2018 / Mahogany Opera

Music: Laurence Osborn
Text: Theo Merz

A mother and a son, a son and a mother.
Things had to be this way and couldn’t be another.

Leon dreams of changing the world with his radical philosophy but the explosive, suffocating, mutually destructive relationship he has with his mother leaves little time for anything or anyone else.

The Mother is an adaptation of the absurdist play Matka by Polish writer Witkacy (Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz). Indebted to Eastern European theatre, it is a bitingly satirical and explosive response to the traditions of opera. Osborn plunges the audience into an anarchic, surrealist world through taut, intense music that draws on Weill, Birtwistle, and Romitelli, alongside mainstream pop influences.

The Mother: Lore Lixenberg
Leon: James Hall
Dorothea: Lindsay Bramley
Father: Geoffrey Dolton
Sophia: Rebecca Bottone
Academic and De Proud: Andrew Dickinson
Theatre Owner and Modesta: Daniel Norman

Staging: Frederic Wake-Walker
Lighting: Sylwester Łuczak
Conductor: Jamie Man
Repetiteur … Read More »

2016-17 / Mahogany Opera

Music, words and visuals Dominic Robertson

Rebecca Bottone, Charles Rice, Julien van Mellaerts, Bryan Benner, Katherine Tinker

Designer Kitty Callister
Video Ed Borgnis

Folkestone Fringe Profound Sound / High Tide Festival Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall / mac Birmingham / The Cube Bristol / Norwich Arts Centre / The Yard London / Sound Festival Aberdeen / Exeter Phoenix

2015 / Mahogany Opera Group

music Emily Hall
text Sjon

vocals Sofia Jernberg & Finnur Bjarnason
harp Ruth Wall/Helen Sharp
electro-magnetic harp John-Paul Gandy
lighting Dan Large
sound build and design David Sheppard & Jonathan Green

Borealis Festival & Bergen National Opera / Kulturhuset Stockholm / Aldeburgh Jubilee Hall / Winchester Discovery Centre / Spitalfields Festival / Thames Mayor of London Festival / London Jazz Festival / Rotterdam Operadagen / Sacrum Profanum Krakow / London Jazz Festival / The Curve Leicester / The Marlowe Canterbury / Mumford Theatre Cambridge

2014 / Mahogany Opera Group

by HK Gruber
conductor Geoffrey Paterson
designer Mamoru Iriguchi
lighting Cis O’Boyle

Gillian Keith, Jessica Walker, Andrew Dickinson, Charles Rice, Sion Goronwy

CHROMA orchestra

Hull Truck / Norfolk & Norwich Festival / Linbury Studio ROH / Buxton Festival / Bregenz Festival

more details here

2014 / Mahogany Opera Group

Three week research and development festival workshopping seven operas

Two short films here

2013 / Mahogany

Hermitage St Petersburg, Aldeburgh Festival, Buxton Festival, City of London Festival

by Britten
musical director Roger Vignoles
designer Kitty Callister

James Gilchrist, Rodney Earl Clarke, Lukas Jakobski, John McMunn, Samuel Evans

Aurora Orchestra

2012 / The Opera Group

by Birtwistle
musical director Paul Wingfield
designer Anna Jones

2011 / Glyndebourne

by Julian Philips
words by Simon Christmas
music director Geoffrey Paterson
designer Kitty Callister

Gabriela Istoc, Andrew Dickinson, Alexander Hargreaves

2010 / Glyndebourne

by Stravinsky
conductor Leo McFall
designer Kitty Callister
lighting Andy May

Andrew Dickinson, Charles Rice, Anthony Gregory, David Shaw, Charlotte Stephenson, Aoife O’Sullivan, Natalia Brzezinska, John-Owen Miley-Read

2009 & 2012 / Glyndebourne

by Julian Philips
words by Edward Kemp
conductor Leo McFall/Gareth Hancock
designer Kitty Callister

Michael Wallace, Elizabeth Llewellyn, Gabriela Istoc, Andrew Dickinson