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FULL THE YELLOW DRESS (Richard Lambert) London 2012 Rosalind Stern, Janna Sutherland, Alexia Mankovskaya, Karolina Kormiltseva
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: The Yellow Dress
- Composer: Lambert Richard
- Libretto: Hilary Spiers Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Riverside Studios, London, UK, Opera at Home
- Recorded: August 18 & 19, 2012
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Rosalind Stern, Janna Sutherland, Alexia Mankovskaya, Karolina Kormiltseva
- Conductor:
- Orchestra:
- Stage Director: Jose Gandia
- Stage Designer: Alexia Mankovskaya
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Tête à Tête
- Date Published: 2012
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
This one-act opera uses a multimedia approach to take an uncompromising look at our treatment of older people, particularly those whose mental fragility makes them both vulnerable and burdensome. Linked by the ever-present image of the sea, the opera explores the choices we are forced to make; and how devotion and duty are tested by a chance of love.
Genesis: Opera at Home is a professional chamber opera company based in South East London. The possibility to stage a chamber opera production was proposed and supported by producer Michael E. Corby. The creative team include director Jose Gandia (RADA/Birbeck, MA) and opera singer and composer Alexia Mankovskaya (MMus Trinity College of Music). Opera at Home provides critical performance experience for aspiring singers in lead roles, working with professional directors and music/language coaches. Our performances have a high standard of acting and singing. Opera at Home has chosen to perform Richard’s chamber opera The Yellow Dress at the sixth Tête à Tête opera festival (www.tete-a-tete.org.uk.).
Synopsis:
This short opera takes an uncompromising look at one of the great challenges of our society: our treatment of older people, and particularly those whose mental fragility makes them both vulnerable and burdensome. Using a multi-media approach, the story travels across time and space into the tangled relationship between a daughter and her mother, leading to a deliberately equivocal conclusion. Linked by the ever-present image of the sea, the opera explores the choices we are forced to make, and the conflict between devotion and duty.
A young woman returns reluctantly from her holiday romance in the sun, to the stifling atmosphere of her elderly mother’s home. She arrives at the dark, airless house, and tries to slot back into her claustrophobic existence. Her sense of duty keeps her there; but we find that her mother, with a declining mental capacity, has never loved her.
Mother and daughter experienced a traumatic event in the past, which has been pivotal for both of them. They both apportion blame to each other for the tragedy, and this unrest is expressed throughout the opera in the ever-present image of the sea.