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Ella Marchment (born 30 May 1992) is a British opera director, artistic director, and an associate professor.[1] She is a co-founder of the campaign charity SWAP'ra, Supporting Women and Parents in Opera, and the artistic director of Opera Festival of Chicago, and Opera in the Rock, Arkansas.[2][3][4] She previously founded the opera company Helios Collective.[5] She has directed the International Opera Awards since 2017.[6]
Ella Marchment | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 30 May 1992 (age 32) Hampshire, England |
| Education | King's College London Royal Academy of Music University of Bristol Central Saint Martins City Literary Institute Bryanston School Bedales School |
| Occupation(s) | Opera and theatre director |
| Website | EllaMarchment.org |
Career
editIn addition to directing engagements in Europe and the US, Marchment is artistic director of the Opera Festival of Chicago[7][8] and Opera in the Rock in Arkansas,[9] Creative Associate and co-founder of SWAP’ra,[2] and Director of Opera and Associate Professor at Shenandoah Conservatory.[10]
She created Toi Toi, a festival series of operatic club nights held at the CLF Art Cafe in Peckham, London; and Formations Masterclasses, a series of workshops that commissioned and staged new operas, with sessions led by figures from the opera world including Janis Kelly, Judith Weir, Mark Wigglesworth, Kasper Holten, Daniel Kramer, Robert Saxton, Stephen Unwin, Stephen Barlow, Stephen Medcalf, David Pountney, and David Parry.[11] Formations Masterclasses were hosted by English National Opera and King's College London.[12]
Opera works
edit- Double-bill tour of Façade, by Sir William Walton and Dame Edith Sitwell, and Eight Songs for a Mad King, by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, (2014)[13]
- Play-opera adaptation of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, by Richard Wagner, adapted for the stage by Ella Marchment, (2015)[14]
- Dido & …, a reimagined reading of Henry Purcell's Dido & Aeneas as Dido & Belinda’, (2016)[15]
- A play-opera co-production of Hathaway – Eight Arias For A Bardic Life by Briar Kit Esme, (2016), jointly commissioned and staged by Helios Collective, Buxton Festival, and Copenhagen Opera Festival to mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. In the work, Anne Hathaway is portrayed as being ‘far more than the wife of William Shakespeare’[16]
- Salon Russe, a Helios Collective and Bury Court Opera co-production, held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, that commissioned and premiered four new operatic works, (2016).[17]
- Assistant directorships at Buxton Festival with directors Stephen Unwin, Stephen Medcalf, and Harry Silverstei, and at Wexford Festival Opera and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with actor and director Fiona Shaw.[18][19][20]
- Associate Director and Assistant Director to Mary Birnbaum on the Juilliard Opera (New York) production of Dido and Aeneas, touring to the Meredith Willson Theater in New York, Opera Holland Park in London, and The Royal Opera of Versailles in France.[21]
- Director of Bury Court Opera’s final ever production, The Turn of the Screw, by Benjamin Britten.[22][23][24][25]
- Director of the International Opera Awards at London Coliseum in 2017 and 2018 and at Sadler's Wells Theatre in 2019.[6][26][27]
- In 2020 Marchment founded an international co-operative called Opera Harmony. More than one hundred artists wrote, staged, performed, and filmed twenty new compositions during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, working in isolation in different countries and different time zones around the world. The operas were broadcast in the summer of 2020 by OperaVision, a free-to-view streaming platform that is supported by the European Union's Creative Europe programme.[28]
Marchment is currently Director of Opera and Associate Professor at Shenandoah Conservatory, and she was previously Director of Opera at Northern Illinois University.[8]
She was artistic resident at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity[29] and Dutch National Opera.[30]
Marchment is a co-founder of SWAP’ra, an opera-based charity that works to address the under-representation of women in senior leadership roles in opera.[2][14]
Opera premieres
edit- US premiere of 4 Opéras de poche, by Germaine Tailleferre, in 2022.[31]
- UK premiere of Little Women, by Mark Adamo, at Opera Holland Park in July 2022.[32][33][34]
- World premiere a new work by the composer and flautist Brent Michael Davids at the Venice Biennale in September 2022.[35][36]
Awards and recognition
editIn 2015 Marchment became the first opera director to be awarded a bursary by the International Opera Awards.[37]
In 2018 and 2022 she was a semi-finalist in the European Opera-Directing Prize, and in 2018 she was shortlisted for the Women of the Future Awards in the arts and culture category.[38][39]
Stage work
editIn 2015 Marchment co-founded Theatre N16 in London.[40]
She has directed the following stage works:
- Private Peaceful (Theatre N16, 2015) adapted by Simon Reade, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, starring Shana Swash
- An Evening with Lucian Freud (Wonderful Artful Theatre at Leicester Square Theatre, 2015) by Laura-Jane Foley, starring Cressida Bonas, Alastair Stewart, Russell Grant, Benjamin Ramm, and Maureen Lipman[41]
- Robbie’s Date (The Courtyard Theatre, 2015) by Michelle Douglass[42]
- King Roger (Random Acts, Channel 4, 2016) by Karol Szymanowski[43]
References
edit- ^ "Ella Marchment". Faculty Directory. Retrieved 2022-08-03.
- ^ a b c "Our Team | Welcome to SWAP'ra". swap-ra. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
- ^ "A new opera company? Introducing the Opera Festival of Chicago, a team of ambitious Italophiles". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "Opera in the Rock to focus 2022-23 season on Black performers, composers". Arkansas Online. 2022-06-01. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "Helios Collective". Helios Collective. Retrieved 2022-08-03.
- ^ a b "Winners Announced". Opera Awards. 2017-05-11. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- ^ "Ella Marchment". 5 March 2022. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
- ^ a b Edgar, Hannah. "A new opera company? Introducing the Opera Festival of Chicago, a team of ambitious Italophiles". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
- ^ "Opera in the Rock to focus 2022-23 season on Black performers, composers". Arkansas Online. 2022-06-01. Retrieved 2022-06-02.
- ^ "Ella Marchment". Faculty Directory. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
- ^ "Opera world could become Hollywood: full of second rate sequels, warns outgoing Royal Opera House director". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ Helios (2016-11-15). "Formations Masterclasses 2016". Helios Collective. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ Bano, Tim (2014-09-09). "Façade / Eight Songs For A Mad King, Arcola Theatre – Review". Everything Theatre. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ a b "'It's time to address the gender imbalance in opera'". Classic FM. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
- ^ "Radical opera: Dido &... | King's Culture | King's College London". www.kcl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ Scheil, Katherine West (2018-06-28). Imagining Shakespeare's Wife: The Afterlife of Anne Hathaway. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-26567-6.
- ^ Helios (2016-06-24). "Salon Russe". Helios Collective. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "Harry Silverstein, Stage director". Operabase. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ buxtonfestival (2016-08-30). "Guest blog: Ella Marchment on her Buxton Festival experience". Buxton International Festival. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ Seymour, Claire (2017-10-28). "Wexford Festival Opera 2017". Opera Today. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "Dido and Aeneas" (PDF). Dido and Aeneas: 2. 6 Feb 2019 – via Juilliard School.
- ^ "A darkly atmospheric Turn of the Screw from Bury Court Opera". bachtrack.com. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "The Turn of the Screw @ Bury Court Opera, Bentley | Opera + Classical Music Reviews". musicOMH. 2019-03-11. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "The Turn of the Screw review, Bury Court, Farnham, 2019". The Stage. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ Hugill, Planet. "One last show: Bury Court Opera's final performance ever presented Britten's The Turn of the Screw in a production vividly conceived to highlight the venue's distinctive qualities". Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "Finalists Announced". Opera Awards. 2018-01-29. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- ^ "Performers Announced". Opera Awards. 2019-03-11. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
- ^ "Opera Harmony". OperaVision. 2020-06-03. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "Ella Marchment | England/Switzerland". www.banffcentre.ca. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
- ^ enoa. "Ella Marchment - ENOA COMMUNITY". enoa. Retrieved 2022-03-13.
- ^ "The New World of Opera | April 22–24". Conservatory Performs. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ Marchment, Ella (2022-07-22). "Everyone's sisters: whether book, film or opera, Little Women still speaks to us all". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-08-03.
- ^ Kenyon, Nicholas (2022-07-23). "Little Women, Opera Holland Park, review: a strong cast can't redeem this bland score". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2022-08-03.
- ^ Franks, Rebecca. "Little Women review — a good-looking production but the music slips into sentimentality". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2022-08-03.
- ^ "Shenandoah Conservatory Invited to Perform at 2022 Biennale Musica in Venice". Shenandoah University. 2022-04-25. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "Biennale Musica 2022 | Introduction by Lucia Ronchetti". La Biennale di Venezia. 2022-04-06. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ Unknown. "International Opera Awards bursaries announced". Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "The EOP". Europäischer Opernregie-Preis (in German). Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "Women of the Future Awards". Women of the Future Awards. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "New fringe theatre opening in north London". Enfield Independent. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "An Evening with Lucian Freud, Leicester Square Theatre, review: 'the charm and energy of Bonas's performance are persuasive'". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ "views from the gods | plays | robbie's date". viewsfromthegods.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
- ^ Royal love triangle | King Roger by Ella Marchment | Short Film | Random Acts, retrieved 2022-06-12