Music Theatre
The Mother
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 »
Mozart vs Machine
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
Folie a Deux
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
Gloria – A Pigtale
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
Various Stages
2014 / Mahogany Opera Group
Three week research and development festival workshopping seven operas
Two short films here
Church Parables
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
Bow Down
2012 / The Opera Group
by Birtwistle
musical director Paul Wingfield
designer Anna Jones
Followers
2011 / Glyndebourne
by Julian Philips
words by Simon Christmas
music director Geoffrey Paterson
designer Kitty Callister
Gabriela Istoc, Andrew Dickinson, Alexander Hargreaves
Renard Mavra
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
The Yellow Sofa
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