This is London October 2026 - Flipbook - Page 14
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THIS FRENCH JEWEL SHOULD BE
BETTER KNOWN
Do you think you don’t know any
music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier? In
fact, if you have ever watched the
Eurovision song contest you do: the
opening fanfare for that (and the signature
tune for all Eurovision broadcasts) is the
prelude to his Te Deum, a rondo.
New Sussex Opera returns to Cadogan
Hall on Tuesday 20 October (19.00) with
its new production of Marc-Antoine
Charpentier's David and Jonathan.
Following NSO's practice of championing
under-appreciated corners of the
repertoire, this dark jewel of the French
Baroque opera with its achingly beautiful
score will be staged in London and the
South of England for the first time,
performed in a new English translation by
Christopher Cowell. The opera was written
in 1688 for the Jesuit School in Paris.
NSO will collaborate for the second
time with the period-instrument Bellot
Ensemble, the New Generation Baroque
Ensemble for 2025-27, a scheme run
jointly by BBC Radio 3, the RCM and the
Massimo Modoni is Saul.
UkraInian mezzo Nadiia Chaichenko.
National Centre for Early Music. This
follows their celebrated production of
The Dragon of Wantley in 2024 (‘jawdroppingly stupendous’ – Christopher
Morley), conducted by Toby Purser.
A biblical tragedy set in a war-torn
world, it sees love and duty collide, with
David, Jonathan, and Saul caught in a
destructive web of desire, politics, and
paranoia. This English-language staging
reveals a profoundly moving portrait of
loyalty and sacrifice, building to a tragic
climax shaped by Charpentier’s richly
expressive music, which is both
sensuous and dancelike by turns.
A cast of promising singers with
burgeoning careers sees tenor Harun
Ellis Tekin and countertenor Tom Lilburn
take the title roles, with baritone
Massimo Modoni as Saul, bass Daniel
Chomiak as Achis and Samuel,
Ukrainian mezzo Nadiia Chaichenko as
the Witch and tenor Ambrose Chiu as
Joabel. The principals will be supported
by the New Sussex Opera Chorus, who
remain at the heart of the company's
work.
The production reunites the creative
team responsible for NSO’s acclaimed
staging of The Dragon of Wantley and
The Silver Bell in 2025 (‘Rather
sensational’ – Robert Thicknesse):
director Paul Higgins, designer Mollie
Cheek, choreographer Namiko GahierOgawa, Dramaturg Benjamin Poore.
The staging draws on the
iconography and art of Louis XIV's time
– when Charpentier created the opera –
as well as twentieth-century images of
conflict for a production that reflects on
the tragic, eternal recurrence of war and
suffering. Dance and movement, which
play an essential role in French Baroque
opera of this kind, are choreographed by
Namiko Gahier-Ogawa, who will also
appear onstage. As a celebration of the
ingenuity and spectacle of Baroque
stagecraft, the opera will be punctuated
by dramatic use of stage percussion.
The tour sees the launch of the Chalk
Cliff Trust NSO Emerging Artists
programme, and is supported by funding
from the Laidlaw Opera Trust and the
Behrens Foundation. Emerging Artists
will play the many smaller named roles
in David and Jonathan, and support the
singing of the chorus else-where in the
opera. This programme is a further step
for NSO in its longstanding aim of
supporting artists at the start of their
careers and of acting as a bridge
between the world of community-run
opera and the professional one.
The performance at Cadogan Hall is
preceded by a pre-concert talk from the
creative team with broadcaster Donald
Macleod. This new production continues
its tour to Eastbourne (23 October) and
Winchester (25 October).
www.newsussexopera.org
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