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Ensemble

A Very Joyful Production

Benjamin Britten's 'Albert Herring'
at Hampstead Garden Opera
impresses ALICE McVEIGH

 

Hampstead Garden Opera — unknown to me until now — is a little gem of a company in north London, and Britten's Albert Herring was a perfect vehicle for it. [Saturday 22 November 2014, matinée performance]

This is of course Britten's only comic opera (though its underlying darker notes were also given full rein under the stunningly inventive direction of Joe Austin), with a masterful deployment of a chamber orchestra (conducted with striking sensitivity to both singers and score by Oliver-John Ruthven). Of course, everything has to be economical in a space as intimate as 'Upstairs at the Gatehouse' — sets especially — but what it lost in glamour was more than compensated for by the calibre of the talent on offer, and the ingenuity with which that space was used...

Copyright © 25 November 2014 Alice McVeigh,
Kent UK

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BENJAMIN BRITTEN

HAMPSTEAD

LONDON

UNITED KINGDOM

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