagues to perform, amongst other things, new small-scale operas. We wanted to bring back the art of beautiful singing into new operas that are designed for smaller spaces: works that aren't scaled-down productions of grand opera but new chamber pieces in which the music and drama are tailored, not trimmed, to an intimate experience. We want our shows to be as entertaining as they are economical. 13 productions later, the group has given valuable opportunities to a wide range of over 100 performers and creatives (see below). We recently made a movie of Last Party on Earth and produced The Last Siren for a dementia-friendly project with the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory. In Five Years' Time and The Butterfly's Spell are in the pipeline. We have delivered performances in Manchester, Brighton, Yorkshire and Berkshire as well as London, and given workshops in schools and for those living with dementia.
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”…the next generation is looking to buy their vegetables at a farmers' market, not a supermarket. They want that taste, that crunch, that flavour. I think they're looking for more intimate musical experiences where you're close enough to taste the quality of the work. Opera can operate on many different levels, for many different metabolisms and on many different social scales and that diversity is a very good thing."
Peter Sellars, The Independent, 26/02/2015 The Music Troupe is a registered charity no. 1161386 Trustees: Ian Caddy, Susan Holmes, Richard Foster, Jenny Weston BEM Thank you to all the artists, venues, audiences and funders who have supported us. |
And for the future...
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In 5 Years' Time
Adapted from a play by Lorca which explores themes of frustrated love, personal identity, decay and death; yet it does so in the manner of a fairy tale, clothed in fun and topsy-turviness. Cast of 8; accompanied by an ensemble of 8 instruments 75 mins more info → |
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The Butterfly's Spell
In the world of insects, a Poet Beetle rejects the love of the devoted Sylvia in favour of an impossible infatuation with a fragile Butterfly whose destiny it is to fly away. A sad tale, but a comic opera which also features a drunken Scorpion, an overbearing Mother and Two Fireflies which glow in the dark. Suitable for all ages. From an early play by Lorca. Cast of 7; accompanied by an ensemble of 7 instruments 70 mins more info → |
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Swellfellow the Tyrant
King Swellfellow is a tyrannical dictator who gorges himself while his subjects starve. Can he and his sleazy ministers cling to power when the Countess returns from exile? And whose side will the Press be on? Still pertinent today 200 years after it was written, Shelley's satire is here made into an opera which is as comic as it is bizarre Written for community performance with some roles for amateur singers Cast of 10 and chorus; accompanied by an ensemble of 7 instruments 80 mins more info → |
