[caption id=“attachment_1154” align=“alignnone” width=“500”] Soprano Mary Bevan (Lila) performs with James Laing (Hamlet) in The Firework Maker’s Daughter. Photo courtesy of Robert Workman.[/caption] The press are lavishing praise on David Bruce’s new opera, The Firework Maker’s Daughter, in a production created by The Opera Group and Opera North. The family-friendly show based on the novel by Philip Pullman is currently on tour in the UK and comes to New York in collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble this May. The Telegraph’s Michael White marvels that the new production is “a relentless spectacle” that left him smiling:
“At last: a first-rank children’s opera, all the better for its low-tech magic… the most utterly endearing, joyous and delightful show I’ve seen in ages… it has the makings of a real hot-ticket. During May it turns up in Bury St Edmunds, Buxton, Oxford and Newcastle. And if you can’t make any of those but have some air miles, it’s also playing in New York. Go.” Read more…
Alfred Hickling calls David Bruce “a composer who enjoys playing with fire” in this week’s performance at Hull Truck theatre in Kingston.
“Bruce’s vividly coloured chamber score skims the Pacific rim for influences, combining gamelan crashes and plunky pentatonics with the incongruous wheeze of an accordion to create a beguiling, imaginary hybrid of Indo-European folk music. The cast are all engaging comic performers as well as fine singers: Mary Bevan’s Lila has a gung-ho tendency to leap before she looks; Andrew Slater is delightful as the hapless Rambashi, whose career plans as a pirate and caterer come to nought; James Laing’s ethereal countertenor seems curiously suited to the plight of a pining white elephant.” Read more…
Ron Simpson for
says “The Firework Maker’s Daughter is a wonderful entertainment: how often can we say that of a new opera?”
“It’s full of magic and themes of growing up and responsibility, with plenty of ingeniously improvised spectacle, but there are abundant unforced laughs… David Bruce’s score is a constant delight, from a cappella anthems to exotic percussion effects. He borrows freely from many sources, with a generic Orientalism showing especially in the writing for flute, and tunefulness keeps breaking in.” Read more…
Samira Ahmed on
, a radio program on BBC World Service, sat down with David Bruce and librettist Glyn Maxwell to discuss sparks, fantasy, opera clichés, and painting fireworks with music.
(Interview begins at the 10-minute mark.) Ruth Puckering for
raves: “It’s a visual feast of shapes, colour, light and sound as the singing, music, acting and storytelling all wind seamlessly together around a cast who are uniformly excellent.”