Listen to clip |
 |
Please click links |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Please click links The story behind the music |
The Finnish Prisoner
In July 2007, The Paddock presented the world premiere of The Finnish Prisoner, a new opera by Orlando Gough and Stephen Plaice, written specifically for the community of the Lewes District, and concerning an episode in local history in which Finnish prisoners of war were kept in Lewes during the Crimean War and formed strong bonds with the people of the town. Seven performances took place in a disused warehouse in an industrial estate in Lewes and involved a cast of 80 singers (5 British principals, 8 Finnish principals, 28 adult community chorus, and 39 children), as well as four instrumentalists. Apart from the Finnish singers, all of the professional artists, the creative team, and amateurs were drawn from the Lewes District. Each performance was sold to absolute capacity, with queues for returns at every show, and it attracted a widespread, highly enthusiastic audience base, with coverage in national newspapers, and was attended by visiting dignitaries from Finland, as well as representatives from many of our funding bodies. The opera was produced in partnership with Finnish National Opera and Finnish Chamber Opera, with additional aid from the Finnish Embassy in London and the Sibelius Academy. The Paddock also received funding towards this project from the RVW Trust, the D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust, The PRS Foundation, East Sussex County Council and Lewes Town Council. Plans are now afoot for further performances in Finland, both in Helsinki and Hameenlinna, in 2009.
2004
Physical Music
Summer 2004
Exploring A Staging of 3 Cantatas by G.F.Handel Sonnerie, Yolande Snaith and Susannah Waters
The background In June 2004, the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Arts Council England, South East, awarded a grant to The Paddock allowing the Company to begin developing a way in which musicians, singers and dancers can work together, sharing skills and knowledge and joining their distinctive talents to perform alongside each other as equal interpreters on stage, rather than with the musicians in the pit or off to one side. With the support of this grant, we were able to mount an R&D period involving the musicians, dancers and singers in design, text and dance work from which they are usually excluded, thus creating a much more unified sort of performance.
Physical Music, the staging of three Italian cantatas by G.F. Handel, has grown out of this development period, resulting in a unique, interdisciplinary musical performance with a strong visual as well as aural impact. Amidst cubes of light, on which the musicians can move and are moved to form different ensembles that flow with the instrumentation of each aria, the instruments themselves sometimes help to create the picture of the narrative, while the dancers and singers embody the characters within this narrative. Instrumental solos and da capo lines are illustrated by a physical relationship between instrumentalist and the vocal or dance performer, so that the form of the music informs and sometimes leads the staging. This production would be enjoyable for both traditional and more open-minded audiences, hopefully introducing those who are regular attendees at one sort of event to a new art-form they might not have experienced in this way before.
Back to the top
2003
The One I Love
A co-production with New Kent Opera
What do you do when your government believes
in a war – and you don’t?
This music theatre piece created by the Paddock’s Artistic Director, Susannah Waters, is about the moral decisions made by conscientious objectors, and was originally commissioned by New Kent Opera, and premiered as part of their 2nd annual Festival at the Theatre Royal Margate. Built around a script constructed entirely of conscientious objector diaries, letters and trial documents, the evening has at its core a performance of four of Benjamin Britten’s Canticles –himself a conscientious objector during WW2 – illuminated by projections of over two hundred photographic images of war, including many of the famous Blitz photographs taken by Magnum co-founder George Rodgers. The premier performance involved the singers James Gilchrist, Andrew Watts, and Matthew Hargreaves, as well as the actors Joanne Howarth and Darren Tunstall. It is available for touring and one-off performances in music festivals.
Back to the top
2003
The Regina Monologues
UK Tour
First commissioned by the Covent Garden Festival in 2001, this music theatre piece about Elizabeth I in the last years of her life, was co-created by the Paddock's Artistic Director Susannah Waters and the viol consort Concordia (www.violconsort.com), under the musical direction of Mark Levy, and was toured to music and literary festivals around the UK, including the Brighton Festival, Lichfield Festival, King’s Lynn Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Queen’s Festival in Belfast, and the Hall for Cornwall in Truro. In a series of nine monologues, partnered with haunting music of the period, the ageing Elizabeth ruminates upon the mixed blessings of power and the impossibilities of love for a woman in her position. Eccentric, coquettish, restless with intellectual vitality, this indefatigable version of the queen has been played by the actresses Penelope Keith, Susannah York, Felicity Palmer, and most recently, Janet Suzman. Designed by Shakespeare's Globe Associate Designer Jenny Tiramani, it has also featured the counter-tenors Robin Blaze and William Purefoy.
This piece is currently pencilled to be performed again in 2008, at the Middle Temple Hall in London, as part of the 2008 Temple Festival.
Back to the top
The Finnish Prisoner
2004
Physical Music
2003
The One I Love
2003
The UK Tour of
Regina Monologues