director Natalie Katsou and designer Yiannis Katsaris emphasised the suffocating atmosphere of Menotti's work. Creative team and cast alike rose to the challenge of the deceptively tricky music and of the cramped space. Manoeuvring effortlessly round two cages, like large upended hamster wheels, the five singers and one actor showed impressive drill and evidence of scrupulous rehearsal. A supernumerary aerialist (Kahless Giles), who swung and perched with agile discretion throughout, added mysterious intensity.

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Opera View have created a small and intense production.

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The original production was precisely this; each interpreter succeeds in offering a performance that entwines with the other. Thus, a work that stimulates sociological imagination and also exhibits the concrete elements to observe a typical Buenos Aires' "barrio" poor environment. For this purpose the interpretation suits the music of Astor Piazzolla on a stage that also shows a symbol linked to the present: a rain of red female shoes. All this amalgam was possible through the fusion of a trans-national cast in London, but coming from different cultural experiences from countries such as Greece, Holland, Portugal, Montenegro, Japan ...

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Roma, 20 giu (Prima Pagina News) La seconda rappresentazione alla quale ho assistito nella terza serata del Festival Internazionale dell’Opera di Miskolc è MARIA DE BUENOS AIRES, “tango-operita” in lingua inglese con sottotitoli in ungherese.
La composizione è un inno alla passione, alla lussuria e al soprannaturale; è considerato uno dei lavori più apprezzati di Oscar Piazzolla, ispirato/dedicato da/a un’amica italiana, su libretto di Horacio Ferrer, in coproduzione fra Operaview e Deco Ensemble con Natalie Katsou, giovane direttrice greca. Un’opera da camera dal fascino inatteso, sensuale, difficile, ma soprattutto “surreale” e anche enigmatica per certi osservatori; tuttavia, considerati i soggetti in causa e l’ispirazione italiana, essa è dedicata all’amore trasgressivo fuori da ogni dubbio.

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The piece has rather a surrealistic element to it, with a heavy admixture of dance, and Katsou's stylised production played up the non-realistic element.

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And as Operaview continue to triumph over a lack of funding, I hope more people discover this extraordinarily creative little company. Read the full review here

Natalie is intrigued, too, by stories which possess a sense of otherwordliness, enjoying the freedom of imagination this gives her as a director. “I am drawn to the unusual. There’s a mystery attached to things we can’t see – I grew up immersing myself in fairytales, always creating worlds in my head.”

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A trip to the seamy side with style, Piazzolla’s tango operita Maria de Buenos Aires

Astor Piazzolla’s tango operita made its appearance at the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre (31 August 2016) in a collaboration between Operaview (artistic director Natalie Katsou) and the Deco Ensemble, a tango quintet directed byRicardo Gosalbo. Natalie Katsou directed, with choreography by Bianca Vrcan, sets by Jemima Robinson, costumes by Kate Royds, and lighting by Rob Youngson. The cast included Catarina Sereno as Maria de Buenos Aires, Ian Helm in the baritone roles, Matthew Wade as Duende, Meliz Taylor as little Maria and the dancers Bianca Vrcan and Sacha El Masry. Ricardo Gosalbo directed the Deco Ensemble from the piano with Lucia Veintimilla (violin), Elena Marigomez (double bass),Bartosz Glowacki (accordion) and Rob Luft (electric guitar).

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Natalie Katsou's production took captivity as its theme, having Monica and Toby's rooms to be cages and giving us an extra character - a bird. This was played by aerialist Kahless Giles (in a bird mask) but you were never sure whether he was bird or spirit and played some unexplained part in the proceedings. Another layer of intrigue.


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Grimeborn Festival 2014: The Medium by Gian Carlo Menotti

Operaview has created a small and intense production in which Menotti's music comes across clearly: a ravishing piano accompaniment, played by Maite Aguirre, veers from schmaltzy sweetness, reminiscent of a silent film score, to bursts of plunging malevolence. [...] All the singing is strong, particularly from the gorgeously-voiced Phoebe-Celeste Humphreys as Mrs Gobineau, and from Julia Sitkovetsky as a lustrously attractive Monica. Sitkovetsky draws a movingly accurate portrait of a loving daughter living with an alcoholic parent, constantly negotiating every changing mood, hopelessly desperate to absorb the tension, hide each problem and control what will happen next. Monica’s treatment of Toby, somewhere disturbingly between a kid brother, a best friend and a lover, is exploitative and selfish, yet we do feel that, in a blinkered adolescent way, she truly loves him.

Toby, a mute character played by Patrick Holt, is acutely well-drawn, the right mixture of innocent assurance and terrible vulnerability; there is nothing so bewitching in opera as a character who is deliberately silent, and while it is a considerable test of acting, Holt rose to the challenge faultlessly. One of the most interesting aspects of Toby is that no one, including the audience, can ever be quite certain of how sane or conscious he is: Holt gave us some thrilling clues, yet kept the character intriguingly (and aptly) opaque. The inclusion of the aerialist Kahless Giles slightly mystified me in Act I, where (although intriguing and impressive to watch) he did not seem to contribute anything coherent to the action, but all was justified in Act II when he became Toby's puppet and bird to charm Monica, in a sequence of movement which was quite brilliantly choreographed.

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In the Arcola's compact but acoustically dead Studio 2, where the stage is the bare floor with seating on three sides, director Natalie Katsou and designer Yiannis Katsaris emphasised the suffocating atmosphere of Menotti's work. Creative team and cast alike rose to the challenge of the deceptively tricky music and of the cramped space. [...]

The plot, triggered by an event in Menotti's own life, turns on the meaning of belief. [...] Probing questions are raised about the nature of a spiritual life. Perhaps this is why, admirably, two London churches – St Mary's, Primrose Hill and the Methodist church, Stoke Newington – agreed to sponsor the opera. Is this a first?

Julia Sitkovetsky was outstanding as the repressed, loving daughter, with Gráinne Gillis – whose voice has rich, dramatic potential – powerful in the title role. The music director, Maite Aguirre, who is also chorus director at Grange Park Opera, whipped quasi-orchestral colour out of a ropy upright piano.

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Grainne Gillis was a very dramatic and wonderfully raddled Madam Flora who visible went to pieces. [...] Julia Sitkovetsky made a lovely Monica, she got the opera's most lyrical numbers and gave us a real sense of Monica's longing to be free of her mother. Sitkovetsky had a touching and believable relationship with Patrick Holt's Toby. [...] Holt was also a lively performer even though required to be mute.

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This evening ticks all the boxes. It might feel like a whistle stop tour, but these are perfect snippets for an introduction to opera. Katsou’s priority is storytelling. She keeps things simple, setting the action in present day Camden town so we have no trouble relating to the characters, and tweaking the libretto to fit with modern lingo. Singing is these performers’ forte. Between them, Bailey, Kennedy, and Fisher boast training from the Royal Academy [Ed.] of Music, Trinity Conservatoire and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and gracefully adjust their qualified voices to the damp acoustics. Musical director and talented repetiteur Amber Rainey handles the reduced score with sensitivity, her hands quite literally cradling the notes as she strokes the keys of the electric keyboard and draws as much sentiment from the instrument as she can. As Operaview continue to triumph over a lack of funding, I hope more people discover this extraordinarily creative little company.

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