Smaller roles as.. Marullo (Jacob Phillips) are excellently filled in an evening that adds up to the most memorable of recent Rigolettos. The Telegraph - John Allison Opera Holland Park - Rigoletto 2023 Jacob Phillips makes a strong mark as Marullo.
But here, in the great OHP tradition, comes another interesting new talent: baritone Jacob Phillips in the small role of Marullo. He is still completing his studies, and sang in Carmen last year. Fingers crossed we will hear more of this fine voice from a strong stage presence.
Georgia Mae Ellis’s Cherubino was a boyish bumpkin, swapping his knitted tank top for army khakis. Ellis’s timing and tone were spot on – Cherubino’s offer to pretend that he hadn’t heard the Count’s prepositioning of Susanna was wonderfully droll – and she excelled in the moments of physical humour too, stumbling about in thick socks and red stilettos, or posing a menace with a rifle. ‘Non so più’ bubbled along, but ‘Voi che sapete’ was a knockout, as Cherubino found, momentarily but winningly, poise and maturity and emerged from adolescence into nascent adulthood.
'though for sheer vocal voluptuousness Georgia Mae Ellis's Mother Goose is hard to beat.'
When it comes to sex and death, timing is everything. The Royal Academy of Music is one of Europe’s leading conservatoires, with a renowned opera program for young singers whose stars are in the ascendant. This autumn they offered – across two casts – a double bill of Maurice Ravel’s mischievous farce “L’heure Espagnole” and Giacomo Puccini’s story of probate chicanery “Gianni Schicchi,” both directed by Stephen Barlow. As he notes in the program, what connects both pieces is that time is running out for the parties concerned: Concepción struggles to find a moment for an assignation; Buoso’s grasping family want to change his will before his fortune is given to a Friary.
