31 July 2019
BEDFORDSHIRE YOUTH OPERA ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ by Jacques Offenbach
Bedfordshire Youth Opera (BYO) is something very special – if you think you don’t like Opera (or you’re not interested) then THINK AGAIN – you won’t believe it until you see it! Young people getting together and putting on first class excellent entertainment, whilst having the time of their lives!
The show runs at The Place Theatre, Bedford from Tuesday 27th until Saturday 31st August. Tickets are selling fast, so book now – available from The Place at £17, concession £12 for under 18 or unemployed. Please visit www.theplacebedford.org.uk/tickets or call 01234 354321 during office hours.
This is an experience which isn’t available anywhere else in the UK.
BYO has been running for 38 years and is the training ground for the stars of the future – in fact there are several internationally recognised names who started their careers singing as teenagers with BYO.
Rachel Nichols is just one of these home-grown talents. She started with BYO as a teenager and now sings in Opera Houses and Concert Halls all over the world. She’s never lost sight of her beginnings and now she comes back and generously gives her time to nurture the future generation of singers by spending days with the students coaching and teaching them – she believes it’s so important and it’s her way of saying thank you. Other stars include Kitty Whately, Donna Lennard, Rebecca Bottone, Carolyn Sampson, Simon Bailey and Tyler Clark, many of whom have also come back to coach over recent years just for the love of it.
The Opera Course and Productions are directed by a small team of UK Professionals including Artistic and Music Directors who also started their careers with BYO. And they’re supported by a larger team of volunteers. Everyone gets so much out of it they return year on year.
This year the Opera is called ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ by Jacques Offenbach. It follows Hoffmann, a dark and twisted poet as he tells three fantastic and mesmerising stories about his past loves: a beautiful young girl, an Italian courtesan and a robot… all the time trying to escape that voice inside his head. But it seems that “none of us know how to fix ourselves, at least not entirely, not well enough.”