Talbot in 2018
25th January 2018
The Winter’s Tale at the Royal Opera House
Christopher Wheeldon’s highly praised ballet adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale with music by Joby Talbot returns to the Royal Opera House on February 13. Premiered by The Royal Ballet in 2014, and performed again in 2016, The Winter’s Tale built on the success of Wheeldon and Talbot’s earlier partnership on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Judith Mackrell, writing in The Guardian, said ‘The Winter's Tale is one of the most fully achieved story ballets to be created at the Royal Ballet in years’ and Katherine Colombus noted in The Stage that ‘Joby Talbot’s specially-commissioned new score is masterful.’
The story follows the destruction of a marriage through consuming jealousy, the abandonment of a child and a seemingly hopeless love. Yet, through remorse and regret – and after a statue of Hermione appears to come miraculously to life – the ending is one of forgiveness and reconciliation. With powerful designs by Bob Crowley and atmospheric music by Joby Talbot, The Winter’s Tale is a masterful modern narrative ballet.
Tom Seligman and Alondra de la Parra will share conducting duties over the course of the production’s run which will conclude on March 21.
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Everest in Hagen
Talbot’s first opera Everest will receive its European premiere this summer at Teatre Hagen on May 5. It will run until July 1, with seven performances conducted by Joseph Trafton. Gene Scheer’s libretto tells the story of one of the most tragic climbs in the history of Mount Everest whereby a single blizzard claimed eight lives. The Theatre Hagen production is overseen by Johannes Erath, with stage and costumes by Kaspar Glarner, lighting design by Achim Köster, and dramaturgy by Corinna Jarosch.
‘A stirring score on top of a masterful libretto...It is easy to image Everest as a lasting work’ - David Weuste, OperaPulse.com
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Vampyr premiere at LA Opera
Menace behind every shadow, a remote village filled with secrets: Vampyr one of the most unsettling vampire movies ever made. Talbot has created a compelling new score to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s surreal 1932 masterwork for LA Opera’s annual Halloween mash-up of opera and cinema. Performed live with chamber orchestra, singers and a co-ordinated screening of this cinematic gem, audiences have a rare opportunity to see this long-underestimated film given new musical life. Performances take place at the Theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles on October 27 & 31.
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Alice in Tokyo
‘O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' Joby Talbot’s ever-popular Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland receives its first performance by an Asian company, courtesy of The National Ballet of Japan, from 2-11 November. Nathan Brock conducts the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in eight performances at the New National Theatre.
Since its premiere in 2011 by the Royal Opera House, ‘Alice’ has looked more and more like a modern classic, having been performed by The Royal Ballet (2011, 2013-14, 2017); National Ballet of Canada (2011-13); the Swedish Royal Ballet (2017); the Royal Danish Ballet (2017); Munich’s Bayerisches Staatsballett (2017); and The Australian Ballet (2017). The work was also toured to Japan by The Royal Ballet in 2013 to great acclaim. Tokyo’s ‘Alice’ is a co-production with The Australian Ballet.
For those who have yet to encounter the work, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the first of two full-length ballets created by the hugely successful duo of Christopher Wheeldon and Joby Talbot. It follows closely the Victorian childhood of Lewis Carroll’s Alice and her encounters with extraordinary people, strange creatures and unusual events. ‘Alice’ was the first full-length ballet score written for The Royal Ballet for twenty years. With a scenario by Nicholas Wright (His Dark Materials, National Theatre), and designs by the internationally acclaimed Bob Crowley, it boasts a compelling creative team. Laura Thompson of the Daily Telegraph hailed it ‘a work…almost beyond praise’ and David Dougill in The Sunday Times rated it ‘an out-and-out success is Joby Talbot's wonderful score, vivid, eclectic, lyrical, dramatic, full of colour and apt to characters and incident.’
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Path of Miracles Tours the US
After hugely successful tours in the UK and Australia, Tenebrae embark on a US tour of Joby Talbot’s ‘evocative odyssey’ (The Times) Path of Miracles, in March. It's a unique and dramatic piece scored for seventeen voices, setting a text by Robert Dickinson, exploring stages of the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. This will be accompanied by Owain Park’s Footsteps which was commissioned as a companion piece in 2017; it gives local choirs the opportunity to perform alongside Tenebrae. The tour will take place 9 – 15 March. They will visit Pennsylvania, Missouri, Texas, Michigan, and New Jersey, on what will be their seventh tour to the States.
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