This September, I will be taking on the role of Cathy in Lisa Logan’s Brontë The Opera. The opera is a Keynote Opera production, and performances will be on the 13th, 15th, and 16th of September at the Arcola Theatre, 24 Ashwin St, London, E8 3DL, as part of the Grimeborn Festival.
Lisa Logan explains:
Brontë the Opera is a compelling literary detective story about the turbulent lives of the Brontë sisters – based upon an acclaimed play by Polly Teale.
Polly Teale’s powerful play, which I adapted for this opera, evokes the real and imagined worlds of the Brontës as their fictional characters Jane Eyre, Rochester, Cathy, Nelly, and Heathcliff come to haunt their creators.
In 1845, Branwell Brontë returned home in disgrace, plagued by his addictions. As he descends into alcoholism and insanity, bringing chaos to the household, his sisters write…
Virginia Woolf argued that Emily Brontë and Jane Austen were the only writers in the pre-feminist era who refused to bow to social convention. Based on the sisters’ lives, Teale’s play is considered a significant feminist play of the early 21st Century. My intention for the chamber opera was to explore female intellectuality and lack of equality, femininity, domesticity, female ambition and discrimination, cleverly interwoven between the life and fiction of the Brontë sisters. This opera is about powerful and ultimately successful women struggling to be taken seriously in their time.
Bronte Cast
Charlotte – Elena Garrido Madrona
Anne – Grace Nyandoro
Emily – Anna Marmion
Patrick/Rochester/Heger – Martin Lamb
Branwell – Ben Thapa
Cathy – Charlotte Hoather
Bertha – Magdalena Mannion
Bell-Nicholls – Sandeep Gurrapadi
Bronte Creative Team
Conductor – Alex Ingram
Director – Katharina Kastening
Designer – Ashley Martin- Davies
Choreographer – Magdalena Mannion
Dramaturg – Nancy Meckler
Composer – Lisa Logan
Writer – Polly Teale
Orchestra – Docklands Sinfonia
Partners
Produced by Keynote Opera, with our partners Docklands Sinfonia and the Arcola
Theatre/Grimeborn Festival
Grimeborn Festival is an annual East London musical theatre and
opera festival which coincides with the world-famous East Sussex Glyndebourne Opera
Festival. Founded by Arcola Theatre’s artistic director Mehmet Ergen in 2007, the festival is
held at Arcola Theatre in Dalston, East London. It tends to showcase new and experimental
works alongside radical productions of classic opera.
For tickets click the link [TICKETS]
