Simon Shibambu News
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2024-04-24
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2023-11-01 08:33:00
Haydn, Handel, Bizet, Smyth and early Verdi: after a successful 2023 festival, Buxton announces plans for 2024
Bellini: La Sonnambula - Simon Shibambu, Ziyi Dai - Buxton International Festival at Buxton Opera House (Photo: Genevieve Girling)As Buxton International Festival looks back on a 2023 festival that exceeded all expectations, the festival has announced plans for next year's festival. Running from 4 to 21 July 2024, the festival will feature five opera productions of works by Verdi, Handel, Bizet, Smyth and Haydn, including renewed collaborations with the Early Opera Company and Norwich Theatre, along with an evening of dance from Carlos Acosta and friends.The 2023 festival far exceeded expectations with 150 events presented and over 28,000 tickets sold, and 29% of the total audience attended a performance of the festival's production of Bellini's La Sonnambula. For 2024, the festival is presenting a new production of Verdi's opera, Ernani at Buxton Opera House with the festival's artistic director, Adrian Kelly, conducting the orchestra of Opera North. Written in […]
2022-10-17 08:21:00
Review of BBC Philharmonic 'centennial' concert
[…] the BBC in the North West is celebrating 100 years of paying musicians to perform for it, which is a good thing whether you call that having an orchestra or not. The Philharmonic marked this with a great performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the Bridgewater Hall, conducted by Eva Ollikainen. It was full-bodied Beethoven, with 60 strings and effectively triple woodwind, and the vocal line-up of Tuuli Takala, Kitty Whately, Steve Davislim and Simon Shibambu, abetted by the CBSO Chorus, made a strong body indeed. Big bodies can still be light on their toes. Ollikainen brought energetic tempi to the first two movements, resulting in playing of incisiveness, vehemence even, and the timps pounded by Paul Turner were emphatically prominent in both. The Adagio was all suavity and songfulness, and the finale eloquent, full of gloriously realized counterpoint and surging and bounding in rhythmic energy to its climax. Before […]
2022-09-18 10:25:00
Royal Opera HouseNarraboth – Thomas Atkins Page of Herodias – Annika Schlicht First Soldier – Simon Shibambu Second Soldier – Simon Wilding Jokanaan – Jordan Shanahan Cappadocian – John Cunningham Salome – Elena Stikhina Slave – Sarah Dufresne Herod – John Daszak Herodias – Katarina Dalayman First Jew – Paul Curievici Second Jew – Michael J. Scott Third Jew – Aled Hall Fourth Jew – Alasdair Elliott Fifth Jew – Jeremy White First Nazarene – James Platt Second Nazarene – Chuma Sijeqa Naaman – Duncan MeadowsDavid McVicar (director) Bárbara Lluch (revival director) Es Devlin (designs) Wolfgang Göbbel (lighting) Andrew George (choreography, movement) Emily Piercy (revival choreography) 59 Productions (video) Orchestra of the Royal Opera HouseAlexander Soddy (conductor) This was a Salome best remembered for its singing, at least once beyond the absurdity of prefacing it with ‘God save the King’. (The production might have been adapted, I suppose, […]
2021-08-31 07:21:45
Against the odds: a fine musical performance triumphs over unseasonal weather and an unsympathetic sound system in ENO's venture south of the river
[…] have a Tosca production in its repertoire at the moment but I do hope that they create one soon for Romaniw, she deserves a fully staged vehicle. As it was, she gave us a fully rounded dramatic and musical performance. Romaniw's Tosca was charming and young; jealous and diva-ish yes, but also vulnerable and you certainly felt her steeling herself to square up to Wood's Scarpia. Puccini: Tosca - David Junghoon Kim, Simon Shibambu - ENO at South Facing Festival (Photo Lloyd Winters) I have vivid memories of Linda Esther Gray singing Tosca at the Coliseum and using her native Scots accent, which brought a wonderfully demotic touch to such phrases as 'How much'. Romaniw used standard received, which I think made the character seem a touch grand and perhaps slightly less human. However, she was mesmerising in a beautifully controlled and finely sung 'Vissi d'arte'. This […]
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