The Music Troupe

Masque of Vengeance (2023)
The Revenger's Tragedy

"If a revenger's wish might stand in force,
Would all those there were turned into a corpse!"

We’re in a dystopian underworld of criminality, lust and murder. Vindicio is a young man played by a woman who, for much of the play, disguises himself as a woman. He has with him the death mask of his fiancée whom the King raped and murdered; he seeks revenge, but is intercepted by the King’s son, the Prince, who wants to bed Vindicio’s sister. So begins this deadly battle of wits which is over 400 years old - but which is a timeless indictment of corruption and evil in the corridors of power.

The Last Siren (2023)
A rather tragic little opera....

“O traveller on the wine dark sea!” In Ancient Greece, two sirens with beautiful voices have the job of luring passing sailors to their doom. But when one of them finds love the singing contest gets serious. Two shipwrecks later, the tables are turned when Odysseus approaches… An opera that shines a different light on Homer's Odyssey.

The Last Siren was adopted as a pilot for dementia-friendly opera by the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory and featured on BBC London 27 Aug and Sky News 29 Aug 2023

Opera Now article

The Burning Question (2022 & 2023) (La domanda scottante)
The fate of the female Pope hangs in the balance...

Attended by a demonic manservant and an angelic maid, the first female Pope has died. She now wants nothing less than a cosy retirement in paradise, but Someone has other ideas and the elevator going upwards gets stuck. It's a Day of Wrath! What does St Peter, the Caretaker, know? Does he hold the key to the plot? Accompanied by piano duet and a choir of heavenly voices, this is a satire that confronts the ridiculous, the sublime, love, death and comic opera all at the same time.

Last Party on Earth (2020) Filmed opera

Following fire, flood and virus, two survivors wander in a barren landscape. In her decrepit bunker, they come across the self-isolating, stockpiling Queen of Cans who invites them in to party. Can love blossom even as life on Earth perishes? And who or what is the Dark One of whom they are so terrified? Stripped to its essentials, with only an accordion for company, this comic opera turns out to be no laughing matter.

Apollo's Mission (2019)
opera/musical to celebrate 50th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing

Once upon a time Apollo (the sun-god) was President of Everything, while his dim sister (the moon-goddess) was just a cabaret artiste in a seedy nightclub. As the Americans invade the moon in July 1969, events take a sinister turn and chaos ensues. Can the gods sort it out or is the “dickhead” President too dysfunctional? Adding a bonkers twist to the Apollo 11 commemorations, this fun-opera investigates our fascination for all things lunar. Apollo’s Mission confuses fact with fiction, earth with moon, god-like humans with a Trump-like god - and then with now.

The Cloak & Dagger Affair (2018)
an adaptation of Lorca's play Amor de Don Perlimplín con Belisa en su jardín
"...a score whose eroticism was often visceral.” (The Guardian)

Don Perlimplín has a young wife who's smitten by a mysterious stranger in a red cloak. Will Belisa be unfaithful? And why is Perlimplín so excited? With music that is a reincarnation of the bel canto style and a production that challenges ideas of love and lust, gender and identity, The Music Troupe presents a true chamber opera which is both tragic and surreal.

The Art of Venus (2017)
The colonisation of Mars runs into difficulties...
"shaken, astonished, and utterly exhilarated."

The global search has begun for the first humans to set foot on Mars and make it their home. In 2032, as the spacecraft hurtles through space, humanity holds its breath… can the planet be colonised? But will Venus take it lying down? A short, post-baroque opera about the power of the gods - and a myth waiting to happen.

Opera With A Title (2015)
an adaptation of two dramas by Federico Garcia Lorca

Drawn from two plays by Lorca, this surrealist opera explores the theme of identity. What the actors are playing, and what is happening to them in the real world, are confused: they bring their fantasies to bear on their performances while their characters invade their own personalities. Thus, role-play and questions of gender are examined, each from the other's viewpoint, as well as the nature of theatre and its relevance to everyday life.

Six characters in search of a stage (2014)
an adaptation of Pirandello's surrealist play
✩✩✩✩ "Bite sized opera strikes gold..."

Six Characters enter an empty theatre determined to stage their drama - but first they need to convince the sceptical Director that their opera is really good. We are drawn into a tragic tale of incest, murder and suicide worthy of any grand opera. But is it for real? If it actually happened - how can it be true? The Characters' mysterious story raises more questions than it can possibly answer...

The Catfish Conundrum (2014 & 2015)
The controversy surrounding an Arts Council exhibition in 1971
Possibly the only opera in which the heroine is eaten...

London, 1971: a gallery exhibits a tank of catfish. The Press is indignant: ‘Animal cruelty!’ 'Is this art?' Spike Milligan, the Arts Council, the artist and finally, President Reagan all have their say. And the Catfish? Could this be the only opera in which the heroine is killed - and eaten? A musical potboiler!

The Parting (2018)

A ten-minute opera for 3 singers

Enrique is going on a journey and he will be away ‘for a long time’. His wife watches from a window and the voices of his children cry out for presents. An old man appears and offers to help with his luggage...

Text: Federico Garcia Lorca

The Oval Portrait (2017)

Life and art get confused in this short semi-opera

A visitor arrives at a remote castle and is disturbed by the portrait of a young woman. As her husband painted her, the picture came alive - while she lived on only in his art..

Text by Edgar Allan Poe

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. Ten productions later, the group has given valuable opportunities to a wide range of over 80 performers and creatives (see below). We recently made a lockdown movie of Last Party on Earth and produced The Last Siren for a dementia-friendly project with the Geller Institute of Ageing and Memory. Performances of The Duchess of Padua are planned for early 2024 and The Masque of Vengeance for November 2023. In Five Years' Time and The Butterfly's Spell are also in the pipeline.

”…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

The Music Troupers....