Review Classical music: Macbeth | Bloomsbury Theatre | Ernest Bloch | UCO

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The Review - CLASSICAL & JAZZ - with TONY KIELY
Published: 19 March 2009

UCO’s students screw their courage to the sticking-place

PREVIEW - MACBETH
BLOOMSBURY THEATRE

FIFTY years after the death of Ernest Bloch, University College Opera (UCO) is presenting the long-overdue British premiere of his only opera, Macbeth.
UCO, Britain’s leading semi-professional opera company, has performed 17 British premieres over the 57 years of its existence – most recently its well-received production of Lalo’s Fiesque (pictured).
For Macbeth, the company have teamed up with professional singers George von Bergen, Katherine Rohrer, Ryland Davies, Richard Rowe and Carl Gombricht.
Bloch’s Macbeth is widely regarded by as one of the great operatic settings of Shakespeare’s play. The music has incredible power, finesse and polish for the work of a man in his 20s.
Premiered in 1910 by the Opera Comique in Paris and banned in Italy in 1938 under a fascist government, Macbeth has not had the recognition it merits and comes into the category of those pieces well thought of but not performed. Though there was a concert performance at the Festival Hall in 1975, UCO’s production, astonishingly, will be Macbeth’s first staging in this country.

• Macbeth is at UCL Bloomsbury Theatre, Gordon Street, WC1 on March 23, 25, 27 and 28. £22 (15 concession, UCL students £8). 020 7388 8822.

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