INNOVATION “I
really hate the idea that people don’t think they can enjoy opera because it’s elitist and
expensive. They hear about £200 tickets to go to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, or having to dress in black tie for Glyndebourne, and presume it’s not within their reach or even something for them,” says James Clutton, producer of the award- winning Opera Holland Park. “We, on the other hand, strip away as much of the unnecessary paraphernalia as we can and just concentrate on producing as good a performance as possible. For example, we don’t have a dress code for our shows – we take the view that the artists are performing, not the audience.”
Clutton’s professional training as a producer came in West End theatre and he sees the primary role of OHP as entertaining a wide audience. “Opera suffers from the image that it somehow too intelligent for most people to enjoy. My view is that it is perfectly normal and acceptable for people to like elements of The Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, opera, rap and any other kind of music. Firstly, there is a huge range of opera to consider, it’s not all the same. There is a huge difference between Wagner’s Siegfried and Mozart’s The Barber of Seville. Composers like Mozart and Verdi were producing the popular musical theatre of their respective day.” Just as Christopher Ward makes fine watches at sensible prices
“Opera composers like Mozart and Verdi were producing the popular musical theatre of their respective day.”
Most tickets at the OHP are £65.50, £57.50 and £48.50 which is on par or much less than what you have to pay to attend a decent Premier League match, a major rock concert, or any popular London theatre show.
without cutting down on quality, so despite the desire to make opera accessible at Holland Park, there is no concession to dumbing down. The six operas offered each summer season are performed by six different specially-formed teams
of professional singers and musicians, comprising perhaps 15 major performers, a 40-strong chorus and a 45-to-50-piece orchestra each time. It’s Clutton’s responsibility to bring all these together from scratch each season. The venue is a canopied space that seats 1,000 people in the middle of Holland Park in Kensington, London. The season runs for eight weeks from June to early August.
OPERA COMPANY OF THE YEAR While there have been musical
entertainments in the park since the mid-1960s, OHP started in a small way in 1996 but developed quickly. At first individual opera companies would stage their performances but by 2000 it was felt that a central production team should take control throughout the season. It was at that time that James Clutton joined forces with the existing general manager Michael Volpe and between them they have created the image, reputation and success of the company, which is run on a tiny permanent staff of just seven people.
At the beginning of 2011 Opera
Holland Park was named Opera Company of the Year in The
“Opera suffers from the image that it somehow too intelligent for most people to enjoy. My view is that it is perfectly normal and acceptable for people to like elements of The Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, opera, rap and any other kind of music.”
Sunday Times Review 2010. The company was well used to having very enthusiastic reviews from professional music critics, but this accolade was particularly satisfying. The ST wrote: “Five hits out of six, with excellent stagings of Carmen and Don Giovanni, the most convincing La forza del destino here in decades, and a rare outing for Zandonai’s potboiler Francesca da Rimini.”
far left; Anne Sophie Duprels and Tom Randle in Janacek’s Kat’a Kabanova, middle; Opera Holland Park at night, below; Le nozze di Figaro at Opera Holland Park in 2011
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