French Opera by the Opera Foundry

3.5 STARS. Richard Davies enjoys an evening of French opera with the Opera Foundry.

Have you ever marveled at the extraordinary accomplishment of an opera singer and wondered “how on earth do they do that?” Do the singers emerge fully formed from their music conservatories, ready to perform solos in different languages, night after night, and always at such an incredible level of emotional intensity? The answer is that no, they don’t. And that’s where small, not-for-profit companies like Surrey-based Opera Foundry come in to the picture.

Attending an evening of French Opera at the ancient St Mary’s Church in Guildford, my teenage daughter and I had little idea of what to expect. But glamorous Covent Garden it was not. There was no stage, no set, no costumes. The singers warmed up in a space they shared with the queue for the loo, which was so long that it significantly delayed the start of the show. This was opera in the raw. But from the first song – a scene from Gounod’s Faust, beautifully sung by soprano Corinne Hart and bass David Banbury, we knew we were in for a treat.

Opera Foundry is run by Musical Director, Richard Cartmale, a former tenor at the English National Opera who is now an opera coach, and Sarah Quantrell as repetiteur, which means (I’m always delighted to learn a new word) that she accompanies the singers on piano and provides vocal coaching during rehearsal. For this performance, the team also enlisted the expert services of Florence Daguerre De Hureaux, who had clearly done a super job as the French language coach.

As I learned during the interval, the singers are all aspiring soloists, gaining experience and confidence to audition for professional roles. But this was no “Britain’s Got Talent”, the standard of performance was quite astounding, a tribute to the professionalism of the company.

The singer I would most expect to see performing next week at the Royal Opera House was bass baritone Derek Henderson, a twinkly-eyed bear of a man from Panama with great stage presence and rich, resonant vocal tones. He brought such a sad dignity to the role of Don Quichotte and also performed a wonderful trio from Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann”, together with Corinne Hart and mezzo soprano Annette Dumville, who sang delightfully despite having a heavy cold – no prima donnas here. (And on that note, I spotted that Cartmale, as well as conducting, also had to advance the English subtitles - no mean feat!)  

Other outstanding performances included soprano Susanna MacRae, who played a delightfully flirtatious Manon from Massenet’s “Gavotte”, hitting the top notes like a songbird filled with the joys of life. At the other end of the emotional register, Urszula Bock broke your heart as the tragic heroine Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther, a story of such gut-wrenching emotional anguish that it is rarely performed today. Tenor Matthew Connolly as Werther looked and sang the part to perfection, with volume projection that, to quote Spinal Tap, “goes to 11”. Baritone Ian Helm, who played husband Albert, also clearly has a great future ahead of him.

The evening had only one “well-known tune”, but it was worth the wait. Soprano Angela Voyajolu and mezzo soprano Liezel Brink-McCulloch performed the Flower Duet from “Lakmé” by Delibes so beautifully that it brought tears to my eyes, in spite of having to suppress mental images of British Airways planes taxi-ing to the airport terminal (there really should be a law against advertisers appropriating such sublime melodies).

Talking to Richard Cartmale after the show, he perfectly summarized what you get from Opera Foundry: “don’t expect icing, but we make a good cake.” My daughter really enjoyed the evening and I think learned a lot from it about how people – of all ages - work hard to develop their talent, something that is all too easily taken for granted.  

Opera Foundry’s next performance will be an evening of German opera on 24th June 2017 in Guildford and 1 July 2017 in Richmond. If you are genuinely passionate about opera, you really should put those dates in your diary.

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