Sammy Lacey - Summer Opera: Beginnings New & Early Opera

Cold. Chad Kelly | Dir. John Ramster | Des. Louis Carver | LX Des. Jake Wiltshire | Mvmnt Dir. Victoria Newlen

Beginnings: New & Early Opera was the final main stage opera of the year at Guildhall in the Silk Street Theatre. I was part of the stage crew team of 10 moving set pieces in each scene change between the 5 operas. This was the first production since COVID first hit to have a limited public audience and was our first production role in first year on the Stage Management pathway at Guildhall. We had been involved from the fit up stage 3 weeks prior to opening night and then all the way through to the strike at the end of the run.

Guildhall Opera department presents a feast of five contrasting short operatic works – three new chamber operas and two early pieces from the Baroque era – broadcast online for free.

First broadcast online by Guildhall in condensed virtual form during the 2020 lockdown, three new works receive their fully staged, orchestral premiere The Apothecary; I’m Cleaning, I’m Cleaning and Eintänzer. These imaginative chamber operas – taking audiences from 18th-century Paris to 1980s Soviet Russia via a Weimar-era nightclub – are written by composers and librettists on Guildhall School’s innovative MA in Opera Making & Writing programme, delivered in association with the Royal Opera House.

This swift-moving quintuple bill also offers the chance to enjoy two rarely performed, short 17th-century works by two of the greatest Baroque composers. Charpentier’s cantata Orphée descendant aux enfers for three male voices is presented alongside the first staged performance of Judicium Salomonis – a secular oratorio by Carissimi.

Photo By Mihaela Bodlovic