Music Theatre Wales returns to the New Theatre with its UK Premiere production of Philippe Boesmans’ Julie. Based on Strindberg’s classic drama of destructive passion between mistress and servant, this one-act chamber opera is in Cardiff on Sunday 2 December.The plot of Julie unfolds in an aristocratic residence in Sweden on Midsummer night. The count’s daughter, Julie, draws Jean, her father’s valet, away from his fiancée, the cook Christine. Julie’s fate is sealed when Jean, fired by ambition, persuades the young countess - haunted by her family past – to steal money from her father in order to flee abroad. The situation becomes intolerable for Julie and, by showing her that their union is impossible, Jean pushes her to commit suicide. First produced in Sweden in 1888, Strindberg’s play Miss Julie has never lost its powerful appeal. There have been countless productions, including two notable translations by Frank McGuinness and Patrick Marber, and film adaptations starring, variously, Helen Mirren and Saffron Burrows in the title role. This operatic production is directed by Michael McCarthy and conducted by Michael Rafferty. The role of the predatory Julie is played by Scottish mezzo soprano Arlene Rolph. Baritone Andrew Rupp plays her father’s opportunistic valet, Jean and soprano Emma Gane is his spurned fiancée Christine. Julie introduces British audiences to the operas of the Belgian composer Philippe Boesmans for the first time. Although Boesmans is a major figure in the musical life of mainland Europe - his four operas have an impressively successful track record – he is virtually unknown on the British opera stage. Boesmans’s music is highly individual, his style dense, precise, rich and colourful and in Julie he makes a chamber ensemble of eighteen players sound symphonic. Julie originally premiered in March 2005 at La Monnaie in Brussels where Boesmans has been Composer in Residence for nearly twenty years. It was co-production with the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and Vienna. Julie can booked from the New Theatre Box Office 0n 029 2087 8889 or online* at www.newtheatrecardiff.co.uk. ...... Music Theatre Wales is the UK’s leading touring contemporary opera company. The company works in Wales, across the UK and internationally. MTW is dedicated to performing ground-breaking and stimulating contemporary chamber opera –works commissioned from the very best composers and writers, and acknowledged masterpieces of the recent past. MTW is the only company working at this scale, to this standard, with this mission, in the country. In November 2002, Music Theatre Wales became the first Associate Company of the Royal Opera House. The company launched its new partnership with a run of performances of Nigel Osborne’s The Electrification of the Soviet Union. Recent productions include a commission from Nigel Osborne: The Piano Tuner - based on the best-selling novel by Daniel Mason, with a libretto by Amanda Holden. In 2005 MTW undertook its first major co-production with ROH: Sir Michael Tippett’s The Knot Garden. With innovative design by contemporary visual artists Jane and Louise Wilson using cutting-edge video technology, the opera attracted record audiences in London and on tour. 2006 saw the tour of a new commission from Lynne Plowman and Martin Riley: House of the Gods played to enthusiastic and youthful audiences from Durham to Brighton. Future commissions include, for 2008, For You a new opera by Michael Berkeley with libretto by Ian McEwan – his first opera libretto. Over the next two years MTW will extend its Associate Composer Scheme, supported by the Jerwood Charity, and additional commissions include a new companion piece to A Soldier’s Tale |
| New Theatre Cardiff web site: www.newtheatrecardiff.co.uk |
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Monday, November 26, 2007 |
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