Waterperry’s much-beloved, extremely popular production of Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park is coming to St Marylebone Festival as part of a 10-date national tour over the summer. Reflections by composers Rachel DeVore Fogarty (Persuasion), John Morrison (The History of England), Daniel Nelson (Pride and Prejudice), and Aferdian Stephens (Sense and Sensibility) by librettists Marella Martin Koch (Sense and Sensibility) and Douglas Murray (Persuasion) and by composer/librettist Kirke Mechem (Pride and Prejudice) offer further insight into the adaptation process and into what makes Austen’s works rich terrain for creators of new opera. 8 July 2023, 17.00 - 19.15 An opera by Jonathan Dove Libretto by Alasdair Middleton After a novel by Jane Austen. I have assembled passages from etiquette and conduct manuals from the Regency period in order to assist current performers and directors in infusing greater believability into their performances through an understanding of the social nuances and distinct physicality that characterized the British gentry class of the early nineteenth century. Libretto by Alasdair Middleton, based on the novely by Jane Austen. I consider the mutable concept of fidelity both as it relates to historically informed staging, costuming, and deportment and to the transfer of an original work to a new medium. Mansfield Park Opera in 2 Acts By Jonathan Dove Click to Enlarge Instrument: Voice Format: Vocal Score Publisher: Edition Peters Be the first Write a Review Share: Mail Detailed Description Voice Opera in 2 Acts. And from the first sung words by the whole company, “Mansfield Park, Chapter One”, there is strong narrative drive, impeccable vocal writing and wonderful ensembles that sparkle with style and wit.įollowing the critical success of the first performances, the Royal Academy of Music in London presented it with their opera students for two performances in their 230-seat Sir Jack Lyons Theatre, proving the piece works well in small- to medium-size proscenium arch theatres, and that it is the perfect work for young artist schemes and music colleges.In this dissertation, I investigate the context and emergence of Jane Austen’s novels as operatic source material, with a particular focus on the transformation of her third novel for Jonathan Dove and Alasdair Middleton’s Mansfield Park opera.

With librettist Alasdair Middleton, he set about adapting the novel. When Heritage Opera, which tours opera in English stately homes, approached him for a commission, he thought this would be the perfect way of staging Mansfield Park – in a large drawing room, using 10 singers accompanied simply and strikingly with piano played in duet. With leading British opera librettist and playwright, Alasdair Middleton. How do you set a classic novel to music? Indeed how do you set that most popular of English novelists, Jane Austen, to music? When first reading Mansfield Park, Dove felt immediately that it was an opera. Jonathan Dove said that he heard music when he first read Mansfield Park.

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