#opera #new writing #contemporary classical
Press Release
06 January 2024
The Music Troupe
The Duchess of Padua
The Space Theatre, London E14
Tuesday 20 - Sunday 25 February 2024
space.org.uk/event/the-duchess-of-padua
A new chamber opera based on Oscar Wilde’s rarely performed play, The Duchess of Padua, will be presented by The Music Troupe at The Space Theatre in London from Tuesday 20 - Sunday 25 February 2024 followed by performances at The Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, Yorkshire (2 March), The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester (3 March) and The Croft Hall, Hungerford (10 March).
Alongside the in-person performances at The Space Theatre The Duchess of Padua will be live streamed on Thursday 22 February via www.space.org.uk
An intimate Italian-style opera with arias, ensembles, a love-duet, and a death scene, The Duchess of Padua features four voices and a piano duo who together perform this adaptation of Wilde’s epic tragedy of revenge and passion.
The Duchess of Padua tells the story of an earnest young man who falls for the oppressed wife of a cruel and coercive Duke and the tragic consequences that follow. Both melodramatic and sentimental this adaptation showcases Wilde’s beautiful verse as it faithfully follows the twists and turns of the extraordinary plot.
With music by Edward Lambert, founder of The Music Troupe who has composed for a wide variety of performers and written 18 chamber operas, The Duchess of Padua is directed by Fleur Snow, currently Staff Director at Theater St Gallen, Switzerland and whose credits include Opera Holland Park and Welsh National Opera, with set design by Melissa Sofoian, who works on cross-cultural collaborations within the MENA and Armenian communities.
Press night: Wednesday 21 February 2024 at 7.30pm
Live stream: Thursday 22 February 2024 at 7.30pm
For further information, images, or to request interviews please contact Robert James on [email protected] or 07716258938.
musictroupe.co.uk
edwardlambert.co.uk/duchess.html
Genesis of the opera
The Duchess of Padua was written in 1883 when Wilde was still in his twenties and leading the aesthetic movement. It was intended for Mary Anderson, an actor, who subsequently turned it down. Wilde regarded the work highly. It was produced later in New York in 1891, then not until 2010 when it was produced by the Pentameters Theatre in Camden.
Edward Lambert says: "This neglect was encouraging since I wouldn’t have wanted to tamper with an acknowledged masterpiece. The play contains a number of small parts and crowd scenes which I cut out. This left me with a personal drama for the 4 principal characters which would be comparatively economical to produce. By way of compensation, I used some of Wilde’s stage directions in the body of the text to be expressed by the cast; thus, the singers are on stage throughout doubling as narrators, commenting on the action and describing the scene like a Greek chorus, while also acting out their roles."
Wilde's text, in blank verse, is highly polished and eloquent. It revels in the beauty of language for its own sake and is intrinsically musical. It’s easy to see how, by using this mannered style to comic effect, Wilde arrived at the wit of his later plays. Here’s the cruel Duke greeting young Guido, who’s come to Padua to seek revenge for his father’s execution:
In Padua we think that honesty is ostentatious, so
It is not of the fashion. Guido, be not honest.
See thou hast enemies, else will the world think little of thee:
It is its test of power.
Wilde became for a time the successful editor of The Woman’s World at a time when women were becoming more militant: just before the play was written, the Married Women’s Property Act was passed which allowed a wife to hold property in her own right for the first time. His mother was also a poet and an advocate for women’s equality. With his artistic sensibilities and these influences, a strong feminist tone surfaces in the character of the Duchess:
Men when they woo us call us pretty children:
We are their chattels, and their common slaves,
Less dear than the hound that licks their hand,
Less fondled than the hawk upon their wrist.
Woo, did I say? bought rather, sold and bartered,
Our bodies as merchandise.
Although purporting to be set in renaissance Italy - Wilde liked tragedy to be 'remote' - his text presents a window into the vast inequalities in contemporary Victorian society:
There is many a woman here in Padua,
Some workman’s wife, or artisan’s,
Whose husband spends his wages in a revel,
And reeling home late, finds his wife by a fireless hearth
with a child who cries for hunger,
And then beats his wife because
The child is hungry, and the fire black.
Guido is an honourable, but chauvinistic youth and lacks the courage to kill the Duke -
It is woman’s mission by their love to save the souls of men:
and loving her, my Lady, I see a nobler vengeance
In letting this man live, than doth reside in bloody deeds.
…so instead it falls to the Duchess to do the deed. The depiction of an aristocratic wife murdering her husband would have shocked Victorian society and helps to explain the play's lack of appeal at the time.
The Duchess of Padua ends in a tragedy which seems to presage Wilde's own downfall:
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
Have I not stood face to face with beauty?
That is enough for one man’s life.
To sum up, stripped to its essentials, the play is revealed to be less about renaissance Italy than about social and feminist issues within contemporary Victorian society. For the duration of these performances at least, this adaptation rescues much of Wilde's beautiful text from neglect.
Creatives
Music & adaptation: Edward Lambert
Words: Oscar Wilde
Director: Fleur Snow
Design: Melissa Sofoian
Model maker: Yun Geng
Lighting: Danny Muir
Cast
Ellie Neate (soprano) as Beatrice, Duchess of Padua
Anna Elizabeth Cooper (mezzo-soprano) as Guido Ferranti
James Beddoe (tenor) as The Duke of Padua
Henry Grant Kerswell (bass) as Count Moranzone
Pianos: Adrian Salinero & Alex Norton
Biographies
The cast for the production includes soprano Ellie Neate in the role of Beatrice, Duchess of Padua. Hailed as a ‘rising star’ by The Guardian, Ellie recently received acclaim for her performance in La Sonnambula at Buxton International Festival.
She will be joined by mezzo-soprano Anna Elizabeth Cooper as Guido Ferranti. Anna made her Glyndebourne debut in 2023 and recently performed as Olga in Eugene Onegin as an Opera Holland Park Young Artist.
Performing as The Duke of Padua is tenor James Beddoe, who was recently seen in Barefoot Opera’s La Cenerentola as part of Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre and on tour.
As Count Moranzone is Henry Grant Kerswell, who following his principal debut at Holland Park has performed with companies including the Royal Opera House, Scottish Opera and English Touring Opera and will perform in La fille du Regiment at Grange Park Opera later this year.
Founded in 2014 by composer Edward Lambert, The Music Troupe has presented annual productions that feature the art of "bel canto" in contemporary chamber operas that are tailored, not trimmed, to create an intimate and accessible experience. Over the last ten years the group has given valuable opportunities to a wide range of over 95 performers and creatives. During lockdown an opera movie, The Last Party on Earth was filmed on location. The Last Siren, in a recent dementia-friendly presentation in association with University of West London, featured in The Big Issue, Sky News, Arts Professional, BBC London and Times Radio.
Fleur Snow (director) is an opera director and musician from West Wales. She is passionate about new music, historical gesture and site-specific work. Recent work as an assistant director has been on the international stage, with credits including Evgenij Onegin, Teatro Massimo, Palermo, Du Är Min Nu, Göteborgs Stadsteater, La Bohème, Opera Holland Park and Die Lustigen Weiber, Staatsoperette Dresden. Fleur is currently staff director in Theater St Gallen.
Melissa Sofoian (Set and Costume Designer) made it to the Linbury Prize Top 20 shortlist in 2019. From 2019 to 2021 for David Poutney, she served as Design Assistant to Leslie Travers on Die Meistersinger (Oper Leipzig), Al Wasl (Dubai Opera), and Mefistofele (Teatro Alla Scala). Other productions included Simon Boccanegra (Latvian National Opera) and Peter Grimes (Theatre Basel). With an Architectural background, she's a multidisciplinary artist, also involved in Exhibition Design. Having premiered Anoush at the Marylebone Theatre in London in 2023, Melissa is now determined to expand her footprint in Opera Design.
"...felt sumptuously melodic, as well as busily fresh, with strong, intensely written passages building to moments of euphoric surprise." (operissima)
"...approachable, but contemporary musical style..." (Planet Hugill)
"...intriguingly offered elements of bel canto vocal writing to vie with a more ‘modern’ idiom..." (boulezian)
"...a score whose eroticism was often visceral." (The Guardian)
"...became increasingly disturbing, and confirmed Lambert's effective text-setting." (Opera Today)
The Music Troupe has been flying the flag for new small-scale opera since 2014. musictroupe.co.uk
For further information, images, or to request interviews please contact Robert James on [email protected] or 07716258938 or [email protected]
TW FB & IG: @musictroupe
Press Release
06 January 2024
The Music Troupe
The Duchess of Padua
The Space Theatre, London E14
Tuesday 20 - Sunday 25 February 2024
space.org.uk/event/the-duchess-of-padua
A new chamber opera based on Oscar Wilde’s rarely performed play, The Duchess of Padua, will be presented by The Music Troupe at The Space Theatre in London from Tuesday 20 - Sunday 25 February 2024 followed by performances at The Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, Yorkshire (2 March), The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester (3 March) and The Croft Hall, Hungerford (10 March).
Alongside the in-person performances at The Space Theatre The Duchess of Padua will be live streamed on Thursday 22 February via www.space.org.uk
An intimate Italian-style opera with arias, ensembles, a love-duet, and a death scene, The Duchess of Padua features four voices and a piano duo who together perform this adaptation of Wilde’s epic tragedy of revenge and passion.
The Duchess of Padua tells the story of an earnest young man who falls for the oppressed wife of a cruel and coercive Duke and the tragic consequences that follow. Both melodramatic and sentimental this adaptation showcases Wilde’s beautiful verse as it faithfully follows the twists and turns of the extraordinary plot.
With music by Edward Lambert, founder of The Music Troupe who has composed for a wide variety of performers and written 18 chamber operas, The Duchess of Padua is directed by Fleur Snow, currently Staff Director at Theater St Gallen, Switzerland and whose credits include Opera Holland Park and Welsh National Opera, with set design by Melissa Sofoian, who works on cross-cultural collaborations within the MENA and Armenian communities.
Press night: Wednesday 21 February 2024 at 7.30pm
Live stream: Thursday 22 February 2024 at 7.30pm
For further information, images, or to request interviews please contact Robert James on [email protected] or 07716258938.
musictroupe.co.uk
edwardlambert.co.uk/duchess.html
Genesis of the opera
The Duchess of Padua was written in 1883 when Wilde was still in his twenties and leading the aesthetic movement. It was intended for Mary Anderson, an actor, who subsequently turned it down. Wilde regarded the work highly. It was produced later in New York in 1891, then not until 2010 when it was produced by the Pentameters Theatre in Camden.
Edward Lambert says: "This neglect was encouraging since I wouldn’t have wanted to tamper with an acknowledged masterpiece. The play contains a number of small parts and crowd scenes which I cut out. This left me with a personal drama for the 4 principal characters which would be comparatively economical to produce. By way of compensation, I used some of Wilde’s stage directions in the body of the text to be expressed by the cast; thus, the singers are on stage throughout doubling as narrators, commenting on the action and describing the scene like a Greek chorus, while also acting out their roles."
Wilde's text, in blank verse, is highly polished and eloquent. It revels in the beauty of language for its own sake and is intrinsically musical. It’s easy to see how, by using this mannered style to comic effect, Wilde arrived at the wit of his later plays. Here’s the cruel Duke greeting young Guido, who’s come to Padua to seek revenge for his father’s execution:
In Padua we think that honesty is ostentatious, so
It is not of the fashion. Guido, be not honest.
See thou hast enemies, else will the world think little of thee:
It is its test of power.
Wilde became for a time the successful editor of The Woman’s World at a time when women were becoming more militant: just before the play was written, the Married Women’s Property Act was passed which allowed a wife to hold property in her own right for the first time. His mother was also a poet and an advocate for women’s equality. With his artistic sensibilities and these influences, a strong feminist tone surfaces in the character of the Duchess:
Men when they woo us call us pretty children:
We are their chattels, and their common slaves,
Less dear than the hound that licks their hand,
Less fondled than the hawk upon their wrist.
Woo, did I say? bought rather, sold and bartered,
Our bodies as merchandise.
Although purporting to be set in renaissance Italy - Wilde liked tragedy to be 'remote' - his text presents a window into the vast inequalities in contemporary Victorian society:
There is many a woman here in Padua,
Some workman’s wife, or artisan’s,
Whose husband spends his wages in a revel,
And reeling home late, finds his wife by a fireless hearth
with a child who cries for hunger,
And then beats his wife because
The child is hungry, and the fire black.
Guido is an honourable, but chauvinistic youth and lacks the courage to kill the Duke -
It is woman’s mission by their love to save the souls of men:
and loving her, my Lady, I see a nobler vengeance
In letting this man live, than doth reside in bloody deeds.
…so instead it falls to the Duchess to do the deed. The depiction of an aristocratic wife murdering her husband would have shocked Victorian society and helps to explain the play's lack of appeal at the time.
The Duchess of Padua ends in a tragedy which seems to presage Wilde's own downfall:
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
Have I not stood face to face with beauty?
That is enough for one man’s life.
To sum up, stripped to its essentials, the play is revealed to be less about renaissance Italy than about social and feminist issues within contemporary Victorian society. For the duration of these performances at least, this adaptation rescues much of Wilde's beautiful text from neglect.
Creatives
Music & adaptation: Edward Lambert
Words: Oscar Wilde
Director: Fleur Snow
Design: Melissa Sofoian
Model maker: Yun Geng
Lighting: Danny Muir
Cast
Ellie Neate (soprano) as Beatrice, Duchess of Padua
Anna Elizabeth Cooper (mezzo-soprano) as Guido Ferranti
James Beddoe (tenor) as The Duke of Padua
Henry Grant Kerswell (bass) as Count Moranzone
Pianos: Adrian Salinero & Alex Norton
Biographies
The cast for the production includes soprano Ellie Neate in the role of Beatrice, Duchess of Padua. Hailed as a ‘rising star’ by The Guardian, Ellie recently received acclaim for her performance in La Sonnambula at Buxton International Festival.
She will be joined by mezzo-soprano Anna Elizabeth Cooper as Guido Ferranti. Anna made her Glyndebourne debut in 2023 and recently performed as Olga in Eugene Onegin as an Opera Holland Park Young Artist.
Performing as The Duke of Padua is tenor James Beddoe, who was recently seen in Barefoot Opera’s La Cenerentola as part of Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre and on tour.
As Count Moranzone is Henry Grant Kerswell, who following his principal debut at Holland Park has performed with companies including the Royal Opera House, Scottish Opera and English Touring Opera and will perform in La fille du Regiment at Grange Park Opera later this year.
Founded in 2014 by composer Edward Lambert, The Music Troupe has presented annual productions that feature the art of "bel canto" in contemporary chamber operas that are tailored, not trimmed, to create an intimate and accessible experience. Over the last ten years the group has given valuable opportunities to a wide range of over 95 performers and creatives. During lockdown an opera movie, The Last Party on Earth was filmed on location. The Last Siren, in a recent dementia-friendly presentation in association with University of West London, featured in The Big Issue, Sky News, Arts Professional, BBC London and Times Radio.
Fleur Snow (director) is an opera director and musician from West Wales. She is passionate about new music, historical gesture and site-specific work. Recent work as an assistant director has been on the international stage, with credits including Evgenij Onegin, Teatro Massimo, Palermo, Du Är Min Nu, Göteborgs Stadsteater, La Bohème, Opera Holland Park and Die Lustigen Weiber, Staatsoperette Dresden. Fleur is currently staff director in Theater St Gallen.
Melissa Sofoian (Set and Costume Designer) made it to the Linbury Prize Top 20 shortlist in 2019. From 2019 to 2021 for David Poutney, she served as Design Assistant to Leslie Travers on Die Meistersinger (Oper Leipzig), Al Wasl (Dubai Opera), and Mefistofele (Teatro Alla Scala). Other productions included Simon Boccanegra (Latvian National Opera) and Peter Grimes (Theatre Basel). With an Architectural background, she's a multidisciplinary artist, also involved in Exhibition Design. Having premiered Anoush at the Marylebone Theatre in London in 2023, Melissa is now determined to expand her footprint in Opera Design.
- "This marvellous evening's entertainment was…an absolute delight from start to finish." (The Burning Question, 2022, Planet Hugill)
- Previous productions include Apollo's Mission, The Cloak & Dagger Affair, The Art of Venus, The Catfish Conundrum and Six Characters in Search of a Stage
"...felt sumptuously melodic, as well as busily fresh, with strong, intensely written passages building to moments of euphoric surprise." (operissima)
"...approachable, but contemporary musical style..." (Planet Hugill)
"...intriguingly offered elements of bel canto vocal writing to vie with a more ‘modern’ idiom..." (boulezian)
"...a score whose eroticism was often visceral." (The Guardian)
"...became increasingly disturbing, and confirmed Lambert's effective text-setting." (Opera Today)
The Music Troupe has been flying the flag for new small-scale opera since 2014. musictroupe.co.uk
For further information, images, or to request interviews please contact Robert James on [email protected] or 07716258938 or [email protected]
TW FB & IG: @musictroupe
