Romeo and Juliet - The Opera
Pimlico Opera presents Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi
The Lowry, Tue 18 September, 2007
Press Night: Tue 18 September, 7pm
Shakespeare’s classic tale of Romeo and Juliet comes to The Lowry in operatic guise when Pimlico Opera bring their version of Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi on Tue 18 Sept.
After three performances at The Grange in Hampshire they come straight to The Lowry to start their autumn tour. The 2001 Grange Park production with Emma Bell and Susan Bickley was created by Dominic Cooke, now the Artistic Director of The Royal Court Theatre. Ptolemy Christie revives the show with some exceptional younger singers Sinead Campbell (Guilietta) and Hannah Pedley (Romeo) both members of the Rising Stars Programme established by Grange Park Opera.
Already familiar to many will be the baritone Owen Gilhooly who took part in this year’s BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He has appeared with English Touring Opera and Scottish Opera and has recorded for BBC’s Friday Night is Music Night.
Inspired by the film The Godfather, this production has been updated to 1940s Sicily and a world where loyalty, honour and vengeance are unequalled. Romeo – a Montague – has killed the son of Capellio, the head of the Capulets. At a secret tryst with Capellio’s daughter, his beloved Juliet, he learns she is about to be given in marriage to a Capulet. Juliet would prefer death to life without Romeo and hatches the ill-fated plan which inspired Bellini to write one of the most affecting death scenes in the opera repertoire.
Pimlico Opera was founded in 1987 by Wasfi Kani OBE and is one of the leading small scale touring companies. There are two strands to its work: an autumn national tour which is funded by the Arts Council, and an annual prison project. Pimlico Opera spends six weeks a year working inside Her Majesty's Prisons culminating in public performances in which inmates share the stage with professionals.
Posted on Wednesday, 15 August 2007 under Press Theatre Press