An Evening at the Opera Sunday 8th March

Telephone
01444 800045

Join us for an evening of Opera and Musical Theatre followed by an operatic Italian Supper at the Centenary Hall

An Evening at the Opera

Tickets available from Box Office 9am-5pm Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday Tel: 01444 255115

In person from: Baldwins South Road Haywards Heath or Heart & Soul High Street Lindfield
BUY TICKETS ONLINE

Adult: £15.50
 Concessions: £13.00
 Supper: £24.50
Includes 50p booking fee
 This is a rare opportunity to hear Nicholas Ransley - Tenor, perform alongside high profile soloists and musicians Louise Armit - Mezzo Soprano, Gareth Hancock - Pianist, Jeni Bern - Soprano and Riccardo Simonetti - Baritone 
Riccardo Simonetti GarethNicholas Ransley Opera Eve November 2007
         Riccardo Simonetti   Gareth Hancock   Nicholas Ransley 
Jeni Bern  Louise Armit
 
                                     Jeni Bern          Louise Armit
 
Artists Biographies
GARETH HANCOCK - Pianist
 
Born in Worcester, Gareth graduated from Clare College, Cambridge with a BA(Hons) in Music and gained the Dip.RAM in piano accompaniment. He has subsequently worked as conductor, senior coach and repetiteur at Glyndebourne Festival and Touring Opera, The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, English National Opera, Opera North , Opera de Lyon and English Touring Opera.He has conducted Rigoletto, The Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, Rape of Lucretia, Don Giovanni, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Salome, Carmen, Tosca, Eugene Onegin,Cosi fan tutte, Wiener Blut, Misper and Apollo e Daphne.
 
 He conducted Madama Butterfly for Opera North ,Carmina Burana at the 2008 Cheltenham Festival and a Mozart programme with the Mozart Festival Orchestra, directing the Elvira Madagen piano concerto from the keyboard.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
 He recently conducted the debut album for Alfie Boe for Classic fm/Sony BMG and Puccini highlights for the Chandos/Peter Moores Foundation opera in English series. He also worked as Musical Advisor and vocal coach on a film of The Magic Flute, directed by Kenneth Branagh.
 
As an accompanist Gareth has appeared at all the major London venues and throughout Europe and the USA. In addition he has appeared at many festivals including Cheltenham, Harrogate and Barmouth. He has also broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Radio France and Classic fm, accompanying and working with singers such as Dame Kiri te Kanawa and Dame Felicity Lott.
 
In September 2008 he released a CD of works for ‘cello and piano with Suzanne Beer(principal cello,LPO) on the Divine Arts label.
 
Gareth was Head of Music for Savoy Opera, is Music Director for English Music Company and was recently appointed Musical Director of the London Welsh Chorale He is also on the coaching staff at the Royal Academy of Music and regularly coaches the Young Artists at The Royal Opera, Covent Garden.
 
LOUISE ARMIT – Mezzo Soprano
 
 Louise studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and made her operatic debut at Glyndebourne where roles include Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Olga (Eugene Onegin), Zweite Dame (Die Zaubeflote) and Tisbe (La Cenerentola). She has also sung with English National Opera, Scottish Opera,Wexford Festival Opera, Garsington Opera and at the Royal Opera House, with conductors including Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Simon Rattle and Vladimir Jurowski. Louise also performs regularly on the concert platform at venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Festival Hall. In 2006 she made her international debut singing Dorabella (Cosi fan Tutte) In Tokyo. Louise is currently a member of the Royal Opera House where she has sung several roles and a lunch time Crush Room Lieder recital.
 
RICCARDO SIMONETTI - Baritone
  
Born in Lancashire, Riccardo studied at the Royal Northern College of Music before beginning his career at English National Opera where his roles included Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Papageno (The Magic Flute) and Figaro (The Barber of Seville). He has also sung for the Royal Opera, Glyndebourne, Welsh National Opera, Opera de Nice, Netherlands Opera, La Monnaie, Brussels and at La Fenice, Venice. His repertoire further includes Marcello (La Boheme), Don Giovanni, Count (Le Nozze di Figaro), Sharpless (Madama Butterfly) and Pish-Tush (The Mikado).
 
Riccardo has performed in concert throughout the UK and has recorded for EMI. He regularly broadcasts for BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night.
 
His most recent engagements include Luke Pollock in the world premiere of David Sawer’s Skin Deep and Father (Hansel and Gretel ) for Opera North.
 
NICHOLAS RANSLEY - tenor

Born in Hertfordshire, Nicholas Ransley, the Star of the BBC’s Flashmob – the Opera in which he appeared as Mike, began his career as an actor, training at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in London. Vocal studies took him to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he sang the title role in Albert Herring and Vakula Cherevichki.

Since leaving the Guildhall, he has performed with companies including Central Festival Opera, Co Opera, Ireland, Cork Opera 2005, English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Longborough Festival Opera, Lyric Opera, Dublin, Mid Wales Opera, Opera Holland Park, Scottish Opera and Stowe Opera, in a repertoire including Don José Carmen, Nadir Les pêcheurs des Perles, Nemorino L’elisir d’amore for Lyric Opera, Dublin, Leicester Mary Stuart, Camille The Merry Widow, Ferrando Così fan tutte, Don Ottavio Don Giovanni, Rodolfo La Bohème, Pinkerton Madama Butterfly, Cavaradossi Tosca, Almaviva The Barber of Seville, Don Ramiro La cenerentola, Foresto Attila, Macduff Macbeth, The Duke of Mantua Rigoletto, Raffaele Stiffelio and Paris La belle Hélène for Diva Opera.

Concert work has taken him to many significant concert venues in the UK including The Barbican, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Festival Hall and Symphony Hall, Birmingham, and appearing with orchestras including the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oxford Philomusica, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Sussex Symphony Orchestra and BBC Concert Orchestra. He made his Italian début singing Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Orchestra da Camera del Lazio in Rome. He also appeared in An Evening with Katherine Jenkins for Haywards Heath Prom Night and Battleproms 2008 throughout UK. His broadcasts and recordings include Friday Night is Music Night, In Tune and Pitch Perfect (BBC), Neil Armstrong Man on the Moon for Tiger Aspect / Channel 4, Borsa Rigoletto for Channel 4 and Love Unspoken (London City Opera).

Current engagements include, Pluton Orphée aux Enfers and Rodolfo La bohème for Diva Opera, Gaston La traviata for Scottish Opera, Messiah at the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, and Rossini Stabat Mater at Arundel Cathedral.
 
JENI BERN - Soprano
 
Born in Glasgow, Jeni graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and from the opera course of the Royal College of Music.

On the concert platform, Jeni has sung the Teixera Te Deum with Harry Christophers and The Sixteen in Macao, Cupid King Arthur with Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort in the Bergen Festival, with Trevor Pinnock in the Stour Festival, with the Bach Choir and Sir David Willcocks, Haydn's Creation in Spain with Sir Neville Marriner, Messiah with Rudi Lutz in Switzerland, the Beethoven Missa Solemnis and the Bruckner Te Deum, a UK tour of Vivaldi by Candlelight, the UK première of Michael Torke’s Book of Proverbs with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and with countless choral societies throughout the UK.  Most recently, Carmina Burana for RSNO and The Creation with Nicholas Kraemer and the SCO.

She has also appeared on television as Ann Trulove in the series Of Beauty and Consolation with the Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vredenburg, Utrecht; for BBC1 Scotland.  She has broadcast for BBC Radio 3 & 4 and recorded for Naxos.  Her CD of Handel and Purcell with Crispian Steele Perkins for Carlton achieved widespread critical acclaim.  Recordings include: Haydn’s Stabat Mater with Christ Church Cathedral Choir and Edward Joseph Collins Hymn to the Earth with the RSNO.

Her stage roles have included Paquette Candide for the Théâtre du Châtelet and her début at La Scala in the same role, Zdenka Arabella at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Susanna The Marriage of Figaro, Gretel Hansel and Gretel (in concert) and La Princesse L’Enfant et les Sortilèges for Opera North, Mabel The Pirates of Penzance, Yum-Yum The Mikado, Sophie Rosenkavalier and Amor Orpheo and Eurydice at ENO, Musetta La Bohème and Oscar Un Ballo in Maschera for Opera Zuid, The Guardian of the Threshold Die Frau ohne Schatten, Heavenly Voice Palestrina, Barbarina Le Nozze di Figaro and Blumenmädchen Parsifal for the Royal Opera House; for ENO; Amor Orphée et Eurydice for WNO; Jano Jenufa for GFO; Susanna The Marriage of Figaro for English Touring Opera; Christa The Makropoulos Case for Scottish Opera Go Round; the title role Deidamia and Sigismondo Arminio for the London Handel Festival, Atalanta Serse for the Early Opera Company, Elissa Tolomeo with Nicholas Kraemer; Narcissa Philemon und Baucis (Haydn) with Trevor Pinnock, Dalinda Ariodante in the Covent Garden Festival; Adina L’Elisir d’Amore in Cambridge.

Recent engagements: Medea Teseo for ETO, Tytania A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Opera North, Messiah with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Vivaldi’s Dixit Dominus and Teutile Motezuma in de Doelen, Rotterdam.

Current season/future plans: Trixie Let ‘em eat cake (Gershwin) for Opera North, Eurydice Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera Holland Park, Medea Teseo and title role Alcina for English Touring Opera.