In 2024 we will be performing
"Ruddigore"
At Batley Town Hall
Wednesday 24th to Friday 26th April at 07.15pm
AND
Saturday 27th April at 2.15pm
Directed by David Hall
Musical Direction by Richard Buxton
A witch’s curse, a thwarted courtship, an assumed identity and the irksome business of committing daily acts of wickedness. Could amost be a 21st century soap.....
The opera is a parody of the stock melodrama — the villain who carries off the maiden; the priggishly good-mannered poor-but-virtuous-heroine; the hero in disguise, and his faithful old retainer who dreams of their former glory days; the snake in the grass who claims to be following his heart; the wild, mad girl; the swagger of fire-eating patriotism; ghosts coming to life to enforce a curse; and so forth. But as one critic noted, Gilbert turns the moral absolutes of melodrama upside down: Good becomes bad, bad becomes good, and heroes take the easy way out.
