Baroque Operas

Thursday 3 April 2025 | 7.30pm

Friday 4 April 2025 | 7.30pm

Experience an intimate performance of Baroque opera scenes at the Studio, directed by Lucy Bradley and conducted by Christian Curnyn. With harpsichord accompaniment, this evening highlights the elegance and emotional intensity of the Baroque repertoire in a close, immersive setting.

Conductor – Christian Curnyn

Christian Curnyn is widely recognised as one of the UK’s leading conductors specialising in the Baroque. In 1994, Christian founded the Early Opera Company and with them has given notable performances throughout the UK and abroad, along with multiple award-winning recordings for the Chandos label. Their recording of Semele was chosen as a Best Recording of 2008 by The Sunday Times, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone Magazine and awarded the 2008 Stanley Sadie Handel Prize. Other award-winning discs include Eccles’ The Judgement of Paris, (awarded a Diapason D’or), Handel’s Alceste (winner of the Opera award in the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2013), Acis & Galatea (winner of the Opera award of the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Awards).

This season Christian returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden to conduct a new production of Handel’s Semele directed by Oliver Mears, after receiving much praise in the press for Alcina in the 22/23 season. “Under Christian Curnyn the ROH orchestra was transformed, fizzing and swirling in a buff, buoyant version of period style that wasn’t afraid to flaunt its curves”. Richard Bratby, The Spectator.

Recent highlights include concerts with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Aalborg and Antwerp Symphony Orchestras, Handel’s La resurrezione for the Haymarket Opera Company in Chicago, a double bill of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Blow’s Venus and Adonis for Opera Collective Ireland/AKAMUS. With Early Opera Company he conducted a performance and recording of Maurice Greene’s Jephtha. EOC recently collaborated with Buxton International Festival on an acclaimed production of Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno.

He has conducted notable opera productions in the UK, Europe and North America. For The Royal Opera, Covent Garden these include Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera, Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse at The Roundhouse, Cavalli’s L’Ormindo to inaugurate their series at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s The Globe, where he returned for Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo, Apollo e Dafne (a series of short operas performed over Covid-19), a concert performance of Handel’s Ariodante and a new production of Alcina, (dir. Richard Jones). For English National Opera successes have included Olivier Award-winning productions of Handel’s Partenope and Rameau’s Castor et Pollux (dir. Barrie Kosky), After Dido (Katie Mitchell’s realisation of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas), Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Charpentier’s Medée, and Handel’s Rodelinda. Elsewhere in the UK he has conducted productions for Opera North, Scottish Opera and Garsington Opera.

Christian’s work in Europe and beyond includes Partenope with Opera Australia, Vivaldi’s Farnace and Handel’s Ariodante for Landestheater Salzburg, Cavalli’s La Calisto and Gluck’s Ezio for Frankfurt Opera, Castor et Pollux and Zoroastre by Rameau at Komische Oper Berlin, Rameau’s Platée, Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and Handel’s Alcina at Stuttgart Opera, Mozart Idomeneo for Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos, Le nozze di Figaro at Theater Basel and Handel’s Orlando for Oper Halle. In the USA Christian has conducted Partenope and Cosi fan Tutte for New York City Opera, Handel’s Tolomeo for Glimmerglass Opera, and Cavalli’s Giasone and Charpentier’s Medée for Chicago Opera Theater.

Specialist early music ensembles among Christian’s collaborators include Academy of Ancient Music, AKAMUS, English Concert, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Irish and Wroclaw Baroque orchestras. He has also conducted programmes with modern forces including with the Bournemouth Symphony, Ulster, Hallé, Scottish Chamber Orchestra (including a recording on the Decca label with Nicola Benedetti), Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony, Ensemble Resonanz, Essen Philharmoniker and Budapest Festival Orchestra as well as a Messiah tour in Australia with the Tasmanian, West Australian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras.

Director – Lucy Bradley

Lucy is a director working in the UK and Europe in settings ranging from large scale Opera houses and regional theatres to site specific locations and drama schools. Lucy trained in Drama at Middlesex University, graduating with a degree specialising in Directing. Lucy is the first Resident Director at National Opera Studio.
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Previous credits include:  Garsington Gala (Summer 2024), The Flying Dutchman (OperaUpClose, Summer 2023), The Promise (Handpicked Productions, Summer tour 2023),  Voices of the Sands (Deal & Tete a Tete Festivals, Summer 2022), Her Day  (Coventry City of Culture March 2022),   Trouser Power (Royal Opera House, Participation), Sophie (Tete a Tete),  No Sound Ever Dies, (Surrey Arts at Brooklands Museum), Eugene Onegin (Arcola Theatre), Belongings (Glyndebourne), The Finding (Mahogany Opera), Recital 1 (British Museum and Gemäldagalerie, Berlin), Found and Lost (Corinthia Hotel), Blank Canvas (Opera Up Close),  Tycho’s Dream and Into the Harbour (Glyndebourne Education), The Last Pearly (Rich Mix), The Wind in the Willows and Grimm Tales (ALRA), An Ode to My Sisters (Regional Tour), The Onomatopoeia Society (Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh).

Lucy has worked regularly as an Associate Director. In 2023 Lucy was Associate Director to John Fulljames on Nixon in China by John Adams at Teatro Real, Madrid and in 2022 on The Handmaid’s Tale by Poul Ruders, at The Royal Danish Opera. In 2018 Lucy was Associate Director on the highly acclaimed Street Scene, at Teatro Real, Madrid; she went on to revive the production in Köln in 2019 and Monte Carlo in 2020.

In 2022 and 2024 Lucy revived Jonathan Kent’s production of Tosca for The Royal Opera House, London.

Lucy has worked extensively as an Assistant Director and Staff Director, regularly for The Royal Opera House where she has worked on Agrippina, Don Carlos, Orphee et Euridice, The Queen of Spades, Tosca, Rusalka, The Lost Thing and How the Whale Became.  At Glyndebourne Festival, Lucy has worked as assistant director on Fidelio, La Finta GIardiniera, The Marriage of Figaro, Rusalka and Billy Budd and on Nothing and The Knight Crew for Glyndebourne Education.  For Opera North Lucy has assisted on Giulio Cesare, From the House of The Dead and The Queen of Spades.  For Garsington Opera Festival, Lucy assisted Louisa Muller on Platée in Summer 2024.

In Europe Lucy has worked as an assistant director at Teatro alla Scala, Teatro Real Madrid and Den Jyske Oper, Denmark.  As an Assistant Director in theatre Lucy has worked for The Young Vic, The South Bank Centre, Rifco Arts, and Mahogany Opera Group.

As a practitioner, Lucy has often worked with marginalised or hard to reach groups; she has led projects for pupil referral units and with refugee groups; she has worked with vulnerable young people and those at risk of exclusion. Inclusion and empowerment are at the heart of Lucy’s work.