Owen Davies from Play to See attended our Pimlico performance of ‘A rose by another name: Juliet and Romeo’ and gave us a glowing review! Keep an eye out for dates in Oxford and Cambridge in the new year.
“The pandemic has had many dreadful effects but there have been some unexpected glimmers of light. Young performers – starved of opportunities to perform in traditional venues – have begun to devise innovative shows, performed in unusual spaces. This production by a new group, Marginalia, fuses extracts from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. It is an admirable attempt to re-imagine the famous love story and to create something new by bringing together words and music from different source material. (…) there are moments of real drama and of beautiful music. To offer a framework into which the two styles of story-telling can fit, ‘creator’ Chloë Allison has introduced a character called “Love”, played here by Rebecca Hare. Part Friar Lawrence and part baroque opera convention, this role uses Shakespeare’s words to frame the Bellini arias and sets the dramatic scene for the audience.
“…moments of real drama and of beautiful music…”
“…powerful mezzo voice and an arresting stage presence…”
(…) an ideal environment for the strength of the piece which is the voices of Chloë Allison and Anna-Luise Wagner, who both deliver Bellini’s music as if born to sing early nineteenth-century opera. Soprano Wagner boasts a delicacy of tone matched with real dramatic heft when needed. The cadenza at the end of a beautifully-sung ‘Oh! Quante volte’ was exquisite. Allison, a sulky yobbo Romeo with little time for “Love”, was equally convincing. With a powerful mezzo voice and an arresting stage presence, she gave Romeo the teenage swagger that the role cries out for. ‘Tu sola, o mia Giuletta’ was a standout passage, angry and heart-broken by turns. Pianist Luke Fitzgerald gave both the singers plenty of sensitive support.”
“…both deliver Bellini’s music as if born to sing early nineteenth-century opera…”