Shakespeare at the Opera
The Salisbury Chamber Chorus's July concert will present excerpts from operatic adaptations of several of Shakespeare’s plays; Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor and more.
Ah, but Shakespeare’s plays are not known for their crowd scenes, nor Greek choruses, I hear you cry. Well, come and hear the three witches of Macbeth become an army of sopranos and mezzo-sopranos in Giuseppe Verdi’s take on the Scottish play. Or how Ophelia’s descent into madness is accompanied by the background noise of some Danish peasants celebrating the arrival of spring in Ambroise Thomas’ version of Hamlet.
The programme will even contain Shakespeare’s actual texts in amongst the French, Italian and German translations, in two pieces by Ralph Vaughan Williams. An extract from Sir John in Love, Vaughan Williams’ telling of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and his sublime Serenade to Music originally composed for sixteen soloists as a tribute to Sir Henry Wood.
These two concerts promise to be an emotional rollercoaster through comedy and tragedy on a scale gifted to the operatic stage by the story-telling of the great bard.
