productions
Click on a link below to display details of a production in the right-hand column of this page.
West End
Glyndebourne
Aldeburgh/Almeida Opera
Community Opera
Shaker Productions
Alarmist Theatre
- The School of Night
- Whose Crime Is It Anyway?
- The Bedbug (adaptation)
- The Assembly Women (adaptation)
Brighton Actors Workshop
Thumbscrew Theatre Company
Zoë
An opera in four acts
Zoë, a young film student discovers that she has been cloned from a Hollywood film-star with whom her father, a genetic scientist, had been in love as a young man. She joins an eco-terrorist cell and vows revenge on her father and his company.
Composer John Lunn
Book and lyrics Stephen Plaice
Directed by Stephen Langridge
Conducted by James Morgan
Designed by Conor Murphy
Choreography by Vanessa Gray
Lighting Design by Keith Benson
Starring: Geoffrey Dolton, Fiona Campbell, Richard Coxon, Jonathan Viera, Daniel Gill, Emily Gilchrist, Gemma Ticehurst, Rebecca Bowden, Mark Enticknap
Brighton Youth Orchestra
Première: 1st March 2000
Press notices
'Perfect Ten out of Teen. If I see another opera as enthralling as Zoe
this year I shall count myslef very lucky... Plaice, normally found supplying
gritty slices of urban verismo for the Bill, has devised a story that moves
swiftly and surely from tongue-in-cheek Raymond Chandler pastiche to a wild
genetic nightmare, without ever straining credulity.'
Richard Morrison The Times
'What a pleasure to experience something so enjoyable, so full of depth,
angry energy, warmth and invention that the label 'contemporary opera for
teenagers' seems inadequate. The exuberant, hard-hitting piece, more musical
theatre than opera, held its audience gripped from start to finish. Standards
were impressive, the energy infectious. The whoops and whistles were deserved'.
Fiona Maddocks The Observer
' The result, splendidly staged and perfromed by a mixture of energetic
and accomplished professionals and young amateurs, is punchy and enjoyable.'
Rupert Christiansen The Telegraph