Wild Arts, the Essex-based opera company, will return to Forde Abbey this summer with not one but two fantastic fully-staged opera productions. Conducted by Wild Arts Artistic director Orlando Jopling and performed by a cast of top professional singers with an orchestra drawn from the UK’s finest chamber musicians, these performances will be the perfect summer treat.
If you haven’t come across them before then Wild Arts is an opera company that has been making a big impact in the last few years, with a string of four and five star reviews for its fresh and innovative new opera productions from publications such as Opera Now and The Guardian.
But while the performances you see on stage may be high impact, the company prides itself on its low environmental impact focusing on telling stories through fabulous costumes, clever props and the talent and magnetism of the performers, so that instead of lorries full of equipment, they can fit the entire production into the boot of an electric car.
Brand new for this year, is a production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, directed by Dominic Dromgoole, who was formerly Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe. A stunning exploration of life, death, love, and pride in pre-revolutionary Russia, the opera will be performed in period costume with a dazzling new English translation.
On the bill alongside this is a revival of Wild Arts’ hit 2023 production of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love. With all the zip and joie de vivre of the original, director Guido Martin-Brandis has relocated this riotous tale of lovers and luck-chasing liars to a 1950s seaside, with a mischievous English translation.
And as has become tradition at Wild Arts performances, alongside the music you can enjoy picnics on Forde Abbey’s beautiful lawns before and in the interval of the performances.
Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin – Wednesday 2 July – Forde Abbey
Donizetti The Elixir of Love – Thursday 3 July – Forde Abbey
Full details and online booking at: wildarts.org.uk
