Organization

Stage director

Michael McCaffery

Chorus master

Philip Sunderland

Set designer

Bettina John

Costume designer

Singer

Tenor

Daniel Kringer

Albert Herring

Soprano

Erin Rossington

Lady Billows

Rosalind Dobson

Miss Wordsworth

Jack Roberts

Mr Upfold

Mezzo-soprano

Frances Gregory

Nancy

Baritone

Thomas Chenhall

Clonter Opera

Congleton

United Kingdom

Clonter Opera Theatre

Public

Approved

Albert Herring Britten

Clonter Opera 2022

Albert Herring - Composer Benjamin Britten & Librettist Eric Crozier

Cast
Lady Billows (Erin Rossington), Florence Pike (Flora Birkbeck), Miss Wordsworth (Rosalind Dobson), Mr Gedge (Jordan Harding), Mr Upfold (Jack Roberts), Superintendent Budd (Thomas Stevenson), Sid (Thomas Chenhall), Albert Herring (Daniel Kringer), Nancy (Frances Gregory), Mrs Herring (Lydia Shariff), Emmie (Eirwen Roberts), Cis (Myome Mortimer-Davies), Harry (Samuel Horton)

Musical Director & Conductor - Philip Sunderland, Assistant Music Director - Robin Humphreys, Director - Michael McCaffery, Set and Costume Designer - Bettina John, Lighting Designer - Steven Benson, Wardrobe Supervisor & Costume Maker - Evelien Van Camp, Set Builder - Oliver Rock, Scenic Artist - Isabel Rock

Clonter Sinfonia
Violin 1 - Liz Rossi, Violin 2 - Laura Concar, Viola - Josephine Wells, Cello - James Heathcote, Bass - Aaron Berrera-Reyes, Flute - Jennifer George, Oboe - Bethan Roberts, Clarinet - Sarah Masters, Bassoon - Rosie Burton, Horn - Matthew Crossley, Timpani - Andrea Vogler, Harp - Richard Allen

For the Production

Assistant Music Director - Robin Humphreys, Assistant Costume Maker & Breakdown Artist - Nina Schmidl, Assistant Costume Maker Linda Savini

Stage Manager - Melody Wright, Deputy Stage Manager - Izzy Thurston, Assistant Stage Manager - Olivia Stone, Assistant Stage Manager - Olivia Middleweek.

Filmed by Steven Benson

Albert Herring - Showreel

Britten’s operatic comedy, written in 1947 with witty English libretto by Eric Crozier was freely adapted from a short story of stifling village life and rebellion “Le rosier de Madame Husson” by Guy de Maupassant.

Director Michael McCaffery and conductor Philip Sunderland will join forces with set and costume designer Bettina John and lighting designer Steven Benson to create a new production of Benjamin Britten’s hilarious portrait of English village life, which celebrates the best of British opera and offers the best possible showcase for rising stars.

Set in a fictitious Suffolk village of Loxley, Albert Herring is an obedient son who, in the lack of any virtuous female candidates for May Queen, gets crowned May King instead, and after drinking rum-laced lemonade escapes for a night of revelry and rebellion. The May coronation selection committee – the local Superintendent, the Mayor, the teacher and vicar – all terrorised by the autocratic local grandee Lady Billows. The teasing and flirtations of courting couple Nancy and butcher’s boy Sid fuel Albert’s determination to break free.

The World premiere of Albert Herring was mounted by the English Opera Group at Glyndebourne on 20 June 1947, conducted by Benjamin Britten with the idea to establish a permanent ensemble dedicated to creating and developing English opera.

Britten was in his thirties when he set this classic coming of age story to music on his return from America in 1946. Humour highlights the prejudice, intolerance and conformities of class within small-town England in the 1940s and its suffocation of young people needing to break free and find themselves. Director Giles Havergal (Opera North) said of the piece, “We associate the breaking out of youth with the 50s and Look Back in Anger, but it was already in the air. People like Britten knew what was going to happen.”

Brittens’ score for Albert Herring is said to contain some of his most moving, honest and staggeringly inventive music. Peter Hall described the moment near the end of the piece when everyone briefly believes Albert has died to be “one of the most shatteringly emotional bits of music in all opera”. The brilliant threnody is a parody of a great operatic outpouring of grief. Britten’s real genius is his seamless melody, the lyricism of the score and the wit of the music, which is genuinely funny in itself.

English

Albert Herring by Britten, Fra (2022/2022), Instrueret af Michael McCaffery,, Clonter Opera Theatre, Congleton, United Kingdom

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