Saffron Opera Group’s tenth anniversary Die Meistersinger at Saffron Corridor on 15 September 2024 – Seen and Heard Worldwide

SAFFRON OPERA GROUP PRESENTS DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG
INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED CAST PERFORMS WAGNER’S RIOTOUS COMEDY
SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2024, 2pm, at Saffron Corridor

‘Intense and shattering… Who would need to go to Bayreuth once they can go to Saffron Corridor?’ The Spectator

To rejoice ten years of extraordinary ambition and unparalleled success since its inaugural efficiency of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in 2014, the internationally acclaimed Saffron Opera Group proudly presents Wagner’s comedian masterpiece for the second time. Forged with beloved SOG favourites and thrilling newcomers making firm debuts, the manufacturing guarantees to be the corporate’s most memorable but.

The story takes place in sixteenth-century Nuremburg, amongst a gaggle of craftsmen who belong to a guild of beginner musicians: they’re generally known as ‘mastersingers’, and their chief is the cobbler Hans Sachs. One in all their quantity, the goldsmith Pogner, has promised his daughter Eva in marriage to the winner of their subsequent singing competitors. The pernickety and desiccated city clerk, Beckmesser, is broadly anticipated to win (a lot to Eva’s disgust), till a knight arrives within the metropolis who brings revolutionary new concepts about music and artwork. He falls in love with Eva, and with Sachs’s assist, he defeats Beckmesser and wins the townspeople over to his adventurous new type of singing. He and Eva are united in love and happiness.

Welsh bass-baritone Paul Carey Jones takes the pivotal and demanding position of Hans Sachs. A singer of huge charisma and energy, his Wagnerian performances at Longborough Pageant Opera have earned him stellar opinions. ‘A determine of giant authority, and splendidly imposing of voice’ stated The Telegraph of his efficiency of Wotan/Wanderer. ‘Nicely alongside the trail to turning into one of many towering Wotans of our time,’ acknowledged Gramophone Journal.

The roles of the principal lovers are taken by two rising stars who’re each making firm debuts. Praised for her crystalline voice by Opera Journal and for her ‘vigour, class and fervour’ by The Instances, Scottish soprano Eleanor Dennis sings the position of Eva. Performing the position of her lover Walther is Charne Rochford, who has already sung among the most demanding Heldentenor roles within the repertoire for corporations resembling Volksoper Zürich, the Royal Opera, and English Touring Opera. ‘Rochford has a beautiful voice, stuffed with ardour and verve’ (LeftLion).

Baritone William Dazeley sings the position of the pompous antagonist Beckmesser. He scored an infinite hit within the position of Faninal in SOG’s Rosenkavalier, and incessantly performs with all the UK’s opera corporations, in addition to with main worldwide homes. ‘One in all our greatest baritones,’ stated Gramophone Journal. Eva’s father Pogner is sung by the acclaimed Wagnerian bass Julian Shut. A favorite with Saffron Opera audiences, Shut has carried out the roles of Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen for Saffron Opera, and has obtained good notices for his performances at Washington Nationwide Opera and lots of European homes.

Taking the roles of the secondary lovers Magdalena and David are mezzo Georgia Mae Bishop and tenor Alex Aldren. Bishop was a pleasant Annina in SOG’s Der Rosenkavalier, and Aldren, who initially skilled as a physician makes his firm debut. With the outbreak of Covid in March 2020, Alex’s opera and live performance work was cancelled, and he went again to work as a physician in varied Accident & Emergency departments round London. Whereas working a shift, he sang ‘Nessun Dorma’ from Puccini’s Turandot for some colleagues, who caught it on digital camera and posted it on Twitter the place it went viral, receiving over 100 thousand views in just some hours.

The opposite mastersingers are performed by Simon Thorpe, William Stevens, Peter van Hulle, Pauls Putnins, Andrew Mayor, Charles Johnston, Jonathan Finney, Philip Clieve, and Lawrence Thackeray with Simon Grange because the Nightwatchman.  

The orchestra is performed by SOG’s chief conductor Michael Thorne (‘at one with the spirit… and dramatic structure of the work’, Seen and Heard), who has efficiently led all of SOG’s earlier performances, from the inaugural Meistersinger onwards, with verve and fervour.

The manufacturing will seem in a full of life live performance staging created by SOG’s casting director and star, inter alia, of the corporate’s Ring Cycle Elaine McKrill, whose sure-footed comedian route of Le nozze di Figaro created one of many firm’s most profitable productions to this point.

Saffron Opera Group was based by opera-loving Saffron Walden residents Paul Garland and Francis Lambert in 2013 and is now run by Lambert and Jeff Thomson. The opinions of its performances of the Ring cycle. Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Tannhäuser and in addition the three Mozart Da Ponte operas subsequent to its first manufacturing of Die Meistersinger in 2014, are testomony to its progressive emergence to develop into the vital and profitable opera group it’s to-day. ‘Over the previous ten years, the Saffron Opera Group has developed appreciable kind in live performance performances’ (Opera Journal)

Saffron Opera Group performs Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
2.00pm, Sunday 15 September 2024
Saffron Corridor, Audley Finish Street, Saffron Walden CB11 4UH
Field Workplace: 0845 548 7650

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