Opera singers set for grand show

12:16pm Tuesday 5th August 2008

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FIVE Stourbridge singers will be living their operatic dreams when they take to the stage with the Birmingham Opera Company.

The passionate performers make up the 100-strong cast of Mozart’s Idomeneo, which opens next week on Tuesday August 12.

After almost losing its Arts Council funding last year - the renowned company is back with a vengeance, returning to the format that made it famous...presenting quirky and intelligent opera productions in unique and unusual settings.

This time a former rubber factory, Birmingham’s Sherborne Building, provides the backdrop to the all-singing all-dancing show.

And Stourbridge singers Susan and John Franklin, Christiane Moran, Tim Robbins and Sylvia Cooper can’t wait to take to the stage.

It will be husband and wife team Susan and John Franklin’s fourth outing with the company.

Both ex-members of grand opera singing group Midland Music Makers, Susan - a chemistry teacher at King Edward VI College in Stourbridge - and John, a semi-retired health and safety consultant, love singing together and say they are delighted to be appearing in the singing chorus line of Mozart’s first major opera - under the artistic direction of Graham Vick.

Susan said: “Graham puts everything he has into every rehearsal for these operas, it’s fantastic to have the opportunity to work with him.”

Partners Christiane Moran and Tim Robbins are also excited to be making up the singing chorus line in the show, which features a modern score translated from classical Greek into 21st century English by top opera translator and librettist Amanda Holden.

Christiane, who works for Birmingham City Council, started out with the opera company in its production of Ulices Comes Home and has not looked back.

She says she loves working so closely with the audience, adding: “It makes people enchanted and is utterly engaging for all involved.”

In fact, she is so dedicated to her love of singing that she hopes to set up an organisation offering recitals at homes for the elderly.

Her partner Tim works for an organisation that supplies tableware to restaurants, the NHS and airlines by day - but indulges his long-held passion for the arts by singing with the opera company by night as well as acting as backing vocalist in ‘Black Country and western’ band Highway Dave and the Varmints.

Sylvia Cooper, a member of numerous choirs as well as Birmingham Opera Company’s singing chorus, is also looking forward to the opening of the show, conducted by world-class conductor William Lacey - with set and costumes designed by Stuart Nunn.

She said: “It’s a big commitment with lots of rehearsals - but its very, very rewarding and nothing beats the feeling of opening night.”

Internationally renowned Tenor Paul Nilon will be taking on the title role in the powerful drama about love, desperation and sacrifice; with Mark Wilde as Idomeneo’s son Idamante - who is caught between the love of his life, Anna Dennis’s Princess Illya, the unrequited feelings of Donna Bateman’s Princess Elettra and a power struggle between his father - and Neptune, God of the Sea.

Idomeneo runs at the Sherborne Building, Icknield Square, on Ladywood Middleway, on August 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 and 23.

Tickets are available from the Birmingham Reportory Theatre box office on 0121 236 4455, priced £17.50 (concessions £10).