The Financial Times
5 stars

'It conjures a fascinating post-Britten sound-world (shades of the supernatural in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) that seduces the ear with lyrical shadows and silken strings, while carrying the pungency of timeless drama.'
The Sunday Telegraph
'Taken from a 1981 BBC tape, this is a fine example of ENO at one of its peaks, with the orchestra playing with passion and precision for Mark Elder and a cast of fine singers using Hugh Macdonald's excellent translation.'
BBC Music Magazine 'Bellini’s opera Il pirata may be rarely performed, but it was famously recorded in 1959 with a cast led by Maria Callas. Now soprano Carmen Giannattasio is stepping into her shoes'

Carmen Giannattasio
'... it’s so demanding – for both the soprano and tenor roles – it’s not so often performed now. It’s scary for everyone – my colleague tenor José Bros and I had a fantastic time but at the same time we’d look at each other after we’d sung particular sections thinking ‘We’ve done it!’
To mark the Finale of the Peter Moores Foundation and 50 years of Philanthropy

1964 - 2014
Peter Moores Foundation concludes 50 years of charitable activities with a Swansong Project taking place during its final year, 2013-2014, involving 8 of the UK opera companies with which the Foundation has been most closely associated.
Sir Peter Moores received the first award in the philanthropy/sponsorship category for '50 years' support of innovation and accessibility' and 'opening doors for people in opera', in the inaugural International Opera Awards held at the London Hilton on Monday, 22 April 2013.

The Opera Awards are new international awards, established by Opera magazine in partnership with Classic FM Radio and other sponsors. There were 21 categories, with entries from 41 countries, from which the shortlists were drawn up by an international jury.

The world premiere category was won by George Benjamin's Written on Skin; the Peter Moores Foundation funded the CD of the production which was recorded at Aix en Provence and then supported the UK premiere at the Royal Opera House, London as part of its Swansong project. Birmingham Opera's staging of Stockhausen's Mittwoch aus Licht, was also shortlisted for the world premiere category.
English National Opera's 2013-2014 Season, announced 1 May 2013, revealed details of the company's new production of Benvenuto Cellini which will be supported as part of the PMF's Swansong Project 2013-2015.

Berlioz' technically challenging and rarely performed opera, based loosely on the life of the Florentine sculptor of the title, will be conducted by ENO's Music Director, Edward Gardner and directed by Terry Gilliam, returning to ENO following his critically acclaimed production of Berlioz' The Damnation of Faust in 2011.

The cast includes Michael Spyres (Benvenuto Cellini), Corrine Winters (Teresa), Pavlo Hunka - a former PMF Scholar (Balcucci), ENO Harewood Artist Nicky Spence (Franceso), Paula Murrihy (Ascanio), Willard White (Pope Clement VII) and Richard Burkhard (Fieramosca).

Co-director and movement director: Leah Hausman, Set Designer: Rae Smith, Costume Designer: Katrina Lindsay, Lighting Designer: Paule Constable, Video Designer: Finn Ross

The production opens at the London Coliseum on 5 June 2014 (8 performances)
Verdi's Otello
Benjamin's Written on Skin
Donizetti's The Siege of Calais
Wagner's The Flying Dutchman

Photos: Amit Lennon Courtesy: Arts & Business
These medals celebrate those who support the arts in its widest forms and recognise the contribution they make to society and throughout the UK cultural landscape.

'Philanthropy is rarely more powerful than when it's led by a determined fan. By focusing on the area that he cares about, the difference that Sir Peter Moores has made to opera, and to visual art, has been incalculable. "Most people aren't as nutty as I am," he says. "Most people just want to give you the money and go away. I'm not like that." As a result, one can truly say that some great works only exist - or have been preserved - because he made it happen.'
Alison Taggart, who ran the Peter Moores Foundation with quiet authority for nearly 22 years, retired at Christmas 2012. Joining the PMF as Administrator in 1991, she oversaw the most fruitful years of the PMF's activities, becoming the Foundation's Director, ably supported, in recent years, by her deputy, Lesley Mills. Lesley succeeds Alison as Director of the Foundation until it is finally wound up in 2014.

Alison joined the PMF from Opera Northern Ireland (where she had worked with Patric Schmid, founder of Opera Rara) and brought a wealth of experience in arts administration to her role at the Foundation.
From providing firm guidance to young artists and embryo organisations about grant applications, to negotiating complex contracts with established organisations, Alison provided a fair, guiding hand, to all. During her time with the PMF, she saw the opening of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Gallery in Liverpool (1994), the development of the Opera in English recordings with Chandos Records (from 1995), the expansion of support for young singers' studies, support for ChildLine projects, the opening of Compton Verney art gallery (2004) and many other projects in the arts, educational and social fields. In all these areas, she provided a calm and sensible hub of advice - for which the Foundation, and all the enterprises it has supported - are truly grateful.

We wish her a happy, and active, retirement!
The exhibition comprises forty of the City of Glasgow's greatest Italian paintings - the finest and most comprehensive civic collection in the UK, and mostly unseen outside Glasgow. It includes landscapes, portraits and devotional works from the Renaissance by artists such as Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Titian, Salvator Rosa and Francesco Guardi.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a redisplay of works within Compton Verney's own Neapolitan Collection in the first Naples gallery.
This exhibition showcases new and innovative work by selected artists from eight counties in the central region which includes Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands.

Outside In presents work by artists who feel excluded from the art world for a variety of reasons which may include health, disability or social circumstance or because their work does not conform to what is normally considered as art. Selected by a panel of representatives from Pallant House Gallery (originators of Outside In), Compton Verney and experts in the arts world, the exhibition will feature up to 20 artists, some of whom have also worked with Compton Verney to themselves select a work from Compton Verney's important British Folk Art collection to show alongside their own.
Former PMF Scholar and finalist in Welsh Singer of the Year, Cecilia Smiga has sadly died at the age of 38 years.

Andrew Sritheran, covering for Siegmund in Die Walkure at the Metropolitan Opera was called on to replace an ailing Simon O'Neill.

The Classical Review

'That Sritheran performed so valiantly under such trying conditions (and before a global radio audience) speaks well of him. Tall, with an expressive face, he cuts a dashing figure on stage and moves with confidence... and his best singing came during the Todesverkündigung scene, when he addressed Brünnhilde in tones both awestruck and defiant.'


Birmingham Opera Company is one of the 8 UK opera companies taking part in the PMF's Swansong Project 2013-2014/15. Its community-based productions, developed and directed by Graham Vick, are extraordinary, exemplary, and without parallel in the UK. In August, 2012, the company gave the world premiere of Stockhausen's Mittwoch auch Licht - often (in the past) considered unstageable. Graham Vick galvanized his forces - a mix of professional artists and local communities - to prove otherwise. It was a unique experience, and an extraordinary achievement, as the following press comment indicates.

The Observer

'Birmingham Opera Company's production of Wednesday, the last instalment of Stockhausen's huge Light cycle (1997-2003) - an opera for every day of the week - was one of the most eagerly awaited events of the London 2012 festival. How would director Graham Vick handle this sprawling, enormously complicated score which demands not just the best musicians available but also large, flexible forces? Would it work, and would an audience stand six hours of it? And would Arts Council England regret spending a reported £920,000 on it?

Was it worth the expense? Undoubtedly. This repertoire pushes the musicians to their absolute limits; the score may appear random but it's extraordinarily controlled and tightly organised, with passages of exquisite tranquillity. The message is resolutely warm, heartfelt and loving, moving in and out of language, space and time. It's a major achievement.'


The Telegraph

'Mittwoch has never before been staged complete, and Birmingham Opera Company has pulled off a prestigious coup in getting there first. There is no conventional narrative or characterisation, and only the faintest thematic thread ("cosmic solidarity") to hold the pieces together. A bonkers sense of humour is pervasive, and a saving grace.'

Gramophone

'Bemused euphoria hung in the air of the Argyle Works at the end of Mittwoch aus Licht, which has finally received its first staged performances, 15 years after Stockhausen completed it in 1997. Four sold-out performances and at the end of each the audience wanted to stay, to capture a fleeting moment. Yes, there are camels and helicopters and musicians on trapezes, all the things that made the opera infamously unstageable, or just infamous. At least now we know it really is stageable, given money, time, intense skill and commitment, all of which were in abundance last week in Birmingham; that it isn't just another crazy dream bestowed by artists to vex future generations; that it belongs to the seven-part Licht cycle as an uplifting, sometimes transcendentally beautiful instalment of a work that will demand our engagement with it long after this premiere is a distant memory.
Handel's Julius Caesar from the Chandos Opera in English label was recommended as the CD of choice. Recorded in Abbey Road Studios, London in 1984, it followed a production at the English National Opera conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras with Dame Janet Baker and Valerie Masterton and a supporting cast of English singers.

BBC Music Magazine

'... this version still stands as one of the great Handelian events of our time. Not the least important reason is the late Brian Trowell's translation, a model of its kind, which avoids the awkwardness and the bizarre conventions that still rage in this, the least sophisticated branch of the operatic art... Everything seems to revolve around Janet Baker's glorious singing.'