Our next opera performance will be the comedy ALBERT HERRING by Benjamin Britten.
It's our first Britten opera, and we'll be singing, also for the first time, in The Old Library in the centre of Newbury. It's a newly converted performance space with a café/bar. The dates are Friday 5th, Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th March (matinée).
This three act chamber opera was composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, adapting the Maupassant short story Le rosier de Madame Husson and transplanting it to Loxford, a small Suffolk market town, in the early 1900s. It's one of Britten's rare comic operas.
It all begins when the Loxford great and good meet to select a Queen of the May. But none of the village maidens are virtuous enough to be chosen – so the decision is made to appoint a King of the May. The honour falls to Albert Herring, a youth of undeniable virtue who works in his mother's greengrocer's shop. What could possibly go wrong?
We're delighted that David Wordsworth will return as music director, and Lisa Harrington as stage director. Auditions have been held, rehearsals for principals are well advanced, and chorus rehearsals will start in September.
