Casting Announcement – Robinson Crusoe

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We have yet another fantastic cast to announce!

Offenbach’s
Robinson Crusoe
in concert 28 July 2023

Another stellar cast and creative team to announce for our concert-staging Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoe. With its fantastic tunes and hilarious plot, this is will be a brilliant evening for both seasoned opera lovers and people who want to experience the artform for the first time.

We are delighted to welcome Robert Murray, one of the UK’s most celebrated tenors, to join us at West Green for the first time to sing the title role.  Robert has performed principal roles with the Royal Opera House, Hamburg State Opera, English and Welsh National Operas, Norwegian Opera, Bergen National Opera, the Beijing Music Festival, the Venice Biennale, and the Edinburgh and Salzburg festivals.

Soprano Lucy Hall, described by Opera Today as ‘terrific’ and The Times as ‘delightful’, also makes her West Green debut as his fiancée Edwige.

Fitting us in during her busy second season with the Landestheater Detmold in Germany, soprano Stephanie Hershaw joins us as Edwige’s friend, Suzanne.

Martha Jones, whose voice was described by The Times as ‘the lunar beauty of her mezzo’ sings Man Friday, Robinson’s only friend on our very own desert island at West Green.

Two fantastic up and coming tenors will be making their West Green debuts. Anglo-Irish tenor Joseph Doody sings the role of Toby whilst Ruairi Bowen will play Jim Cocks, chef to a bunch of hungry cannibals!

We welcome back lyric bass Trevor Eliot Bowes (Le nozze di Figaro 2022) as Sir William Crusoe. British/New-Zealand mezzo-soprano Joanna Harries, who was a 2021/22 Young Artist at the National Opera Studio in London, joins us as his wife Lady Deborah.

The Creative Team

David Parry, Conductor

We are thrilled to welcome world-renowned conductor David Parry to West Green for the first time this summer. David is acknowledged as an inspirational champion of operatic, concert and symphonic repertoire across a vast range. He is known both for the re-appraisal of important lesser-known compositions and for a consistently fresh approach to established repertoire.

Thomas Guthrie, Director

Thomas joins us for two productions this July – Robinson Crusoe and Constanze. A former Jette Parker Young Artist Stage Director at the Royal Opera House in London, Thomas’ revival of David McVicar’s Die Zauberflöte there won What’s On Stage Best Revival 2018. His own critically acclaimed productions of Le nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte at Longborough Festival Opera led to an invitation to direct Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer, subsequently described by Rupert Christiansen of The Telegraph as ‘one of the best productions at this venue I have seen’.

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