Alice Farnham makes her Guildhall School debut conducting Haydn’s rarely performed opera, La Fedeltá Premiata

Monday 4, Wednesday 6, Friday 8, Monday 11 November
Silk Street Theatre, 7pm

Music by Joseph Haydn
Libretto by Gianbattista Lorenzi

Sung in Italian

Alice Farnham conductor
Stephen Barlow director
Adrian Linford designer
David Howe lighting designer

4 November & 8 November

Eline Vandenheede (Amaranta); Lara Muller (Nerina); Ema Nikolovska (Celia); Robert Lewis (Fileno); Damian Arnold (Lindoro); Matthew Palmer (Perruchetto); Adam Maxey (Melibeo); Sian Dicker (Diana)

6 & 11 November

Sian Dicker (Amaranta); Harriet Burns (Nerina); Elsa Roux (Celia); Robert Lewis (Fileno); Damian Arnold (Lindoro); Andrew Hamilton (Perruchetto); Adam Maxey (Melibeo); Eline Vandenheede (Diana)

Chorus: Mariana Fernandes; Stephanie Foster; Anna Gregg; Calista Lim; George Curnow; Archie Buchanan; Nikita Bazil; Katie MacDonald; Rebecca Milford; Joseph Chalmers; George Reynolds; Dylan Rooney

The award-winning Opera department at Guildhall School presents Haydn’s rarely performed La Fedeltá Premiata ‘Fidelity Rewarded’, a work exploring the sacrifices made in the name of love. Opening on Monday 4 November for four performances the production, in three acts, is conducted by Alice Farnham, who makes her debut conducting with Guildhall’s Opera department, and is directed by Stephen Barlow.

The opera is set on the annual day when two faithful lovers must be sacrificed to a sea monster to appease Diana, the goddess of chastity and hunting. The townspeople of Cumae offer their gifts hoping to placate her. La Fedeltá Premiata premiered in 1781 to celebrate the re-opening of the Esterháza opera house after a fire. The music effortlessly narrates the work spanning opera seria and buffa based on a pastoral tale of love, sacrifice and a sea monster.

Stephen Barlow was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and has staged productions for many of the world’s leading opera companies including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, The Metropolitan Opera, New York, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Glyndebourne Festival and Opéra de Monte Carlo. 

His recent work as a Director includes Roméo et Juliette (Estonian National Opera), a new production of The Phantom of the Opera (Folketeateret, Oslo), The Barber of Seville (Grange Festival), Flight (Scottish Opera), Così Fan Tutte (Central City Opera, Colorado), Madama Butterfly (Danish National Opera) and Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi (Hong Kong). Also Rigoletto (Lyric Opera Chicago & Bucharest National Opera), Tosca (Santa Fe Opera), La Rondine (Metropolitan Opera, New York and Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse), Carmen (Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Les Deux Enfants), a unique coupling of two French operas: Debussy’s L’enfant prodique and Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges (Brisbane Conservatorium, Australia).

Barlow has had a longstanding relationship with London’s Opera Holland Park where he has staged La Bohème, Flight, Tosca, Hänsel und Gretel, Don Giovanni, Don Pasquale, La Fanciulla del West, Cavalleria Rusticana & I Pagliacci, and the European premiere of Fantastic Mr Fox. Barlow will be returning to Opera Holland Park for the 2021 season. Other opera productions include La Cour de Célimène (Wexford Festival), Madama Butterfly (Mid-Wales Opera), La bohème (British Youth Opera), La Traviata (Singapore Lyric Opera), Dovetales (Glyndebourne Jerwood Studio), Alfonso und Estrella (University College Opera), Die Zauberflöte (Royal Academy of Music, London) and Trial by Jury (Covent Garden Festival).

Previous Guildhall School productions include: Dialogues des Carmélites, L’enfant Prodigue, Francesca di Foix, La Navarraise, Portrait de Manon, Comedy on the Bridge and Le Donne Curiose. Future productions this season include the Greek premiere performances of his new production of The Phantom of the Opera, The Barber of Seville (Santa Fe), La Cenerentola (Grange Festival), Mansfield Park (RNCM) and Béatrice and Bénédict (Australia).

Alice Farnham’s recent highlights include the Royal Opera House (The Fireworkmaker’s Daughter), Mariinsky Theatre (The Rape of Lucretia), Folkoperan Stockholm (Turandot, Satyagraha, and Carmen) Teatru Manoel Malta (Dido & Aeneas), Grange Park Opera (Falstaff), Singapore Lyric Opera (Die Zauberflöte), English Touring Opera (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (The Gondoliers).

Farnham was Music Director of Welsh National Youth Opera for the award-winning productions: Britten’s Paul Bunyan and Maxwell-Davies’ Kommilitonen!. Farnham has recently conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra, Malmö Opera Orchestra, Wermlands Opera, Dalasinfonietta, Gävle Synfoni, Nordiska Kammarorkester and Malta Philharmonic. 

Farnham has been a Guest Conductor with many major ballet companies including the Royal Ballet Covent Garden, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Danish Royal Ballet, and English National Ballet. Upcoming engagements include Calgary Opera (Norma), Longborough Opera Festival (L’elisir D’amore) Grange Festival Opera (The Monster in the Maze), and National Youth Orchestra of Scotland. Farnham is Co-founder and Artistic Director of the ground-breaking Women Conductors at the Royal Philharmonic Society and the award-winning National Concert Hall Female Conductor Programme in Dublin.  She has also taught in the US, Australia and Sweden. 

She was in the Top 40 BBC Woman’s Hour Music Power List 2018. She trained for three years with the legendary conducting pedagogue Ilya Musin at the St. Petersburg State Conservatoire and is a graduate of Oxford University where she held an Organ Scholarship at St. Hugh’s College. 

Tickets: £25 (£15 concessions), available from the Barbican Box Office.