Hattie Butterworth

London

Advocacy, investigation | Cellist | Founder @tmdtapodcast | Editor @operanow @choirandorgan | all opinions my own, not that of the publications I work at 🏳️‍🌈

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Articles

Longborough Festival founder dies aged 83

3 weeks ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Founder of the Cotswolds-based Longborough Festival Opera Martin Graham has died aged 83. Graham established the festival alongside his wife Lizzie in the grounds of their home in 1991 as Banks Fee Opera. Longborough Festival Opera has since grown into an established opera company, situated in the heart of the Cotswolds, with an annual season taking place in a purpose-built opera house seating 500.
London Catholic church hosts concert commemorating martyrs of the gay community

1 month ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Farm Street Church, a Catholic Jesuit church in Mayfair, is hosting a choral concert on Saturday commemorating those in the LGBTQ+ community who have lost their lives for being in same-sex and queer relationships, this Saturday 5 April. Entitled 'A Requiem for Those Who Had None', the concert will interweave music and stories, performed by LGBTQ ensemble The Fourth Choir.
Venables: We Are The Lucky Ones at Dutch National Opera | Live Review

1 month ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

The cast of We Are The Lucky Ones | Credit: De Nationale Opera, Koen BroosPhilip Venables and Ted Huffman know how to pack a punch. These concept kings of opera have wowed the world with chamber opera Denis and Katya back in 2019, then The Faggots And Their Friends Between Revolutions which began in Aix in 2023. This project for Amsterdam’s Opera Forward Festival is their largest yet, their first ‘orchestral opera’ with a score that witnesses Venables at his grandest and most dense.
Verdi: Il trovatore at the Royal Opera | Live Review

2 months ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Angieszka Rehlis as Azucena in Il trovatore | Credit: Camilla GreenwellStairs, in your multitudes. Adele Thomas’s Trovatore is a workout that stuns the stage in the first half and leaves much to be desired in the second. Verdi’s score grabs us from the start and Thomas sails us through the first act choruses with gripping drama. Four acrobatic dancers create a animalistic creepy backdrop to the drama, cartwheeling through the Anvil’s chorus and bringing some dark humor.
WNO announces new season

2 months ago | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Hattie Butterworth Welsh National Opera has today announced the productions in its 2025/2026 season, a season which marks the Company’s 80th anniversary. The year includes a new production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman during the spring season by Welsh director Jack Furness, and a new production of Puccini’s Tosca, by Edward Dick originally seen at Opera North in 2018, during the Autumn Season. Welsh-Ukranian soprano Natalya Romaniw returns to sing the title role of Tosca.
Mark Anthony Turnage: Festen at the Royal Opera | World Premiere Live Review

Feb 12, 2025 | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

The cast of Festen at the Royal Opera | Photo: Marc Brenner‘It’s gone quiet – that’s because everyone’s enjoying their food!’ We can all agree that the general British public can be grating. But rarely is this irritation projected onto an opera stage and set to music with such vivid exposition. Soup flavours are requested, small talk commences and we greet each other often with blinding falsity.
Introverting with age — Things Musicians Don't Talk About

Feb 7, 2025 | thingsmusiciansdonttalkabout.com | Hattie Butterworth

‘No you aren’t – you can’t be!’ is what many people say when I tell them I am introverted. So I doubt myself, second guess the way I come across and think about ways I could appear more like the person I feel inside. But the outer version of me and the inner version differ vastly. On the outside I am confident, talkative and open. But when I’m alone, the colours are more vibrant in my life.
Conductor Daniel Barenboim announces Parkinson's diagnosis

Feb 7, 2025 | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has publicly disclosed that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The 81-year-old musician, known for his profound influence on classical music and commitment to peace through cultural exchange, shared the news in a statement, acknowledging the challenges ahead while expressing his dedication to music. 'I have been living with Parkinson’s disease for some time now,' Barenboim said.
Training the next generation of singers - inside the National Opera Studio

Feb 6, 2025 | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Down a side-alley in Wandsworth, south London, a line of expectant people queue up outside a converted chapel building. It’s a Wednesday lunchtime and the National Opera Studio’s ‘Wandsworth Wednesday’ concert is about to begin. Two recitals sit side-by-side, taking the audience through classic arias followed by transportive Lieder and iconic contemporary repertoire.
Handel: Orlando at Théâtre du Châtelet | Live Review

Jan 29, 2025 | gramophone.co.uk | Hattie Butterworth

Riccardo Novaro as Zoroastro in Orlando | Credit: Thomas AmourouxOrlando Furioso – the epic poem on which Handel’s Orlando is based, has been the inspiration for many works of art in the Rococo and Romantic periods. Though a visually inspiring tale for many creatives, the contemporary feeling is that Orlando lends itself well to a concert performance or semi-staging. But trees and natural imagery underpin the libretto of this opera seria.