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Unsung heroes
We’ve got a very good review for Macbeth in Opera Today, but I do have to take issue with one thing: While I’m sure the opera wouldn’t happen without Keith Murray’s support, the true heart, soul and backbone of the community opera projects reside in the main in one person: key go-to person and community…
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Musical storytelling
Last night, before the performance Chris Rolls (director) reminded us that it is easy at a second performance to think, right I’ve done that now, and to slacken off a bit. Don’t let it get comfortable, he said. Good advice. We didn’t. However the advantage of having done a full performance with audience was that…
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Macbeth first night shakes the walls
I don’t know how I didn’t notice in rehearsal, but when we are waiting in the dressing room, we can not only hear the overture, we can feel it, the drums and brass rumble through the floor and the walls shake slightly. I can only assume that they’d been holding back a bit until now!…
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Reading at Brixton BookJam: Opera first night nerves
First night nerves not about the Book Jam, but about the Opera which starts tonight (there are a very few tickets left – you’ll be sorry you missed it!) I was a bit uneasy about yet another night out in a week of performances, but thought, what the hell, I’ll ask to go on early.…
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Spooky rehearsals
Chris Rolls (director) and Oliver Townsend (designer) have really gone for the supernatural and psychological in our production of Verdi’s Macbeth – lots of ghosts, spooks and blood. An Act III cameo role for 5 children as the Masters of the Earth warning Macbeth against MacDuff and setting im up with the Birnham Wood nonsense.…
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The Scottish Opera
Things are hotting up for the cast of Macbeth (Verdi), the latest production from Blackheath Halls Opera. We’ve met and heard all the principals, and we’re firmly off the book and managing to move and sing at the same time, though getting up from kneeling (to various kings – we get through a few) and…
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Celebrating Benjamin Britten
So, it’s still LGBT History month, and it’s also Benjamin Britten’s centenary so what better way to celebrate the magnificence of BB’s unapologetic gayness and talent than to sing in Noye’s Fludd? A. has had an ambition to sing some Britten for many the long year so we were thrilled when we heard that our…
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Blackheath Mini Prom – better late than never
As someone should probably have told me when I was a nipper, don’t promise what you can’t deliver. So here, very late, is my review of the Mini Prom at Blackheath Halls way back on the 5th October. In my defence I’ve been busy promoting Arachne Press, and I carried the programme around with me…
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Blackheath Cendrillon: A slipper and a ring
L.C. here. This is my last post on behalf of Cherry. She says I’ve behaved very irresponsibly and I am lucky not to have been had up in front of the Leveson Enquiry. Anyway, I’m feeling a bit crest-fallen because I didn’t find out who the mystery woman was first after all. But I was…
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Blackheath Cendrillon: A Post from the Court Poet, Grand Duchess Elizabette
‘CENDRILLON’ – A TRIBUTE The skies above were leaden, the clouds loomed dark and grey, but, at the Halls, the mood was light, all musical and gay. Forget the Jubilympics, forget the Torch Relay, ‘Cinderella, the Opera’ is the order of the day. Nick Jenkins was regaling us with tales of Gay Paree, La Belle…
Cherry Potts, Writer 