Upcoming Events
Opera Double Bill: Menotti’s 'Amelia al ballo' & Bernstein’s 'Trouble in Tahiti'
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Gian Carlo Menotti Amelia al ballo
Leonard Bernstein Trouble in Tahiti
Ashley Dean director
Dominic Wheeler conductor
Jake Wiltshire designer
Nic Farman lighting designer
Italian comedy meets American satire. Two marriages, two worlds - one unmissable evening.
Our Autumn Opera Double Bill pairs Gian Carlo Menotti’s sparkling comic opera Amelia al ballowith Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, a sharp, jazz-inflected portrait of suburban life and marital disconnection. At first glance, these two one-act works could not be more different. Look closer, and they are in an illuminating conversation.
Both operas are anchored by dynamic female protagonists - the scheming, irrepressible Amelia and the quietly desperate Dinah - whose desires are thwarted at every turn by the structures that are supposed to sustain them: marriage, domesticity, social expectation. Together, they offer a penetrating study of two Western cultures at a crossroads, in the 20th century, exploring the limitations and desires within a marriage.
Amelia al ballo (Amelia Goes to the Ball)
Rarely staged in the UK, Amelia al ballo is an opera buffa at its most wickedly enjoyable. Amelia navigates a suspicious husband, and a needy lover to attend the first grand ball of the season. Surprisingly, it premiered in an English translation in Philadelphia, before being staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. It wasn’t until 1938, two years after its first staging, that Italian audiences finally heard it in its original Italian libretto.
Trouble in Tahiti
Bernstein paints a portrait of suburban discontent. Dinah and Sam are a young couple who appear to have landed the American dream – an immaculate house, a child and marital comforts. Yet they are deeply unhappy. Sam throws himself into the gym and the office; Dinah retreats to the cinema and her analyst's couch. With its jazz-inflected score and sardonic Greek chorus, the opera asks whether the dream being sold to a generation of Americans - built on consumerism and societal conformity - can ever be enough.
Set in the 1950s, this new double-bill production is brought to vivid life by Guildhall's exceptional young artists under the direction of Ashley Dean.
Amelia al ballo will be performed in Italian with English subtitles.
Approximate running time: 1hour 55 minutes, including a 20-minute interval
Guildhall Symphony Orchestra & Chorus with Eivind Aadland
Join more than 200 Guildhall School musicians for their first concert of the academic year and experience music at its most joyous with works by Gustav Mahler, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and a new fanfare by Diego Jimenez.
Guildhall Symphony Orchestra & Chorus opens the season with a vibrant programme, conducted by Eivind Aadland. The programme will open with a new fanfare by Diego Jimenez, followed by Aaron Copland's iconic Fanfare for the Common Man and one of the 20th century’s most uplifting and beloved choral works, Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. The evening will finish with Gustav Mahler's radiant Symphony No 4, culminating in a luminous choral vision of heaven sung by a soprano soloist.
Eivind Aadland is one of Norway’s most respected conductors. He was Chief Conductor and Artistic Leader of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra for seven seasons from 2004, during which time he conducted the complete Beethoven and Mahler symphony cycles. In 2020, Aadland took up the position of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
This season opener showcases the scale, ambition and artistry of Guildhall's leading orchestral and choral performers.
Approximate running time: 1 hour 40 minutes (including interval)