Britten: Gloriana (The Royal Opera)

Susan Bullock (Queen Elizabeth I); Toby Spence (Earl of Essex); Patricia Bardon (Countess of Essex); Mark Stone (Lord Mountjoy); Kate Royal (Lady Rich); Jeremy Carpenter (Sir Robert Cecil); Clive Bayley (Sir Walter Raleigh); Brindley Sherratt (Ballad Singer); Paul Daniel (Conductor); Richard Jones (Director);

Central to the Royal Opera's centenary celebrations marking the birth of Benjamin Britten was Richard Jones's witty and insightful new production of the royal operatic pageant that Britten wrote to honour the Coronation, exploring the late life, love and death of Queen Elizabeth I. With powerfully characterised performances by Susan Bullock as Queen Elizabeth and Toby Spence as the dashing and treacherous Earl of Essex, Gloriana is revealed as at once a celebration and a tragedy.

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, June 2013

Reviews

"[Director, Richard Jones] paints the picture with a delicate brush and an affectionate humour which also allows deeper emotion to shine through: his staging of the apotheosis in which reality dissolves into a hallucinatory newsreel is both moving and surprising..." (The Daily Telegraph)

"what performances we get: Susan Bullock is an awe-inspiring Gloriana - imperious, perverse, tormented – while Toby Spence, as Essex, has regained all his pristine vocal lustre" (The Independent)

"The conductor’s reading was ravishingly shaped, though, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House communicated colours with absolute stylishness." (www.classicalsource.com)