Opera goes ahead on Putin’s poison victim

Grange Park Opera has just confirmed that Anthony Bolton’s The Life & Death of Alexander Litvinenko will receive its world premiere on July 15. The work was scheduled for last summer but postponed due to Covid.

Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence officer, was murdered in London in November 2006.

Grange Park has worked closely with his widow, Marina. She says: ‘Over the last decade and a half, a myriad of projects – including films, movies and books have been created covering my husband’s remarkable fate. Now however, as we approach the 15-year anniversary of Sasha’s death, his memory is to be remembered through a rather extraordinary medium, the music and compositions of Anthony Bolton’s opera. Music has a profound ability to channel emotions that words can struggle to convey, and I believe this opera will be a unique and moving way to honour the life and death of my husband.’