Brilliant Bizet!

Tuesday 20 December 2011

The RCM’s year has ended on a high, with two of the UK’s leading opera critics giving great praise the RCM International Opera School’s Bizet Double Bill.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, John Allison (who also edits Opera magazine) gave the production four stars, commenting: “The RCM’s fine Bizet double-bill reminds us there was much more to the composer than Carmen.” You can read the entire review on the Telegraph website.

On the same day, Sunday Times critic Hugh Canning wrote that Le Docteur Miracle is “staged brilliantly here by [Alessandro] Talevi… helped by a cast of budding comic singer-actors who have taken to the style with élan under the tutelage of Talevi and the conductor, Michael Rosewell”. He added that Djamileh “offered an ideal contrast”, particularly praising “Emilie Renard’s gorgeously sung heroine”, before concluding: “This brace of Bizet operas is one of the most rewarding and sumptuous-looking student shows I have seen in years. A professional company should get Talevi and [designer, Madeleine] Boyd to remake it with some of these singers in the very near future.”