Description
Since its inception in 1994 Opera della Luna has established itself as a highly original ensemble of extremely versatile singers and comedians. Led by artistic director Jeff Clarke, it takes its name from Haydn’s operatic setting of Goldoni’s farce Il Mondo della Luna. The company’s policy is to create new and innovative productions of musical theatre, comic opera and operetta, in English, and to tour them to mid-scale venues all over the UK. The company has won considerable acclaim for its highly entertaining and inventive performing style.
The company undertakes two major tours each year and regularly visits over a hundred venues countrywide. Occasionally the company tours overseas.
An unforeseen development of the company’s work began when a small “fun” production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance – as performed by an enthusiastic vicar and his parishioners – and entitled The Parson’s Pirates achieved something approaching cult status. Three other G&S productions have followed – The Ghosts of Ruddigore, The Mikado, and HMS Pinafore all adapted for a cast of 7 or 8 and no chorus. All have achieved great success and have toured extensively.
The re-interpretation of old war horses into ensemble chamber pieces has become a hall-mark of the company and we were the first company to perform The Merry Widow in this way – with the Lehar family’s blessing. A critic for the Liverpool Daily Post reported that “of the seven productions of The Merry Widow I have seen this was the most sylish, and I include one at the Vienna State Opera.”
In 2003 the Iford Opera Festival commissioned a new production of Offenbach’s La Belle Helene. The production later toured the country for two seasons, and thus began a revived interest in the works of Offenbach. New productions of Robinson Crusoe and The Tales of Hoffmann have followed, and the company has become a firm favourite at Iford. The work of the company has been praised by Offenbach scholars and press alike. The Offenbach Society in reporting a performance of La Belle Helene wrote: “I came away from the theatre feeling that I had really experienced for the first time what Offenbach was doing.”
Opera della Luna is a registered charity, No 1044260.
Over the years the Company have received donations from the Foundation for Sports and the Arts, The Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Trust, The Leche Trust, The Idlewild Trust and the Concordia Foundation. However the principal support for the company’s work is provided by our Friends organisation: the Lunatics.
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