Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart CAST: PRODUCTION: Idomeneo: Mark Wilde Musical Director: Nicholas Jenkins Idamante: Sam Furness Director: James Hurley Ilia: Rebecca Bottone Designer: Rachel Szmukler Electra: Kirstin Sharpin Lighting Designer: Ben Pickersgill Arbace: Will Davies Assistant Director: Laura Attridge Voice of Neptune: Pauls Putnins Assistant Musical Director: Jeremy Cooke Production Manager: Isolde Nash Blackheath Halls Opera Chorus Costume Supervisor: Laura Rushton Blackheath Halls Orchestra Costume Assistant: Evelien Coleman Pupils from Greenvale School Community Costume Assistant: Rita Craft Pupils from Charlton Park Academy Senior Stage Manager: Sasja Ekenberg Pupils from Year 5 at Beecroft Garden Deputy Stage Manager: Jean Hally Primary School Assistant Stage Managers: Matthew Carlisle Pupils from Year 5 at Mulgrave and Emily May Sions Primary School Community Stage Manager: Sarah Southerton Project Manager: Rose Ballantyne BLACKHEATH HALLS TEAM: Assistant Project Manager: Isabel Jeakins General Manager: Keith Murray Community Engagement Manager: Publicity and Programme Designer: Rose Ballantyne Colin Dunlop Operations Manager: Hannah Benton Technical Manager: Malcom Richards TRINITY LABAN PROJECT TEAM: Marketing and Box Office Co-ordinator: Project Manager: Heather Stephenson Elizabeth Green Project Leader: Development Officer:Fiona Sanderson Joe Townsend Bookkeeper: Debra Skeet Running Time: Administrator: Caroline Foulkes 2hrs and 50mins Communications Consultant: Clare Fisher Welcome to Blackheath Halls Opera’s production of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Welcome to Blackheath Halls! It is the ninth year of our Community Opera programme and I am thrilled This year’s community opera performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo, bring to a that it continues to grow and develop year on year offering people close another wide-ranging and lively season here at Blackheath Halls. We offer of all ages from the local community and neighbouring boroughs, audiences a chance to hear world class performers alongside up and coming including primary school children and students, a rare opportunity to talent in a programme of recitals, concerts and events. In addition to this we rehearse and perform in a full stage opera. We are very proud of what showcase many successful comedy and family events throughout the year; there we have achieved so far and are so grateful for the unstinting efforts and really is something for everyone! We have exciting plans for our 2015/16 season and beyond, working with a range of new and existing artistic partners. commitment of all who have been involved in any way. The Community Engagement team run a thriving programme of events which embraces musical Blackheath Halls Opera aims to be inclusive, creative, challenging and fun. It nurtures styles from Gospel to Broadway and Classical. Our aim is to engage people of all ages from the an interest in opera and offers wider opportunities in terms of learning about the diverse local community and beyond, in high quality music making and performance at this skills required to perform and sing and the importance of working as part of a cross- wonderful historic venue. I would like to thank Rose Ballantyne, our Community Engagement generational community. Each year we consciously try to extend the reach of our Manager, and indeed all of the Blackheath Halls’ staff, for their hard work and enthusiasm, and we all engagement with neighboring boroughs. This year we are joined by pupils from Beecroft look forward to celebrating the community opera programme’s 10th birthday in 2016. Garden, Lewisham and Mulgrave Primary School, Woolwich. It has been a delight to We could not put on a project of this scale without financial support. We are very grateful to Arts continue working with students from two special schools with whom we have a long- Council England for their very generous support for our year round “Opera for All” Programme. We standing relationship, Charlton Park Academy and Greenvale School. would also like to thank The Royal Borough of Greenwich, The London Borough of Lewisham, The Hearn Foundation, The Samuel Gardner Memorial Trust, The Ingles Charitable Trust and The Fischer Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance support our efforts too through their Fund for their support. We would also like to offer special thanks to the many individuals who talented vocal students who perform in the opera and Blackheath Halls Orchestra and donate to the opera, and a variety of other projects within the Halls. through this year’s special composition project led by Joe Townsend which offers another We enormously appreciate the fundraising efforts of The Friends of Blackheath Halls. They have opportuntity for students to creatively engage with the opera. generously supported the installation of fans in the Great Hall which will enhance the audience Blackheath Halls Opera started in 2007. Our first production was arguably one of the most experience. We have ambitious plans for the future development of the facilities at the Hall and as part of this we are collaborating with the Friends to refurbish and redecorate the Café Bar. popular operas of all time, Bizet’s Carmen. We have a small number of participants who have been part of Blackheath Halls Opera since the beginning so congratulations to those Thank you for coming to watch the remarkable achievements of all those involved in Idomeneo. We for returning year after year. hope you enjoy the performance and look forward to welcoming you back to Blackheath Halls soon. Next year, it will be our 10th Birthday! Plans are already being made so watch this space. Keith Murray General Manager We invite all of you to join us for the celebrations and, if you’ve been an enthusiastic member of the audience then why not consider joining the cast for what we hope will be another wonderful production from Blackheath Halls Opera. Thank you for coming to tonight’s performance. All at Blackheath Halls Opera, hope you have a wonderful evening enjoying this magical opera and this special production; the result of so many people’s hard work and dedication. Curtain up! Community Engagement Manager 2 IDOMENEO IDOMENEO 3 A selection of wonderful design and costume images from Idomeneo. This year’s production marks the ninth year of Mozartian myths – Blackheath Halls Opera! Idomeneo comes to Blackheath By Nicholas Jenkins 2015 marks the 9th Blackheath Halls Community Opera project, and we are delighted to be presenting a Mozart opera for the first time in this series.Idomeneo is based on a Greek myth that tells of two nations at war, and a father who has to sacrifice his own son to the god Poseidon. Idomeneo was apparently Mozart’s own favourite among his operas, and years after his death his widow Constanze said that he was never happier than when he was writing it. Of all the Mozart operas it is the one with the greatest involvement of the Chorus, a vital part of the Blackheath Halls operatic experience. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was an Austrian composer who is widely considered to be one of the greatest geniuses that ever walked this earth. Born in Salzburg, he was a child prodigy who learnt to play the harpsichord aged 3, and started composing aged 5. In the 36 years of his life he wrote more than 600 pieces of music, of which a good number are masterpieces that are regularly performed to this day. Towards the end of his life Mozart had a run of bad luck and was in debt. He became ill in late 1791, died 2 months before his 36th birthday, and was buried in a common grave outside Vienna. But Mozart is still with us 250 years after he lived because of great tunes we can never forget, and harmonies that surprise and touch the soul. Mozart could imitate any musical style he had heard, from popular songs of his day to the most spiritual masterpieces of Baroque composer J.S. Bach, yet in a voice that is always inimitably his own. In his operas he creates characters whose music is so striking and varied that listeners believe they are hearing the drama and emotions of the story in sound, in a way that goes beyond words. Mozart achieved celebrity during his own lifetime in a way that had not been possible for any composer before him. He gave concert tours as both composer and performer, where symphonies and concertos were heard. He composed to order for noble employers, wrote religious music for the Church, as well as chamber music and sonatas which were published largely for the benefit of bourgeois amateurs to play at home. In the late 18th Century most composers lived like servants and were dependant on a wealthy patron or the Church. J.S. Bach (1685-1750) was a Church organist and composer in Leipzig all his life, working a punishing schedule; the successful career of George Frederic Handel (1685-1759) had a lot to do with the support of the English Royal Family. Mozart had an important patron in Archbishop Collaredo of Salzburg (1732-1812) but annoyed the Archbishop with his frequent absences freelancing in Vienna and lost his job in Salzburg in May 1781 - incidentally just a few months after the first performance ofIdomeneo in Munich. Had Mozart lived slightly later, or been better at getting on with his employers, he might have had a more stable existence. Even the older composer Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) - who worked much of his career at the court of Count Esterházy in Eisenstadt, a remote part of Austria - outlived Mozart, and had some big freelance successes at the end of his life with big concert tours that yielded up the famous “Paris” and “London” Symphonies. If Mozart could come back from the dead and claim royalties on Blackheath Halls Opera can be followed on Twitter @OperaBH all of the music that has been performed and recorded since, he would be a billionaire.