New Chamber Opera is a professional opera company located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It specialises in the fields of chamber opera and music theatre, and produces rarely performed works from the Baroque era to the present. It is a member of the Opera and Music Theatre Forum. New Chamber Opera has received financial support from the Arts Council of Great Britain and The National Lottery.
History New Chamber Opera was founded in 1990 by Michael Burden and Gary Cooper. Burden serves as its director. The company has staged more than thirty productions, including Handel's Orlando, Serse and Amadigi di Gaula, Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Il Rè pastore."Music in Oxford ". Peter Schofield, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. Reviewed: 19 July 2012 The company has an associated Baroque orchestra, The Band of Instruments.
Appearances outside Oxford have included concerts and productions at the Tudeley and Southwark Festivals, several performances at London's South Bank Centre, and at the National Gallery. With its contemporary music ensemble Phoenix, it has performed several pieces of twentieth-century music theatre including Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King, Vessalii Icones, Notre Dames des Fleurs, and Miss Donnithorne's Maggot, and Harrison Birtwistle's Down by the Greenwood Side.
New Chamber Opera has frequently recovered and performed lesser known works, particularly those of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. To this end its members have prepared new editions and commissioned new translations. In 2008 and 2009, New Chamber Opera took part in a national fundraising campaign led by the Bodleian Library, Oxford, to prevent the only known manuscript of the English version of Francesco Cavalli's opera, Erismena, from being exported to the United States."The earliest opera in English saved for the nation: The Bodleian library acquires Erismena", Bodleian Library website, 16 January 2009. Retrieved 30 August 2016. New Chamber Opera subsequently staged the opera using a new edition by Michael Burden, and toured the production to the Opera at West Green House.
Its music director is Steven Devine.
Activities
The focus of the company's professional activities is the Summer Opera, an annual garden staging in the Warden's Garden at New College, and accompanied by The Band of Instruments. The garden, a natural theatrical space surrounded by stone walls with an 18th-century stone summer house, is located between Queen's Lane and All Souls College.
The Band of Instruments
The Band of Instruments, founded by Michael Burden and Gary Cooper in 1995, first performed with the Choir of New College, Oxford. The Band's leader is Caroline Balding. The Band occasionally performs as an independent ensemble, and always accompanies the Summer Opera.
The Band of Instruments have also recorded the cycle of the four seasons concertos by the Italian composer Giovanni Antonio Guido, Scherzi armonici sopra le quattro stagioni dell’anno (‘Harmonics above the four seasons of the year’). Guido, who was serving as maître de la musique for the Duke of Orléans, had been living and working in France from about 1703. KLassik.com commented that ‘Caroline Balding, Matthew Truscott and Sarah Moffatt play perfectly synchronized in timbre and expression’, while CD Classico Italy described it as ‘a fine and authentic execution by the violinist Caroline Balding’.
Recordings
New Chamber Opera's recordings have mostly appeared on the Gaudeamus label, with Academy Sound and Vision. These include music by Purcell from the Gresham Manuscript, and Music for Ceremonial Oxford. It has frequently recorded French Baroque music, recording stage music from Charpentier's output, and the only complete recording of Rameau's cantatas.
New Chamber Opera Studio
The company also operates the New Chamber Opera Studio, which stages two student productions annually and a recital series of twenty-four concerts in which they take part. Recent productions have included Orpheus in the Underworld, by Offenbach, in 2012"New Chamber Opera: Orpheus in the Underworld". BachTrac, By Wilf Jones, 6 February 2012 and La Calisto, by Francesco Cavalli, in 2014Helena Bickley, "Review: La Calisto". The Oxford Culture Review 8 February 2014.
In 2016, the company gave the world premiere of "Rothschild's Violin" by Marco Galvani in the antechapel of Oxford's New College."Review: ‘Rothschild’s Violin’". 27 February 2016 The Oxford Culture Review
The members of New Chamber Opera Studio also prepare or organise the live content of the university's visiting chairs of opera. The visiting professors have included Thomas Allen, Graham Vick, John Eliot Gardiner, Renée Fleming, Jane Glover, and Katie Mitchell.
New Chamber Opera also part-funds two Repetiteur Scholarships every three years to St Catherine's College, Oxford, or to a scholar from another college. The senior scholar serves as the Studio's director. The award has recently been held by:
Marcus McDevitt (current holder) Rudyard Cook (current holder) Alessandro MacKinnon-Botti Luke Mitchell James Andrews Toby Stanford Joseph Beesley Anhad Arora Chloe Rooke https://www.chloerooke.com/ Naomi Orrell Michael Pandya https://www.michaelpandya.com/ Edmund Whitehead https://www.edmundwhitehead.com/ Harry Sever https://www.harrysever.com/ Benjamin Holder http://benjaminholdermusic.com/ Jonathon Swinard https://www.jonathonswinard.com/ Alice Newton
Productions This list of productions follows the information in the company's website."Production History", New Chamber Opera website. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
New Chamber Opera Le Pescatrici (The Fisher Girls) Haydn, 2026 (forthcoming) The School of Jealousy (La scuola de' gelosi) Salieri, 2025 La vera costanza, Haydn, 2024 The Telephone, Menotti, 2023 Performed at the British Ambassador's Residence, the Villa Wolkonsky, Rome La Frascatana, Paisiello, 2023 (with a new translation by Simon Rees) A Coffin, a Confession, and a Cautionary Tale; three pieces of music theatre: Last Things by Alasdair Nicolson, The Organist's Confession by Luke Smith, and The Evils of Tobacco by Samuel Hogarth. Performed at the Tête à Tête Festival at the Cockpit Theatre, London, 2022 Le Astuzie Femminili, Cimarosa, 2022 (with a new translation by Simon Rees) La Diavolessa, Galuppi, 2021 (with a new translation by Simon Rees) The COVID Year The Apothecary, Haydn, 2019 (new version by Michael Burden and Luke Lewis and a new translation by Simon Rees). Performed at the British Ambassador's Residence, the Hôtel de Charost, Paris Il pastor fido, Handel, 2019 (with a new translation by Simon Rees) Il mondo della luna, Haydn, 2018 (new version by Michael Burden and Luke Lewis and a new translation by Simon Rees) Il barbiere di Siviglia, Paisiello, 2017 The Parisian Painter, Cimarosa, 2016 (new edition by Michael Burden and Luke Lewis and a new translation by Simon Rees) La Locandiera, Salieri, 2015 L'infedeltà delusa, Haydn, 2014 Tamerlano, Handel, 2013 Il re pastore, Mozart, 2012 Falstaff, Antonio Salieri, 2011 Erismena, Cavalli, 2010 (new edition by Michael Burden, and on tour to the Opera at West Green House , Baldassare Galuppi, 2009 (newly commissioned translation by Simon Rees and edition by Michael Burden) Don't Go Down the Elephant After Midnight, Andrew Gant, 2008 (World premiere, Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival at the Hammersmith Studios) Artaxerxes, Thomas Arne, 2008 Serse, Handel, 2007 (revival) La canterina, Haydn, 2006 Le comte Ory, Rossini, 2006 La finta semplice, Mozart, 2005 (newly commissioned translation by Simon Rees, and edition by Michael Burden) The Medium, Peter Maxwell Davies, 2005 (performed for Maxwell Davies's election as an Honorary Doctor of Music by the University of Oxford) Il Trespolo tutore, Alessandro Stradella, 2004 (newly commissioned translation by Simon Rees, and edition by Michael Burden) La finta giardiniera, Mozart, 2003 Dido and Aeneas, Purcell, 2002 (new production) The Bear, William Walton, 2002 (to mark the Walton Centenary) Amadigi, Handel, 2001 The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart, 2000 The Turn of the Screw, Britten, 1999 Serse, Handel, 1998Winton Dean, Handel's Operas 1726–1741 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2006), Appendix E 'Modern Stage Productions to the end of 2005', 15 July 1998. Così fan tutte, Mozart, 1997 The Secret Marriage, Domenico Cimarosa, 1996 (new production) Orlando, Handel, 1995 (revival) Dido and Aeneas, Purcell, 1995 (new production, and on tour to the Tudeley Festival) Orlando, Handel, 1994 Lo frate 'nnamorato, Pergolesi, 1993 The Secret Marriage, Domenico Cimarosa, 1991 Dido and Aeneas, Purcell, 1990
New Chamber Opera Studio
Recordings Purcell Anthems, music by Henry Purcell, 1995, CRD with the Choir of New College, Oxford The Music to Le mariage forcé and Les Fous divertissants, music by Marc-Antione Charpentier, 1996, ASV Songs and Music from the Gresham Autograph, music by Henry Purcell, 1999, ASV Rameau: Collected Cantatas, music by Jean-Philippe Rameau, 1999, ASV CDGAU632 (reviewed in the New York Times) Music from Ceremonial Oxford, music by Richard Goodson, Matthew Locke, Sampson Eastwick, John Blow, Henry Aldrich, 2001, ASV CDGAU222 "CD Review Music from Ceremonial Oxford". ClassicalNet. 2001, Gerald Fenech Andromède and Le ballet de Polieucte, music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, 2002, ASV CDGAU303"CD Review: Andromède Le ballet de Polieucte". Classical Music.net, Marc-Antoine Charpentier Vivaldi Cantatas: music by Antonio Vivaldi, 2004, ASV CDGAU339 Guido The Four Seasons: music by Giovanni Antonio Guido, 2013, Divine Art B00AQZU9XW
External links New Chamber Opera website
References