Opera Holland Park is delighted to announce a series of online and in person panel events to complement the operas in the 2022 Season.
Working in collaboration with the Institut français du Royaume-Uni and the Italian Cultural Institute, we will be hosting speakers from across the worlds of opera, literature and the media to discuss Eugene Onegin, Carmen, the UK premiere of Mark Adamo’s Little Women, the double bill of Margot la Rouge and Le Villi, and our co-production of HMS Pinafore with Charles Court Opera.
General booking is now open
Opera and feminism: The trouble with Carmen
Fri 11 March
Institut français du Royaume-Uni
As part of IFRU’s Women Shaping the World Festival, cultural historian Claire Lozier, opera critic Erica Jeal and director Cecilia Stinton join Opera Holland Park’s Anna Picard to consider how Carmen can be viewed through a feminist lens, with music from mezzo-soprano Clare Presland and conductor and pianist Sonia Ben Santamaria.
Eugene Onegin: The letter and the gun
Tue 15 March
Bob Boas House
Historian Rosamund Bartlett, conductor Lada Valešová, director Julia Burbach and Anna Picard convene for an evening of Russian poetry, Tchaikovsky miniatures and a discussion of the classic drama of innocence and experience, Eugene Onegin.
Acts of Revenge: Introducing Margot la Rouge and Le Villi
Wed 20 April
Italian Cultural Institute
A whistlestop tour through Gothic horror, German folklore and the lawless backstreets of fin-de siècle Paris. Doctor James Savage-Hanford, Professor Mererid Puw Davies, director Martin Lloyd-Evans and Paul Guinery of The Delius Trust join Anna Picard to explore the contrasting styles and soundworlds of this year’s double bill of Delius and Puccini.
Little Women: Louisa May Alcott and the American opera
Tue 10 May
Online Event
Ahead of the UK premiere of Mark Adamo’s opera, Little Women, join us for a transatlantic conversation on American opera, classic novels of girlhood and the lasting impact of Louisa May Alcott’s story of the March sisters. Panellists include John Allison, editor of Opera magazine, Deborah Friedell, contributing editor at the London Review of Books, and director Ella Marchment.
Laughing at the English: satire and patriotism in HMS Pinafore
Tue 17 May
Online event
A survey of satire and patriotism from Gilbert and Sullivan’s toe-tapping naval comedy to contemporary sketch writing. Director and singer John Savournin, WS Gilbert biographer Andrew Crowther, BBC Radio Three’s Donald MacLeod and John Crace, parliamentary sketch writer for The Guardian, discuss matters naval, nostalgic, patriotic and satirical with Anna Picard.
