Opera Choruses
SIC Choir of the Earthnow turns its attention to the world of Opera. We have selected 5 great opera choruses for us to learn, record and perform. We shall be taught these in live online sessions by Ben England BEM with assistance from Donald Palumbo of The Metropolitan Opera House, New York, who is taking a deep interest in spreading this wonderful music to a global audience.
Join us for
Opera Choruses
For this course, we shall learn/record/perform the following opera choruses:
Brindisi from La Traviata by Verdi
2. Habanera from Carmen by Bizet (with Helen Charlston as Carmen)
3. The Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore by Verdi
4. The Humming Chorus from Madama Butterfly by Puccini
5. Va Pensiero from Nabucco by Verdi
How it will work
We shall start learn all the parts of these 5 choruses in live sessions with a piano accompaniment. Each chorus will feature a “voice part louder” track so that we can learn our own part more effectively. At the end of the teaching, we shall be asked, if we wish, to record our own voice for each chorus (we can record more than one voice part if we wish). All these voices will be combined in the recording studio to create a huge SIC chorus. The result will be played back to us in a Concert Performance.
Our backing tracks are recorded by a pianist and 4 professional opera singers:
KATHERINE BLUMENTHAL (Soprano) A two-time Metropolitan Opera district winner she was also won a grant from the Giulio Gari International Singing Competition in New York. She moved to Europe after completing a Master of Music degree in vocal performance at the New England Conservatory, Boston, where she was awarded a distinction in performance and a Bachelor of Arts degree with highest honours in music and French literature from Emory University in Atlanta. She also studied composition at the Conservatoire International de Paris. Recently she has sung both Violetta In La Traviata,Nedda in I Pagliacci and Micaëla in Carmen with Kentish Opera. Other recent roles include Musetta in Opera Brava’s La Bohème, Musetta with Clapham Opera Festival and covering Lakmé with Opera Holland Park as part of the Christine Collins Young artist programme, and Violetta with Opera Lyrica.
HANNAH PEDLEY (Mezzo-Soprano) studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and made her international debut at the Wexford Festival. She has appeared in leading roles with The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, English Touring Opera, Buxton Festival, Grange Park and has forged a close association with Opera Holland Park where she sang the title role in Carmen to critical acclaim. She recently made her American debut singing Mozart with the Boston Handel and Haydn Society under Harry Christophers and toured with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra performing Szymanowski's Stabat Mater and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. She will sing the role of Maddalena (Rigoletto) for Holland Park Opera in 2023.
ROBYN LYN EVANS (Tenor) is a postgraduate of the Royal College of Music, London and graduate of Trinity College Carmarthen and recipient of the Stuart Burrows bursary. His career started in the Eisteddfod competitions of Wales where he was awarded the International Young Singer of the Year Llangollen International Eisteddfod, Osborne Roberts Memorial Prize and David Ellis Memorial Prize. His opera credits include Rodolfo, La Bohème; Don José, Carmen; Alfredo, La Traviata; Macduff, Macbeth; Don Ottavio, Don Giovanni; Il Duca, Rigoletto; Malcolm, Macbeth; Pinkerton, Madama Butterfly; Ismaele, Nabucco and Lord Hervey, Anna Bolena for companies including ENO, WNO, Scottish Opera and Opera North.
Håkan Vramsmo (Baritone) has appeared at major venues and festivals including the BBC Proms’ opening night, Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Stuttgart Liederhalle, He has performed with the Carducci Quartett, Gabrieli Consort, Sharoun Ensembles, BBC Symphony, City of Birmingham, English Chamber, Wroclaw and Malmö Symphony Orchestras with conductors including Paul McCreech, Leonard Slatkin, Sir David Willcocks and Sakari Oramo. He has recorded for the BBC, Polish Radio and for Chandos Records. He has sung over 30 operatic roles in the UK and across Europe and recently in Huw Watkins’ In the Locked Room with Scottish Opera to critical acclaim.
Once we have learned the choruses, we shall invite you to record your own voice and we shall provide all the instructions for this process. Once we have your voices, we shall combine them all in the studio and replay the result back in a Concert Performance.
Course Director
We are delighted to welcome back Ben England BEM as our Course Director. Ben trained as a conductor at the University of Bristol, leading the university opera society for an unprecedented three seasons, including La Belle Helene by Offenbach and Don Giovanni by Mozart. Ben subsequently became the youngest ever conductor of Bristol Opera, leading them through such wonderful works as Handel’s Samson, Cavalleria Rusticana by Muscagni and the wonderful Lakme by Delibes.
As a singer of opera Ben has performed a wide range of leading bass roles including The Forester (The Cunning Little Vixen), Saint Peter (Der Mond), and Baron Zeta (The Merry Widow).
Ben’s productions as conductor also include fully-staged performances of Bizet’s Carmen, Mozart’s Magic Flute and a stint of five years as the Musical Director of the Bristol Gilbert and Sullivan Operatic Society. His performance with Opera in a Box of Eric Wetherell’s beautiful original opera A Foreign Field (2018) was awarded Best Opera by NODA.
Ben is the Musical Director and Founding Conductor of the Self-Isolation Choir and has led them through many of their ground-breaking performances. He is the lead educator on Around Sound, a lecture series exploring music in depth for all. Ben was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2020 for his services to online music-making and remains devoted to developing and building this exciting new art-form.
Input from the World of Opera
Donald Palumbo, Chorus Master of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York
“Donald Palumbo is widely regarded as the greatest chorus conductor in the world today,” said Metropolitan Opera General Director Peter Gelb when Donald was appointed to his post in 2008. It is an exciting development for SIC to partner with the Chorus Master from one of the major opera houses in the world. He will bring deep experience and insight into the way these choruses should be sung.
Philip Blake-Jones, Artistic Director of London Festival Opera
Originally performing as Opera Interludes, which was formed in 1990, London Festival Opera is now established as a leading international touring opera company. Opera Interludes and London Festival Opera work as associate companies and present opera of the highest calibre for a wide range of events throughout the year. Philip will monitor the standard of the SIC backing tracks and showcase our work to the opera community.
Mezzo Soprano
We are thrilled to welcome back Helen Charlston, one of the UK’s rising stars, who will take the role of Carmen in our Habanera. To find out more about Helen Charlston, please visit: www.helencharlston.com
Timings
(all at 17:00 UK time unless stated otherwise)
21st June - FULL CHOIR
22nd June - Tenors
23rd June - Basses
24th June - Sopranos
25th June - Altos
28th June - FULL CHOIR
29th June - Tenors
30th June - Basses
1st July - Sopranos
2nd July - Altos and RECORDING SUBMISSIONS OPEN
13th July - SING THROUGH at 18:00
2nd August - END RECORDING
2nd October - CONCERT PERFORMANCE at 15:00
Course Fee
The course fee for Opera Choruses is £40 and this includes:
All teaching from Ben England BEM and input from Donald Palumbo
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All choral tracks sung by our opera singers
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All scores
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Piano backing tracks
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Sound Engineers
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Concert Performance
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Mosaic picture of the choir
