The Young Artists of the National Opera Studio (NOS) are set to perform The Fatal Gaze, a recital programme featuring opera extracts from the baroque period onwards, the London-based opera training school has announced.
The programme has been devised by Tim Albery and Nicholas Kok; it is directed by the former, while Kok wields the baton. The Young Artists will be supported by members of the Orchestra of Opera North for a special one-off performance at Salts Mill, Saltaire, before heading to London for a showing at Conway Hall.
From Monteverdi to modern musicals, the ‘fatal gaze’, fortunate or disastrous, is a common theme in opera: love at first sight for Cinderella; lecherous men ogling Susanna as she bathes; Jephte promising, in return for victory, to sacrifice the first person he sees; Orfeo looking back at Eurydice, as he leads her from the Underworld. Such tales and many more are told in this evening of opera scenes.
The National Opera Studio is a world leader in opera training. Based in London, it provides nine months of intensive training to singers and répétiteurs who have the potential to become the leading artists of their generation.
Stage Director Tim Albery has directed opera on many of the world’s great stages. He has a close relationship with Opera North, having directed a number of productions for the company. These include Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball, Verdi, 1859), Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt, Handel, 1724), Così fan tutte (Women are Like That, Mozart, 1790), Fidelio (Beethoven, 1805) and Madama Butterfly (Puccini, 1904).
Conductor Nicholas Kok studied at New College, Oxford, and the Royal College of Music. He has conducted numerous world and British premieres in concert and opera, by composers as diverse as Birtwistle, Holt, Krampe, Maxwell Davies, Reich, Turnage and Xenakis.
The two performances take place on 23 November at Salts Mill in Saltaire and 26 November at Conway Hall in London.
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The theme of the ‘fatal gaze’ remains a popular one in opera.