The VIARDOT200 festival in Dorset is a celebration of the bicentenary of 19th Century composer (and glamorous singer!) Pauline Viardot. The weekend festival will feature Viardot’s Cendrillon (Cinderella) in which Kieran plays Cinderella’s father Baron Duphol, plus a concert of art songs written or inspired by Viardot.
At the end of the festival, Kieran will play Hero in the premiere of young composer Zygmund de Somogyi’s chamber opera hikikomori!, an exciting new work exploring love, loss and the boundaries between fantasy and reality.
Where: Oborne, Dorset
When: Cendrillon: 2 April
Art song concert: 3 April
hikikomori! : 4 April
Booking details and further information to be announced soon.
Conducted by Dominic Ellis-Peckham, Aldeburgh Voices, The Suffolk Ensemble and soloists perform selections from Bach’s three great Easter passions and Easter choral settings by composers from the 16th to 21st centuries: Victoria, Lotti, Bruckner, Copland and Taverner.
A story-led song recital with a twist: the audience chooses the direction of the narrative.
Baritone (and scriptwriter) Kieran Rayner, mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts Dean and pianist Bradley Wood present a vocal recital where the audience decides the direction of the narrative, influencing which songs are performed. Featuring potential song repertoire ranging from Schubert, Poulenc and Finzi to new works.
Composer Jasmine Morris’s multi-media chamber opera responding to George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm. Kieran Rayne will play Farmer Jones, a ruthless investor targeting profit by any means necessary.
This promenade piece invites you to follow your guides around the spaces of the Hoffmann Building to see scenes performed.
La rondine (The Swallow) is a moving tale of young love and heartbreak – and what else, you may ask, is opera about? Arguably Puccini’s most modern opera, La rondine was premiered in Monte Carlo in 1917, and includes one of Puccini’s most gorgeous creations, the quartet, ‘Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso’ (I drink to your beautiful smile).
Magda is our ‘rondine’ , the bird who flies towards the sun, and Ruggero is the shy country boy who eventually becomes her lover. We witness their relationship unfold in the colourful locales of Paris and the balmier climes of southern France. The love ‘quadrangle’ is made complete by Prunier, a centre-of-attention poet and Magda’s fiery maid, Lisette. Amidst waltzes, foxtrots, and soaring melodies, join us for an unmissable evening of sophistication and glamour in the enchanting surroundings of Grade 1 listed Belcombe Court.
Director Bruno Ravella, a former Iford Arts favourite, joins us fresh from extraordinary acclaim for his Rosenkavalier at Garsington in 2021, and If Opera’s Artistic Director Oliver Gooch conducts.
Rita, the somewhat tyrannical inn-owner and wife of Peppe is shocked by the return of her former husband Gasparo whom she had thought dead by drowning (he had run away to far-off lands). Gasparo is back to acquire Rita’s death certificate so he can remarry – because he, in turn, thought she had died. In the middle is poor Peppe who wants out, and perhaps Gasparo’s return provides the opportunity? The opera is a comedy of deceit and ill-manners (it was originally called The Beaten Husband which tells you something of Rita’s inclinations) but it glitters with Donizetti’s trademark vivacity, formed around eight core musical ‘numbers’ connected by spoken dialogue. The opera has, in the past few decades, become one of the most frequently performed of Donizetti’s short operas.
La rondine (The Swallow) is a moving tale of young love and heartbreak – and what else, you may ask, is opera about? Arguably Puccini’s most modern opera, La rondine was premiered in Monte Carlo in 1917, and includes one of Puccini’s most gorgeous creations, the quartet, ‘Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso’ (I drink to your beautiful smile).
Magda is our ‘rondine’ , the bird who flies towards the sun, and Ruggero is the shy country boy who eventually becomes her lover. We witness their relationship unfold in the colourful locales of Paris and the balmier climes of southern France. The love ‘quadrangle’ is made complete by Prunier, a centre-of-attention poet and Magda’s fiery maid, Lisette. Amidst waltzes, foxtrots, and soaring melodies, join us for an unmissable evening of sophistication and glamour in the enchanting surroundings of Grade 1 listed Belcombe Court.
Director Bruno Ravella, a former Iford Arts favourite, joins us fresh from extraordinary acclaim for his Rosenkavalier at Garsington in 2021, and If Opera’s Artistic Director Oliver Gooch conducts.
Rita, the somewhat tyrannical inn-owner and wife of Peppe is shocked by the return of her former husband Gasparo whom she had thought dead by drowning (he had run away to far-off lands). Gasparo is back to acquire Rita’s death certificate so he can remarry – because he, in turn, thought she had died. In the middle is poor Peppe who wants out, and perhaps Gasparo’s return provides the opportunity? The opera is a comedy of deceit and ill-manners (it was originally called The Beaten Husband which tells you something of Rita’s inclinations) but it glitters with Donizetti’s trademark vivacity, formed around eight core musical ‘numbers’ connected by spoken dialogue. The opera has, in the past few decades, become one of the most frequently performed of Donizetti’s short operas.
La rondine (The Swallow) is a moving tale of young love and heartbreak – and what else, you may ask, is opera about? Arguably Puccini’s most modern opera, La rondine was premiered in Monte Carlo in 1917, and includes one of Puccini’s most gorgeous creations, the quartet, ‘Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso’ (I drink to your beautiful smile).
Magda is our ‘rondine’ , the bird who flies towards the sun, and Ruggero is the shy country boy who eventually becomes her lover. We witness their relationship unfold in the colourful locales of Paris and the balmier climes of southern France. The love ‘quadrangle’ is made complete by Prunier, a centre-of-attention poet and Magda’s fiery maid, Lisette. Amidst waltzes, foxtrots, and soaring melodies, join us for an unmissable evening of sophistication and glamour in the enchanting surroundings of Grade 1 listed Belcombe Court.
Director Bruno Ravella, a former Iford Arts favourite, joins us fresh from extraordinary acclaim for his Rosenkavalier at Garsington in 2021, and If Opera’s Artistic Director Oliver Gooch conducts.
La rondine (The Swallow) is a moving tale of young love and heartbreak – and what else, you may ask, is opera about? Arguably Puccini’s most modern opera, La rondine was premiered in Monte Carlo in 1917, and includes one of Puccini’s most gorgeous creations, the quartet, ‘Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso’ (I drink to your beautiful smile).
Magda is our ‘rondine’ , the bird who flies towards the sun, and Ruggero is the shy country boy who eventually becomes her lover. We witness their relationship unfold in the colourful locales of Paris and the balmier climes of southern France. The love ‘quadrangle’ is made complete by Prunier, a centre-of-attention poet and Magda’s fiery maid, Lisette. Amidst waltzes, foxtrots, and soaring melodies, join us for an unmissable evening of sophistication and glamour in the enchanting surroundings of Grade 1 listed Belcombe Court.
Director Bruno Ravella, a former Iford Arts favourite, joins us fresh from extraordinary acclaim for his Rosenkavalier at Garsington in 2021, and If Opera’s Artistic Director Oliver Gooch conducts.