FULL The Unravelling Fantasia of Miss H. (Sarah Nicholls) London 2021 Tête à Tête Festival 2021

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: The Unravelling Fantasia of Miss H.  
• Composer: Nicholls Sarah  
• Libretto: Red Gray    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: The Cockpit, London, UK  
• Recorded: August 5, 2021
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Red Gray, Mary Matthewson, Sarah Nicolls, Katie Webster
• Conductor:   
• Orchestra:
• Stage Director: Zoe Bouras  
• Costume Designer: Rosie Whiting  
• Lighting Designer: Kristina Hjelm  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Tête à Tête  
• Date Published: 2021  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  
• Video Recording from: Vimeo     FULL VIDEO
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

It is 1837 and Mary has been arrested for a breach of the peace. She is an outspoken woman and the authorities of Doncaster are confounded. They sentence Mary to a lifetime confinement in Wakefield Asylum.

The Unravelling Fantasia of Miss H. is a poetic portrayal of a Victorian woman imprisoned by a society intent on control.

Mary Frances Heaton’s tale is told through her own words and her defiant protests stitched into embroidered samplers, discovered in the asylum years later.

Mary’s struggle to hold on to her identity and reach the outside world speaks across the years, her outrage at a corrupt system urging us to ask ‘How much have things have really changed?’