The Opera Group
The Shops
The Shops
July - October 2007
A new comic opera
Music Edward Rushton
Libretto Dagny Gioulami
Commissioned by The Opera Group and Bregenzer Festspiele
The Shops recording is now available to buy and you can get the CD, or MP3 download, at a special discounted rate from NMC’s website here.
“Edward Rushton’s latest opera: a breezy, fluent chamber work in 30 snappy scenes”
The Guardian
“John Fullljames’s expertly madcap direction suggests a helter-skelter slice of absurdism”
The Times
“Darren Abrahams as the driven Christoph and Anna Dennis as his grasping girlfriend are outstanding, and so too are Phyllis Cannan, Richard Burkhard, Louise Mott and Paul Reeves in a gallery of cameo roles”
The Guardian
“Gioulami’s snappy and very singable libretto is expertly delivered by a dexterous cast”
The Times
Everybody shops. Everybody deserves the intoxicating thrill of acquisition from time to time. Buy yourself something nice!
But what drives a privileged young man like Christoph to commit increasingly audacious crimes in order to feed his collection?
Part satire on rampant consumerism, part psychological thriller, The Shops is an irresistible entertainment featuring a dancing chorus of over-zealous shop assistants and a meeting of Shoppers Anonymous.
Edward Rushton and Dagny Gioulami are rapidly becoming one of Europe’s leading composer-writer partnerships. In 2004, they re-worked stories from The Odyssey for The Opera Group: Birds.Barks.Bones. won the Best Stagework Award at the British Composer Awards.
Performance Dates
22 July, 7.30pm
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
CBSO Centre
0121 767 4050
www.bcmg.org.uk
26 & 28 July, 8pm
Bregenz Festival, Austria
+44 5574 4076
www.bregenzerfestspiele.com
19, 21 & 22 September, 7.30pm
Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House
020 7304 4000
www.royalopera.org
23 September, 7.45pm
Cambridge Arts Theatre
01223 503333
www.cambridgeartstheatre.com
4 October, 7.30pm
Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
0161 907 5555
www.rncm.ac.uk
7 October, 7.30pm
Oxford Playhouse
01865 305305
www.oxfordplayhouse.com
Video Clips
The Making of the Shops
Video by Nathalie Marie-Curry.
Commissioned by The Royal Opera House.
(3 minutes, 15 seconds)
Conductor Patrick Bailey
Direction John Fulljames
Design Soutra Gilmour
Lighting Giuseppe Di Iorio
Movement George Lamb
Cast Darren Abrahams, Richard Burkhard, Phyllis Cannan, Anna Dennis, Louise Mott and Paul Reeves
Publicity photo by Chris Nash. Production photos by Alastair Muir and Anya Köhler
Supported by
Peter Moores Foundation, Columbia Foundation