EXCERPTS FROM SELECTED REVIEWS

Flight (BYO)

Energy, focus, pitch, visual design, the fusion of singer and character, the Southbank Sinfonia's ebullience: everything zoomed to the top, creating a triumphantly enjoyable show suitable for everyone…(The cast) fizz with flair to spare;

what joy to watch the direct, effective staging of director Martin Lloyd-Evans and designer Bridget Kimak, complete with genuine stage magic as the airport finally dissolves into a sky of stars. There are two more flights of Flight tomorrow and Thursday; don't miss either one of them.

The Times

La Gioconda (OHP)

For real risk-taking on the lyric stage, it's hard to beat Korn/Ferry Opera Holland Park's new production of Amilcare Ponchielli's barnstorming 1876 opera La Gioconda. Holland Park has worked miracles on a small budget.

Bloomberg

La Gioconda goes to places where only truly great opera can go, and does it with irresistible panache and dreamy tunefulness. Once again, Opera Holland Park does the business. It has found singers with huge voices, the chorus are superb, and Martin Lloyd-Evan's grand production is thrillingly clear and fluid. I loved it.

Warwick Thompson, Metro

This mad melodrama exploded into epic, grisly life and proved its worth.

Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard

Spine-tingling…vastly enjoyable

Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph

As the evening wore on and the night came upon us, the atmosphere and drive increased, and the drama was thrilling.

Dominic McHugh, Musicalcritism.com

Martin Lloyd-Evans's staging draws high-octane performances from Gweneth-Ann Jeffers, Yvonne Howard, David Soar and Olafur Sigurdarson

Anthony Holden, The Observer

OHP proved that there is much to admire in the work and that an inventive production can bring it to life.

Alexander Campbell, Classicalsource.com

L'amore dei tre Re (OHP)

" A Breathless eroticism pounds through Montemezzi's L'Amore dei tre Re... its impact is shattering. Holland Park's production is faultless. A startled audience sat gripped for the intense 95 minutes. Peter Robinson generated a performance of surging energy from the City of London Sinfonia, cast and chorus. As Fiora, Amanda Enchalaz had graceful, brooding passion and thrilling force. Julian Gavin, as her lover Avito, had heroic, ringing tone and their love - or, rather, sex - duets were downright blue. Mikhail Svetlov was chilling as the embittered, groping father. Director Martin Lloyd-Evans and designer Jamie Vartan used the wide stage skilfully, containing all within an Escher-like grey fortress. Unmissable."
Fiona Maddocks, The Evening Standard

"It’s not often that a ‘lost masterpiece’ turns out to be the real deal but Montemezzi’s forgotten work L’amore Dei Tre Re is a wild, 90-minute, lust’n’poison gorefest that hits every mark it aims at. The music throbs with big, romantic tunes and high-powered orchestral surges, and is expertly handled by conductor Peter Robinson. Soprano Amanda Echalaz is vocally luminous as the doomed Fiora, Julian Gavin and Olafur Sigurdarson burst with passion as her lovers, and bass Mikhail Svetlov is powerfully threatening as Fiora’s blind strangler. I’m begging for a revival."
Warwick Thompson, Metro

As this scintillating score, with the magisterial Peter Robinson conducting the City of London Sinfonia, proved, any notion of Montemezzi as some kind of lesser Puccini won't wash. Svetlov's cataclysmic solo aria burst out of seamless orchestral lines and torrents of nasty ostinati like an ear-shattering bombshell. Olafur Sigurdarson produced a splendid outburst in the last act, before knowingly kissing his murdered wife's poisoned lips. But it was the massive duets between Gavin (lustrous) and Echalaz (glorious) that swept all before them. Peter Robinson's laid-back pit-management and mastery of balances, plus haunting flute, viola and double bass playing added to the evening's delights. A palpable hit.
Roderic Dunnett, The Independent

"Martin Lloyd-Evans’s production for Opera Holland Park is properly strong and unfussy... the set’s grey death only highlights the tortured passions shrieking through Amanda Echalaz’s Princess Fiora. A grim, gripping evening. Go if you can."
Geoff Brown, The Times

"It's a silent-movie bodice-ripper of a plot, unremittingly pitched at a level of boiling intensity, with everyone's emotional torment semaphored by a highly chromatic and febrile score. No holds are barred, no bars held..."
Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph

"Beg, steal or borrow – do anything you can to get a ticket for this, the opera event of the summer. This felt like nothing short of a landmark event. The crowd on opening night greeted the cast with the loudest cheers I think I’ve ever heard at this venue. Amanda Echalaz's projection was strong, even over an extensive orchestra, and the stamina of her phrasing was incredible. Julian Gavin was also excellent... there was true heartbreak in his closing monologue. Mikhail Svetlov, a mesmerising singer... Olafur Sigurdarson was as vocally polished as always. An exemplary performance by the City of London Sinfonia."
Dominic McHugh, MusicalCriticism.com

"London's Holland Park hasn't seen anything like it before. It's not often that a 'lost masterpiece' turns out to be exactly what it says on the box... The cast is excellent. South African soprano Amanda Echalaz brings spinto power and a full-throated richness to the role of the doomed Fiora. Julian Gavin, a tenor, and baritone Olafur Sigurdarson burst with passion as her lover and husband."
Bloomberg.com

"A triumphant production. It thunders through like an express train, the tension never letting up for a moment. Opera Holland Park have wanted to produce this work for some years and they should now feel proud that they have done it justice and helped bring a minor masterpiece back into the public consciousness."
Simon Thomas, MusicOMH.com

"There is a febrile intensity to the score that is hard to resist, especially in the fervid central duet for the two lovers, Fiora and Avito... a splendid central couple in the Fiora of Amanda Echalaz, a young South African soprano who gives her all, and the Avito of Julian Gavin, a tenor at once romantic and heroic."
Richard Fairman, Financial Times

"Martin Lloyd-Evans's production is a great success. Both Julian Gavin's Avito and Olafur Sigurdarson's Manfredo impress with their vocal cut and thrust. Amanda Echalaz's doomed heroine is sensational. Peter Robinson and the orchestra deliver a thrilling account of the piece, which Holland Park certainly re-establishes as a viable work."
George Hall, The Guardian

L’amore was magnificently performed. Peter Robinson conducted with utter conviction, and the City of London Sinfonia played superbly what must be an exhausting score. Amanda Echalaz was a tireless, pure-toned and ecstatic Fiora, and her adulterous beloved was Julian Gavin, just as intense and with a rich tenor voice. Mikhail Svetlov made an alarming and dark-toned Archibaldo, and Olafur Sigurdarson a bleak, expressive Manfredo. They are all accomplished actors. This was as convincing an account of an opera which deserves to be heard more often as one will come across.
Michael Tanner, Spectator

La Vie Parisienne (GSMD)

Set in a Magritte landscape of puffy clouds and bowler-hatted factotums, Martin Lloyd-Evans's vivacious production of La Vie Parisienne at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama offers a welcome soupçon of escapism to those battered by wind, rain and credit crunch. Sometimes champagne really is the best medicine.

Anna Picard. Independent.

This was a show really fizzing with care-free frivolity. Operetta is something that rarely makes an appearance on London stages and even then is too often disappointing, so hats off to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama for a gloriously high spirited production of Offenbach’s La vie parisienne. In this production the curtain rose to a Magritte-like back drop with fluffy white clouds floating on an azure sky as the chorus assembled to watch the world flocking to Paris.  The awaited train appeared to emerge straight from the proscenium arch combining a splendid coup to theatre with a reference to La Durée poignardée and the fun began.

Conductor and director had teamed up to prepare a new translation (the programme credits Clive Timms with the lyrics and Martin Lloyd-Evans with dialogue) which proved both entertaining and deliverable.   Witticisms abounded, and Lloyd Evans directed with a sure touch, keeping the humour just short of farcical. 

Musical Pointers

Rigoletto (Mid Wales Opera)

In this production, director Martin Lloyd-Evans underlines its coolly calculated brutality as he works to encapsulate everything into Mid-Wales Opera's new touring production ..... there is no denying Verdi's darkly dramatic force here.

The Guardian

Martin Lloyd-Evans’ sharp-edged production…evokes the stench of Mussolini’s Italy and carves a clean narrative line throughout the drama… the packed house was held in thrall

Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph

taut and powerful in its impact, cogent and coherent in its characterisation... a richly rewarding performance all round

Western Mail

Capriccio (GSMD)

the result is nothing short of a triumph.

Director Martin Lloyd Evans made the decision to transfer the action from an 18th century French chateau to the period of Strauss' lifetime, a strategy that works well with the libretto and is more than justified by Jamie Vartan's superbly evocative jugendstil set.

Musical Pointers

an evening of almost unalloyed pleasure

Spectator

The Queen of Spades (OHP)

"The climactic encounter between Hermann and the Countess (Carole Wilson) is astonishingly handled - at once fierce in its compassion and disturbing in its examination of images of physical decline. “
Tim Ashley, The Guardian

"Martin Lloyd-Evans's neat staging found imaginative solutions. Stuart Stratford conducted a fine performance, with rich, dark gurglings from the prominent clarinets. Orla Boylan's impassioned Lisa, Carole Wilson's icy Countess and Mark Stone's Yeletski were excellent."
Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard

"Run, run, run to get any remaining tickets for Opera Holland Park's Queen of Sapdes... Viktor Lutsyuk has an enormous, tirelessly powerful voice, a thrilling clarion sound and looks great..."
Warwick Thompson, Metro London

"Lloyd Evans has set the opera in the first decade of the 20th century, lending it a tense social context, and affording one utterly magical image of "la Venus Moscovite"... the casting is superlative, with Orla Boylan a radiant and thoughful Lisa, Mark Stone a beautifully restrained Prince Yeletsky, Carole Wilson a chilling, tragic Countess, and rising stars Antonia Sotgiu and Matthew Hargreaves as Polina and Tomski."
Anna Picard, The Independent on Sunday

“... one of the hottest tickets in town."
Tom Vallance, What's On In London

Triple Bill

Deeply unsettling, at times harrowing, the Guildhall production of three one-acters ranks among the finest operatic stagings to be seen in Britain for some time... This was no mean feat.  The genius of the Guildhall staging lies in it's linking of the three operas by means of a complex pattern of images, repeated and slowly transformed over the course of the evening... The most powerful image is reserved for the end - a moment which, I suspect, will stick forever in the memories of all who saw it.  The night I went, the final curtain was followed by a long silence, broken by the sound of audible sobbing from the audience... It's a production that could - and should - be taken up by one of the country's major companies... A great evening, by any standard.

Opera

...a fascinating triple bill quite superbly staged. This production... genuinely succeeds in giving it (Ullmann's  Der Kaiser von Atlantis) a universal message...manages to make the piece both eloquently beautiful and profoundly sad.  I've not seen a better new staging of anything in London this year.

The Guardian

Andrea Chenier (OHP)

Martin Lloyd-Evans's production for Opera Holland Park, carefully deploying a mixture of naturalism and symbolism, probes its depths with chilling precision. The set is dominated by an enormous guillotine, which intermittently crashes down with a nauseating thud. Lloyd-Evans's treatment of the protagonists is wonderfully acute, never more so than the scene in which Olafur Sigurdarson's Gérard comes face to face with Katarina Jovanovic's Maddalena for the first time in years and instinctively falls to his knees like the servant he once was... Strong stuff, and highly recommended.

Tim Ashley, The Guardian

Martin Lloyd-Evans’s production is good on the febrile atmosphere, part terror, part elation, of heady revolution. Such operatic electricity that only the dullest dog wouldn’t weep like a girl."

Robert Thicknesse, The Times

From its opening images of the guillotine, this production matched the rousing melodrama of the libretto with full-blooded gusto… Played to the hilt by cast and chorus under the direction of Martin Lloyd-Evans

Tom Vallance, What's On

La Boheme (Garden Opera)

Bohème is all intimacy, from its deft sketching of the relationships of the four impecunious flatmates to Mimì’s sotto-voce death. Stage director Martin Lloyd-Evans has the deftest touch in all this… I’ve said it before, and will again: this company reminds you why you like opera.

Robert Thicknesse

Cenerentola (Garden Opera)

so bright and breezy is the al fresco staging and so high the overall standard of musicianship that there's no sense of being short-changed. The piece's essential humanity registers as clearly as the jokes… an exuberant evening.

George Hall, The Guardian

La Traviata (Mid Wales)

Martin Lloyd-Evans’ take on Verdi’s La Traviata is one of the most exciting and imaginative I have seen..... indeed the whole concept of this Traviata is stunningly realised..... Not only does this particular production look marvellous, but the individual performances are superb.

Birmingham Post

The Little Green Swallow (Dove – GSMD)

Directed with imaginative wit and infinite invention by the Guildhall’s resident producer Martin Lloyd-Evans… This work, certainly knocking spots of new operas at Covent Garden and elsewhere, deserves to heard again and again. I’m happy to put my head on the block and state that I think this is a better work than “Flight” (at Glyndebourne this year), especially in as brilliant a production as this.

Falstaff (RSAMD)

...a spectacular crescendo of intensity.

Evening News

...a wonderful fusion of direction, design, acting and music. Director Martin Lloyd-Evans’ production is a visual feast combined with gloriously comic moments and even a beautiful coup de theatre…a satisfying feast of belly laughs – and rather touching too

Daily Mail

Le Nozze Di Figaro (OHP)

Sung with such eloquent conviction by dashing young stars-in-the-making, that the Countess's final 'Perdono' still brings that authentic Amadean tear to the eye. Mozart as intelligent, witty and affecting as it gets.

Anthony Holden, The Observer

Le Nozze Di Figaro (RSAMD)

a captivating new production .... this is a staging brave enough to let Beaumarchais, in Da Ponte's adaptation, deliver his message It gets to the truth of the piece, through having a director, Martin Lloyd-Evans, with a keen eye for characterisation.

The Herald

Carmen (Garden Opera)

When you're in despair about the state of opera in this country it’s nice to be reminded that there’s Another Way.... This is a Carmen with no chorus, no overture, a band of six, a cast of eight. And it is one of the most vivid and direct shows, with all its rough edges, that you'll find in this or any other summer ...Catch this show and remind yourself why you liked opera in the first place.

The Times

a brutally direct Carmen directed by Martin Lloyd-Evans....completely unadorned opera and a perfect introduction for the uninitiated ...

Opera Now

L’enfant Et Les Sortileges/L’heure Espagnol (OHP)

...inspired direction from Martin Lloyd-Evans... This was a little gem that was hard to fault. they make for a superb evening out – but only of they are performed with the same style, imagination and quality as delivered here by the RSAMD.

Opera Now

both works, it must be said, proved a great treat..... the RSAMD unquestionably gave it an enchanted added dimension

Stiffelio (OHP)

Opera Holland Park's production of Stiffelio is so intensely enjoyable.

Michael Tanner, The Spectator

Maybe this astonishing work will now join the standard repertory ...... it was extremely good

Rodney Milnes, Opera

The Barber Of Seville (Garden Opera)

The best Barber in town.....This is real opera, with the characters coming alive in the music.... most of which I struggled to see through helpless tears: seamless blends of music and inspired farce, timed to the instant and a masterclass of insouciant theatrical sophistication. Forget Brecht: Rossini (with a hand from director Martin Lloyd-Evans) can tell you more about irony and alienation techniques in five minutes

The Times

L’elisir D’amore (Garden Opera)

When I became an opera critic, in line with official press guidelines, I quickly swapped my heart for a jagged piece of flint and started scratching my copy with a blood stained knife on old pieces of parchment. (I also practised my cackling, naturally). I saw Garden Opera’s unexpectedly perfect The Elixir Of Love and had my heart restored to me.
Garden Opera’s small-budget Elixir was one of the most pleasurable opera-going experiences of 2000. The staging was slick, the humour perfectly judged and the singing delightful

Metro

Martin Lloyd-Evans’ production caught the wit of the piece as well as the pathos...a highly enjoyable evening.

Opera

The Beggar’s Opera (GSMD)

I have not got nearly enough space to do justice to the GSMD’s characteristically superb performance of Britten’s realisation of the Beggar’s Opera.  The staging, conducting and singing were all on a level that would put most of what one sees each year on the stages of opera houses into a depressed perspective.

The Spectator

..the real pleasure behind the show is a minutely judged ensemble effort, everybody responding sharply to cues and ambience, building the vehicle cumulatively from the start...a lot of fun to be had from first bar to last, especially through Martin Lloyd-Evans’ setting...

What’s On

Cosi Fan Tutte (Garden Opera)

...theatre of a high order, a light-hearted production without a single dud moment....the coded message of the trials of love is clearly discernible in a production that is a joy from start to finish.

Evening Echo

...a total delight...an exceedingly amusing production.  It (Garden Opera) has lived up to it's stated aim of touring productions of the highest musical and interpretive quality, emphasising dramatic content and fine singing.

The Journal

I recently attended the most ravishing production of Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte...(the cast) acted and sang at the highest level...there was so much irresistible logic in such a setting that I wondered why it had not been tried before... the translation of Jeremy Sams.. clarifies the plot almost to a Shakespearian level of tragi-comedy.  The evening was a triumph for Garden Opera.

Robert Tear

The Aspern Papers (GSMD)

The UK premiere at the Guildhall, staged by Martin Lloyd-Evans, did the composer proud, and he was there to receive a warm ovation.... it would be hard to imagine a more sympathetic staging.  Lloyd-Evans dovetailed the two timescales with seamless ingenuity, drawing finely chiselled performances from a confident young cast.

Andrew Clark  FT

Mosé (Birmingham Conservatoire)

A courageous, imaginative solution from the producer Martin Lloyd-Evans to the problem of staging this great Exodus epic...the parting of the Red Sea (brilliantly suggested between two fluttering curtains)...choral singing enlivened by spirited facial expressons and well-projected body language...both thought provoking and moving.

Opera

Wallace And Gromit (West End)

...the evening contains all the inconsequential trials and tribulations which made Nick Park's original animations so delightful.

The Birmingham Post

If you wish to witness adults openly howling with laughter in public then the only place to be this week is the Grand Opera House where A Grand Night Out is proving to be an hilarious night out for everyone.  Extremely clever in all departments - sets, script, costumes, direction and performances.... Overrall, this production with it's masterful mime, funny physical style and super-slapstick is not to be missed, as it is without doubt the hit of the season

The Irish News

Every one of the actors gives utterly convincing portrayals of their characters - they have somehow captured the essence of the Park's puppets, and brought them to life.  This is indeed a Grand Night Out.

"Shakespeare, hamsters, it's all in there" says Wallace.  And he's right.

Telegraph, Belfast