stalbanslife

St Albans Operatic Society is proud to present Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Alban Arena, St Albans from Tuesday 13th to Saturday 17th October 2009.

For those of you who don’t know the show, or haven’t seen the Jonny Depp film, it is a dark tale of love and revenge that is thrilling, chilling and, in places, extremely funny. The show won many awards on its debut 30 years ago and has starred a number of musical legends from Angela Lansbury, Sheila Hancock, Julia Mackenzie in the Mrs Lovett role to George Hearns, Dennis Quilley, Alun Armstrong, Johnny Depp and Bryn Terfel in the Todd role.

This is will be an extra-ordinary night of musical entertainment so get booking now!

Tickets are available from the Arena on 01727 844488 or via www.alban-arena.co.uk. Please book early so as to save us the Arenas booking fee!

Performances start at 7.45pm (Matinee at 2.30pm on Saturday) – not suitable for children under 12.

Wednesday 1^st July, 2009 is a date to put in your diaries!  St Michael’s Village, St Albans will be filled with music, dance and fun for all.

Dancing on the Street from 8-10pm

Blue Anchor car park, and in the street by the Puddingstone, Prae Close, Rose & Crown and Six Bells

Music in the Pubs from 6pm onwards

The Six Bells All Stars at the Six Bells Pub

Comhaltas & Thursday night Musicians at the Rose and Crown Pub

Swan Vesta Social Club at the Black Lion Pub

Run of the Mill at the Blue Anchor Pub

For more information on the above, contact www.stmichaelsfolkevening.org.uk

I’ve just found time to add a post about the Alban Opera. I must admit to an interest here as I’m singing in the choir. So very busy for the next week with rehearsals and then 5 performances in 4 days. Great fun to do and it will be quite spectacular. So please do support it by coming along one day. All profits will, I believe, go to the Abbey. Obviously if it isa success then more such ‘community’ events are likely to happen.  See you there?

Alban is a two act community opera involving over 150 performers which has been commissioned by the St. Albans Cathedral Music Trust. It will be given five performances (including a matinee) in St. Albans Cathedral between May 20-24 2009, bringing together a wealth of local talent. Singers, actors, dancers and musicians of all ages drawn principally, though not exclusively, from parish and school choirs across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire will join a core of experienced professional performers. Like all large-scale community ventures it will offer many their first experience of taking part in a professionally-staged theatrical production.

This exciting project will build on the Music Trust’s previous success in staging Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, a major community undertaking which made imaginative use of the cathedral’s setting. Alban will be even more immediate as it has been composed with this particular building in mind. From the start it has been a site-specific enterprise with composer Tom Wiggall and librettist John Mole taking into consideration all the possibilities for music and movement, drama and ritual offered by the cathedral’s architectural design.

Composer and librettist have imagined the last week of Alban’s life – a family man, a successful doctor with a wife and two young children, and the opera will be staged through a combination of intimate domestic drama, and events in the public arena – the former exploring the psychological impact on Alban’s family of his new-found capacity for Christian belief, and the latter dramatising the inevitable consequence of his decision to sacrifice himself in place of the priest to whom he has offered sanctuary.

Alban has been designed to encourage engagement at all levels of musical ability and it involves many different kinds of music ranging from market cries and exclamatory mob interventions through to a closing hymn in which the audience joins with the performers.

The Cathedral Music Trust is working to ensure that Alban will be a high profile event, a celebration of the city’s patron saint and a moving experience for everyone involved, whether as a participant or as a member of the audience.