Two classics for you to enjoy - Carmen is coming to Upwood
Published Date:
11 September 2008
The music from Bizet's wonderful opera Carmen comes to the tiny village of Upwood this week.
Peterborough Opera are staging the opera, considered to be the composer's best, and the show will include excerpts from the production.
The show at Upwood takes place at the village hall on Friday (September 12) where a truly Spanish evening is being organised.
The magnificent opera with its passion, betrayal and murder, is set in Seville in 1830 and tells the tale of a beautiful gypsy named Carmen who seduces Don Jose and causes him to leave his former love Michaela.
He rejects his life as a soldier for Carmen, but she quickly becomes bored with him and turns her affections to the bullfighter Escamillo. Don Jose descends into madness and murders her.
The opera was not well received when it was first produced, and was declared to be immoral. Its first ever performance was greeted with stony silence from the crowd, and Bizet never lived to see its success.
For the modern audience it is considered a masterpiece and will become the next in a series of great operas staged at the Key Theatre in Peterborough.
The title role will be played by Liz Williams, best remembered for her performance of Mrs Lovett in the production of Sweeney Todd.
The part of Don Jose will be played by John Moorman who has made numerous solo performances including Macduff in Verdi's Macbeth. Martin Muir plays Escamillo and Micheala will be played by Jane Route.
>> The audience at tomorrow's show at Upwood will be treated to alight Spanish supper and there will be a licensed bar available.
Tickets at £8 are available from the box office on 01487 711455.
>> Performances at the Key Theatre in Peterborough will take place from Wednesday, October 29 to Saturday, November 1.
Tickets are £12. For more information call the box office on 01733 552439.
Powerful classic of Puritan quality arrives at the Priory
Witchcraft trials will be held in St Neots soon – but only on the stage.
This month sees the St Neots Players return to the Priory Centre with the powerful Arthur Miller classic The Crucible.
The Crucible is set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. It was the time of the notorious witch trials which saw 20 'witches' put to death and the imprisonment of hundreds more.
Arthur Miller cleverly weaves fact and fiction into this masterpiece, incorporating some of the actual characters involved in the Salem tragedy, to create a tale of lust, greed and bigotry alongside truth, honesty, decency and courage within the hysterical atmosphere of this claustrophobic society.
The play is a relevant today as it would have been at the time it was set. The witches may have disappeared but the witchhunting has not.
>> The play runs at the Priory Centre, St Neots from Thursday, September 25 until Saturday, September 27, at 7.30pm.
Tickets are available from the St Neots Players box office on 0870 803 3543 Mondays to Fridays between 10am and 5.30pm and Saturday and Sunday between 10am and 4pm. There is also a twenty-four hour online box office at www.stneotsplayers.co.uk
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Last Updated:
11 September 2008 12:21 PM
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Source:
n/a
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Location:
Huntingdon