Ardente Opera
Welcome
The Ardente Opera Company is dedicated to the performance and production of smaller-scale operas with the top up-and-coming singers and orchestral players in London and Cambridge. Our aim is to provide top-quality, professional productions of rarely performed or neglected gems of the operatic repertoire.
Forthcoming Production
Ardente's forthcoming project is two semi-staged performances of Le Vin Herbé by the Swiss composer Frank Martin in St. George's, Bloomsbury on Friday 8th & Saturday 9th January 2010 at 7.30pm. The production will be directed by Rosalind Parker and conducted by Julian Black. This intense and dramatic chamber opera tells the legend of Tristan and Isolde and is arguably the composer's greatest work. Le Vin Herbé is scored for twelve singers accompanied by seven string players and piano, with the lead roles emerging from the chorus of singers to relate the tragic tale with a poignant and emotionally charged musical language typical of Martin's mature work.
Past Productions
In January 2009, Ardente performed its first production, two early one-act operas by Paul Hindemith, Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen, and the Expressionist tour de force, Sancta Susanna, in concert performance in Great St. Mary's Church, Cambridge (December 2008) and St James's Church, Piccadilly (January 2009). The programme also featured the composer's great masterpiece, the Symphonie Mathis der Maler.
The role of the Man in Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen was performed by Johnny Herford (Cambridge) and Jonathan Sells (London), with Mary-Ellen Lynall as the Woman. The eponymous role in the second opera, Sancta Susanna, was played by Susan Jane Young with Kate Symonds-Joy as her companion, Sister Klementia. The orchestral players and chorus members were drawn from the London Music Colleges and Cambridge University.
The performances were positively reviewed in the Spectator (Cambridge performances) and in Opera Magazine (London performances) by Michael Tanner. The latter review described the rendition of the Symphonie Mathis der Maler as a 'sturdy, even grand account', while Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen was 'realized with relish by all taking part'. In Sancta Susanna, '[t]he effect was, all told, electrifying', and there was 'excellent if uninhibited orchestral playing and inspiring leadership' throughout.
