OEP and The Marriage of Figaro
OEP summer tour 2008
OEP’s summer tour opera for 2008 will be Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in a sparkling new production, directed by Jeff Clarke with designs by Helen Stewart. Sung in English, a talented team of singers will include Australian soprano, Martene Grimson as Susanna, Australian baritone, Derek Welton as Figaro, Irish soprano, Norah King as the Countess and English baritone, Adam Green as the Count. Musical direction will be by Oliver Gooch, assisted by Tom Seligman.
The opening performance will be in the Ryan Theatre at Harrow School, north west London, on Sunday 18th May. Thereafter, our longest summer tour to date continues until August, with dates in East Anglia and beyond. Full details of the tour, including dates, venues and box office information will be posted on OEP’s website shortly (www.operaeastproductions.org).
Synopsis of The Marriage of Figaro
This comic opera, composed by Mozart in 1786, is full of the most beautiful music. Set near Seville in Spain, the story takes place over a period of just twenty four hours. It is about relationships between masters and servants and the complications in those relationships caused by sex. Susanna, maid to Countess Almaviva, is to marry Figaro, steward to the Count. Nonetheless the Count, who is an incorrigible womaniser, makes advances to Susanna. He is rejected. Meanwhile Cherubino, a young page in the household, is himself infatuated with the Countess. When various attempts by Figaro to thwart his master's intentions come to nothing, Susanna and the Countess hatch their own plot to humiliate the Count. This succeeds, the Count apologises to his wife and is forgiven. Thus all ends happily.
Brief OEP biography
OEP was founded in 1999 by Oliver Gooch, its Artistic Director. The first performances in 2000 were of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at Orford, Suffolk, described by one critic as, “one of the most exciting performances I can remember”.
OEP seeks to bring opera to a wide audience in East Anglia and beyond, at the same time providing important training opportunities for young singers, instrumentalists, designers and technicians at the start of their professional careers. Further, through a range of imaginative education projects, it is our aim to enhance the understanding and enjoyment of opera for all, especially young people.
OEP has received critical acclaim and has delighted audiences with a series of contemporary, period and family productions, given alongside some memorable stagings of operas from the standard repertoire. We have attracted the attention and support of some prominent figures in the arts world, notably Sir Colin Davis, our patron, Dame Janet Baker and Sir Charles Mackerras. The number and range of our education projects grows each year.