It’s always sensible to arrive early for a show by Birmingham Opera Company, simply to locate the venue. After a marquee for Fidelio three years ago and an abandoned car workshop for Candide in 2003, the company’s Monteverdi project, running since the beginning of last year, comes to a climax in a disused ice rink.
Claudio Monteverdi
Ulysses Comes Home
Andrew Clements [The Guardian, 2 May 05]
It's always sensible to arrive early for a show by Birmingham Opera Company, simply to locate the venue. After a marquee for Fidelio three years ago and an abandoned car workshop for Candide in 2003, the company's Monteverdi project, running since the beginning of last year, comes to a climax in a disused ice rink.
The effort is always worth it. Graham Vick's productions for the company he created are unique in British opera, not only a model of how to involve a local community in opera, but of how to work with a mixture of professional singers and amateurs (who, in this show, act but do not sing) without compromises. The theatrical results in this Ulysses are extraordinary, musical standards, with a period orchestra conducted by Robert Howarth, are exceptionally high and some of the solo performances are world class.
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Ulysses Comes Home
Robert Thicknesse at Planet Ice, Birmingham [Times Online, 2 May 05]
IT IS an opera company with a difference, working most of the time with community groups, but when Graham Vick's Birmingham Opera Company stages something big, it likes to confront the big issues. Using opera, you ask? Yes, indeed.