Latest news with #TomPiper
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Queen of Spades review – dark and convincing staging of Tchaikovsky's compulsive drama
Garsington's production of The Queen of Spades leaves little room for doubt that this is Tchaikovsky's most substantial and forward-looking operatic achievement. There are a few debatable aspects to Jack Furness's ingeniously busy production and Tom Piper's mirror-dominated stage designs, and on the opening night it took time for the show to fully hit its musical stride. Overall, though, this is an overwhelmingly convincing staging of a genuine music drama, and it will surely come to be seen as one of Garsington's most notable milestones. The opera's 18th-century setting, following Pushkin's short story, is retained. But in every other respect this is an unmistakably dark 21st-century reading. Furness is good at inserting troubling new details into the opera's apparently sunnier moments, literally so when black curtains zip across the late afternoon Garsington windows. The children playing soldiers on the banks of the Neva are here more sinister than cute, while the costume ball scene is riddled with transgressive suggestion. Suffice to say that the grand entrance of Catherine the Great after the ball scene's pastorale will not end as traditionalists will expect either. A successful performance of The Queen of Spades never rests solely on the shoulders of the opera's tortured antihero Hermann. Tchaikovsky's opera contains too many other fine cameos and ensembles for that. But without an outstanding Hermann, the opera's uniquely visceral impact might misfire. Fortunately, Garsington has a true Hermann in its ranks, in the shape of the Germany-based Irish tenor Aaron Cawley, who sings the role with prodigious intensity, almost too agonisingly, and with a brooding Heathcliffian presence which at times threatens to eclipse everything else on stage. Yet this is as it should be. Hermann's obsessive gambling, social awkwardness and sexual frustration are the dramatic focus of the opera in ways that look forward to the 20th century, to Berg's unhappy Wozzeck and to Britten's troubled loner Peter Grimes, a role for which Cawley would be ideal. Under Douglas Boyd's baton, Tchaikovsky's compulsive and innovative score, full of expressive woodwind detail and driven forwards by the march of fate, does the rest. Among the other principals, Laura Wilde is a suitably haunted and haunting Lisa, movingly depicting her character's journey from security to despair. Stephanie Wake-Edwards is bright and characterful as her friend Polina. Diana Montague, as vocally elegant as ever, plays the aged Countess without hamming the role. Robert Hayward uses his many arts to give more depth to Hermann's friend Tomsky than usual, while Roderick Williams does an eloquently sympathetic turn as the disappointed Prince Yeletsky. Until 4 July
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Queen of Spades, Garsington: Romantic despair and mad obsession – with a strong whiff of sulphur
After the bright daylight and saucy flirtations of Garsington Opera's season-opener The Elixir of Love, their second night plunged us into romantic despair and mad obsession, with a strong whiff of sulphur. The titular Queen of Spades in Tchaikovsky's great opera is an elderly Russian countess who has the secret for winning cards, but it's a secret that will bring death to anyone who learns it. For the opera's bitter anti-hero Herman the way to that secret lies through the Countess's niece Lisa. But perhaps love for her will rescue him from his mad obsession? That's the intimate heart of the opera, but as this fabulous new production makes clear the story is rooted in the tensions of Russian society. Director Jack Furness and designer Tom Piper summon that world's luxuriant, telling detail as well as its huge epic sweep and barely concealed brutality. In the barracks at the very beginning we see some lads playing soldiers. It's charming, and the excellent Garsington Opera Children's Chorus savour the Russian words. But when one of them falls down the others give his head a good kicking. Later, when we see Herman explaining his infatuation with the socially unattainable Lisa to his good friend Tomsky, he gets contemptuous looks from the strolling St Petersburg high society, who admire themselves in the mottled mirrored detachable walls that make up the set. These spin round to reveal previously hidden worlds. It might be the make-believe of a Rococo theatre-in-a-theatre, or the grim cramped barracks where Herman dreams his dream of infinite wealth. This picturesque but fundamentally grim world is enlivened by the dancers in the ball scenes and above all by Garsington's lavish 32-strong chorus, breathtakingly vigorous whether they're playing eager gamblers round the gambling-table or the Countess's chattering servants. Tchaikovsky's blazing score, which ranges from Mozartian pastiche to Russian charm to the tremor and shriek of the supernatural is brought to vivid life by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Garsington's musical director Douglas Boyd. However the couple at the opera's heart are not quite so strong. Laura Wilde as Lisa has an impressive flaring voice but her performance felt rather dramatically tepid, and though Aaron Cawley's dark-grained baritone seemed right for Herman's obsession one missed a sense of that countervailing tenderness for Lisa that might have saved him. The circle of army friends around Herman were more convincingly portrayed, above all gravel-voiced Robert Hayward as the jovial, ever-optimistic Tomsky. Roderick Williams as the stuffed-shirt Prince Yelestsky who loses out to the romantically fascinating Herman provided the subtlest singing of the performance, in his aria of dignified heartbreak. However the evening's most spell-binding moment came from Diana Montague as the Countess, alone in her bedroom, recalling her young days in Paris when she learned the secret of the 'three cards'. On opening night, when the lights fell and the orchestral sound dropped to a whisper, you could feel everyone lean forward to catch the old witch's secrets. Sometimes the best moments at the opera are the quietest.
Korea Herald
07-05-2025
- General
- Korea Herald
Queen Camilla visits poppy memorial for Victory in Europe Day celebrations
LONDON (Reuters) — The Tower of London was adorned with a flood of ceramic poppies as part of Britain's commemorations for the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, in a display which was visited by Britain's Queen Camilla on Tuesday. Poppies, the symbol of remembrance in Britain, were installed in their thousands to form a bright red cascade flowing from one corner of the 950-year-old White Tower onto the grass below. "They become a metaphor for the spilled blood of all those who died in the war," designer Tom Piper said. The government has planned a series of events in the run-up to the anniversary of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender, which took effect on May 8, 1945. Camilla visited the display, "planted" a poppy and met staff there. On Monday, she joined her husband King Charles, heir to the throne Prince William and his family, along with veterans and crowds to watch a military parade and flypast outside Buckingham Palace. The new commemorative display of 30,000 ceramic poppies follows a previous installation in 2014 which remembered lives lost during World War One. Named "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red," it was visited by the late Queen Elizabeth. The Tower of London, located on the north bank of the River Thames, is a Norman fortress which, like many parts of London, was bombed during World War Two. The poppies, which were made by artist Paul Cummins, will be on display until Nov. 11.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Blood-red ceramic poppies 'flow across' Tower of London for VE Day
STORY: :: Thousands of ceramic poppies go on display at the Tower of London to mark Victory in Europe Day :: London, England :: May 6, 2025 :: Tom Piper, Designer "For me, the poppies have always acted like a liquid. It's like they're good. They become a metaphor for the spilled blood of all those who died in the war. And so what I've done is create a series of episodes that happen around the tower. So behind me here, you've got basically a like we're calling it a wound or an explosion. It's almost like a bomb has hit the ground and the kind of poppies are kind of blown out from it. And from that, then they kind of flow down across the landscape, join up with another installation that comes up the White Tower and then flow down into Traitor's Gate. So the whole thing is like a moving, flowing installation, almost like blood flowing across the tower." Poppies, the symbol of remembrance in Britain, were installed to form a bright red cascade flowing from one corner of the 950-year-old White Tower onto the grass below. The government has planned a series of events in the run-up to the anniversary of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender, which took effect on May 8, 1945. The new commemorative display of 30,000 ceramic poppies follows a previous installation in 2014 which remembered lives lost during World War One. Named "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red", it was visited by the late Queen Elizabeth. The Tower of London, located on the north bank of the River Thames, is a Norman fortress which, like many parts of London, was bombed during World War Two. The poppies, which were made by artist Paul Cummins, will be on display until November 11.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Queen Camilla visits poppy memorial for Victory in Europe Day celebrations
LONDON (Reuters) - The Tower of London was adorned with a flood of ceramic poppies as part of Britain's commemorations for the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, in a display which was visited by Britain's Queen Camilla on Tuesday. Poppies, the symbol of remembrance in Britain, were installed in their thousands to form a bright red cascade flowing from one corner of the 950-year-old White Tower onto the grass below. "They become a metaphor for the spilled blood of all those who died in the war," designer Tom Piper said. The government has planned a series of events in the run-up to the anniversary of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender, which took effect on May 8, 1945. Camilla visited the display, "planted" a poppy and met staff there. On Monday, she joined her husband King Charles, heir to the throne Prince William and his family, along with veterans and crowds to watch a military parade and flypast outside Buckingham Palace. The new commemorative display of 30,000 ceramic poppies follows a previous installation in 2014 which remembered lives lost during World War One. Named "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red", it was visited by the late Queen Elizabeth. The Tower of London, located on the north bank of the River Thames, is a Norman fortress which, like many parts of London, was bombed during World War Two. The poppies, which were made by artist Paul Cummins, will be on display until November 11. (Reporting by Christina Anagnostopoulos; editing by Sarah Young and Ewan Harwood)
