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Sent to us by a fan! May 2023
Red Earth Opera
For the last few years some friends & I have had the pleasure of listening to excerpts from operas by the very best of eighteenth & nineteenth century composers and performed by enthusiastic members of Red Earth Opera (REO). - all this without leaving our hometown of Chudleigh.
Our local parish church provides a superb concert hall, where the audience is surrounded by period architecture as the music soars up to the rafters & we watch the light through Norman windows change colour from dimpsy to dark: from duck-egg blue to deep navy. How fortunate we are to enjoy all this right on our doorstep.
Red Earth Opera was founded ten years ago by its Musical Director, Jane Anderson-Brown. She is also the highly respected MD of, Duchy Opera & two community choirs. (They are performing, Cavalleria Rusticana and Trial by Jury in June at Truro and Falmouth.)
You would expect Jane to be an accomplished musician, and indeed she plays & teaches the flute, saxophone, clarinet & piano, but added to her undoubted musicality is a desire to bring opera to a wider audience. She has an ability to project this vision , not only to the performers under her baton, but also to the audience. Jane is helped in this by her husband, Steve Brown. He introduces each item with a witty, précis of the story & a lead into the piece we are about to hear. This is a great aid to those of us meeting a particular opera for the first time.
Recent full works include: Rossini’s “Cinderella”, Donizetti’s “The Love Potion” and Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito”, as well as popular pieces by, Verdi, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Gounod, Puccini & others.
In their aim of making opera accessible to all, Red Earth Opera (REO) offer programmes featuring young professional/semi-professional soloists with choruses drawn from local, keen amateur singers. Added to this, and adding authenticity to the performances, they are accompanied by a live orchestra. In their mission to bring opera to as wide an audience as possible, performances are in English and performed in local venues, with charges kept low at only £10 -£12.
REO’s last two concerts have featured delightful arias & choruses from superb soloists: soprano Anna Gregory, alto Carolyn Harries, & my favourite, baritone, Alex Poulton who gave us exciting & theatrical performances of Donizetti’s, Dr. Dulcamara in The Love Potion, & a thrilling, Toreador Song from Bizet’s, Carmen.
As a celebration of King Charles’ Coronation, REO brought us a programme under the title, Kings & Crowns, with Anna Gregory & Ceri Davies as soloists. It is possible that we shall have the pleasure of hearing them again in the autumn in a semi-staged version of Smetana’s, The Bartered Bride. Something to look forward to.
I do hope more people with an interest in good, live music will come along & experience these special performances, brought to us to enjoy in our own small community.
A Chudleigh fan of REO.
Red Earth Opera
For the last few years some friends & I have had the pleasure of listening to excerpts from operas by the very best of eighteenth & nineteenth century composers and performed by enthusiastic members of Red Earth Opera (REO). - all this without leaving our hometown of Chudleigh.
Our local parish church provides a superb concert hall, where the audience is surrounded by period architecture as the music soars up to the rafters & we watch the light through Norman windows change colour from dimpsy to dark: from duck-egg blue to deep navy. How fortunate we are to enjoy all this right on our doorstep.
Red Earth Opera was founded ten years ago by its Musical Director, Jane Anderson-Brown. She is also the highly respected MD of, Duchy Opera & two community choirs. (They are performing, Cavalleria Rusticana and Trial by Jury in June at Truro and Falmouth.)
You would expect Jane to be an accomplished musician, and indeed she plays & teaches the flute, saxophone, clarinet & piano, but added to her undoubted musicality is a desire to bring opera to a wider audience. She has an ability to project this vision , not only to the performers under her baton, but also to the audience. Jane is helped in this by her husband, Steve Brown. He introduces each item with a witty, précis of the story & a lead into the piece we are about to hear. This is a great aid to those of us meeting a particular opera for the first time.
Recent full works include: Rossini’s “Cinderella”, Donizetti’s “The Love Potion” and Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito”, as well as popular pieces by, Verdi, Bizet, Tchaikovsky, Gounod, Puccini & others.
In their aim of making opera accessible to all, Red Earth Opera (REO) offer programmes featuring young professional/semi-professional soloists with choruses drawn from local, keen amateur singers. Added to this, and adding authenticity to the performances, they are accompanied by a live orchestra. In their mission to bring opera to as wide an audience as possible, performances are in English and performed in local venues, with charges kept low at only £10 -£12.
REO’s last two concerts have featured delightful arias & choruses from superb soloists: soprano Anna Gregory, alto Carolyn Harries, & my favourite, baritone, Alex Poulton who gave us exciting & theatrical performances of Donizetti’s, Dr. Dulcamara in The Love Potion, & a thrilling, Toreador Song from Bizet’s, Carmen.
As a celebration of King Charles’ Coronation, REO brought us a programme under the title, Kings & Crowns, with Anna Gregory & Ceri Davies as soloists. It is possible that we shall have the pleasure of hearing them again in the autumn in a semi-staged version of Smetana’s, The Bartered Bride. Something to look forward to.
I do hope more people with an interest in good, live music will come along & experience these special performances, brought to us to enjoy in our own small community.
A Chudleigh fan of REO.
We are always looking for sponsors or ways of fundraising for Red Earth Opera. Although we only pay expenses to our soloists for our productions, and we also have venue costs to pay, music to source, and those train fares add up very quickly. If you are interested in sponsoring a performer, or donating even a small amount, please get in touch. We have signed up to the Torbay Good Causes Lottery and to Easy Fundraising, so please follow the links below if you would like to help using either of those options.
Torbay have announced their very own lottery, and we have been approved as a good cause to benefit from this. You do not have to be a resident of Torbay to sign up for the lottery, and if you nominate us as your good cause, then we receive 50% of your stake. The top prize is up to £25,000. Please visit www.TorbayLottery.co.uk and search for RedEarth.
Opera in Devon, for Devon: Community, not Corporate
About
Red Earth Opera was formed in 2013, to perform at the Teignmouth Classical Music Festival in March 2014.
The idea came from a meeting of performers looking for opportunities to sing and play opera in Devon and to involve local musicians.
We started from a base of nothing - no funds, just enthusiasm and determination. The performance of Dido and Aeneas was a great success and we were immediately invited back for 2015. We gave two performances of Mozart's Idomeneo in March 2015, and we continue to develop. Our third opera was Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris at the 2016 Teignmouth Classical Music Festival in Teignmouth and in Chudleigh. We also gave a very successful supper concert at St Michaels Church, Teignmouth on 17th October 2015. Since then, we have presented several more concerts - this time with orchestral accompaniment, a "come and perform" weekend of Cavalleria Rusticana, and more opera performances - Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, Rossini's Cinderella, and Donizetti's "the Love Potion" (all in English translations by Amanda Holden). Since November 2019, we have only offered concerts as a result of the pandemic, but hope to be able to perform a complete opera at the end of 2023.
Our singers and players are drawn from Devon, Somerset and Cornwall (and beyond) and range in age from under 18 up to past retirement. We also offer places in the orchestra and chorus to talented young musicians from Torbay and south Devon.
Our aim is to present affordable opera which is complementary to that offered by the large touring companies or the corporate opera pops, and which is approachable and enjoyable for those who are not already keen on opera. We also want to give performers opportunities at all levels. It is our policy to present our full length operas in English.
Red Earth Opera was formed in 2013, to perform at the Teignmouth Classical Music Festival in March 2014.
The idea came from a meeting of performers looking for opportunities to sing and play opera in Devon and to involve local musicians.
We started from a base of nothing - no funds, just enthusiasm and determination. The performance of Dido and Aeneas was a great success and we were immediately invited back for 2015. We gave two performances of Mozart's Idomeneo in March 2015, and we continue to develop. Our third opera was Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris at the 2016 Teignmouth Classical Music Festival in Teignmouth and in Chudleigh. We also gave a very successful supper concert at St Michaels Church, Teignmouth on 17th October 2015. Since then, we have presented several more concerts - this time with orchestral accompaniment, a "come and perform" weekend of Cavalleria Rusticana, and more opera performances - Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, Rossini's Cinderella, and Donizetti's "the Love Potion" (all in English translations by Amanda Holden). Since November 2019, we have only offered concerts as a result of the pandemic, but hope to be able to perform a complete opera at the end of 2023.
Our singers and players are drawn from Devon, Somerset and Cornwall (and beyond) and range in age from under 18 up to past retirement. We also offer places in the orchestra and chorus to talented young musicians from Torbay and south Devon.
Our aim is to present affordable opera which is complementary to that offered by the large touring companies or the corporate opera pops, and which is approachable and enjoyable for those who are not already keen on opera. We also want to give performers opportunities at all levels. It is our policy to present our full length operas in English.
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Many thanks to David Henshaw for the photograph of Paignton Pier, showing the red sands of the beach here.
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