Breaking: Renée Fleming to make London musical debut
mainCovent Garden can’t recruit her.
She has never sung at English National Opera.
But…
John Berry’s new company has signed Renée for Adam Guettel’s musical The Light in the Piazza.
It’s happening next summer, Brexit permitting.
This is one big coup for the Berrywaggon.
Details below.
Scenario Two are proud to announce that their debut production will be the London Premiere of the dazzling musical The Light in the Piazza. With a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, The Light in the Piazza is a touching and heartwrenching love story set in Florence during the summer of 1953.
It will be performed on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall for twenty performances only in the summer of 2019, with a 40-piece symphony orchestra and an all-star cast. This new production will be directed by multiple Olivier Award-winner Daniel Evans and performed by opera superstar Renée Fleming and film and television star Dove Cameron – both making their London stage debuts with the Orchestra of Opera North performing on-stage conducted by Kimberley Grigsby.
Four-time Grammy winner and Tony nominee Renée Fleming makes her long awaited London music theatre debut as American Margaret Johnson. Dove Cameron makes her UK debut as Margaret’s troubled daughter Clara; she is best known for her role in Disney’s The Descendants trilogy, recently starred as Amber von Tussle in NBC’s Hairspray Live! and is currently starring as Cher in the Off Broadway production of Clueless: The Musical.
Why would the Royal Opera want to recruit Renée Fleming to sing a musical? They don’t perform musicals at the Opera House. Incidentally, she made her Royal Opera debut in 1989 as Dircé (Médée), and has sung there many times since, including as the Comtesse de Folleville (Il viaggio a Reims), Amelia Grimaldi (Simon Boccanegra), the Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier), Rusalka, Desdemona (Otello), Thaïs, Violetta (La traviata) and Countess Madeleine (Capriccio). Seems a pretty healthy list for someone they ‘can’t recruit’
Ms Fleming is an American citizen, what has Brexit got to do whether this is performed or not? I support Remain but the hysteria surrounding much of what may happen after Brexit amongst the ‘creatives’ and the commentariat that fawns on them shows what a blinkered and insulated world you live in.
Opera Magazine is also always bemoaning Brexit. I’m American but why is everyone so hysterical and pessimistic about it? It should be an opportunity. Seems to me Britain will be better off away from the EU bureaucrats.
I suggest you a little research instead of spouting off.
Hull writes: “the EU bureaucrats.”
Not this silly myth again. The EU bureaucracy employs fewer people than the average local council in Britain. The only rules the EU makes are those agreed by the EU members (e.g. the countries that make up the EU); and the only people who enforce the rules are the bureaucracies in each individual country.