FULL PAGLIACCI Leeds 1994 David Bainbridge. Graham Webber. Sharon Nicholson-Skeggs
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Pagliacci
- Composer: Leoncavallo Ruggero
- Libretto: Ruggero Leoncavallo Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Leeds Civic Theatre, UK, West Riding Opera
- Recorded: April 25, 1994
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: David Bainbridge. Graham Webber. Sharon Nicholson-Skeggs. David Reston. Peter Perkins
- Conductor: Martin Binks
- Orchestra: West Riding Opera
- Stage Director: Joan Waddicor
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Peter Perkins
- Date Published: 1998
- Format: Unknown
- Quality Video: 2 Audio:2
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
West Riding Opera – until 1969 West Riding Opera Circle
This large society produced at least one fully staged opera annually at Leeds Civic Theatre (the former Albert Hall) from 1954-2005. Smetana’s comic opera The Bartered Bride, conducted by W.Iles Pulford and produced by Anthony Besch, was followed in 1955 by a bold triple bill of Menotti’s The Telephone, Schubert’s The Conspirators and Bizet’s Doctor Miracle.
The appointment of Martin Binks as conductor and artistic director of West Riding Opera in 1969 ushered in a productive period which showcased the northern premieres of such rarities as Vaughan Williams’s Hugh the Drover, Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys, Bellini’s Il Pirata, Marschner’s The Vampire; Lortzing’s The Poacher, and Delibes’ Lakme. In addition to these hidden gems came such cornerstones of French opera as Bizet’s Carmen or Gounod’s Faust. Martin notched a conducting tally amounting to 250 performances of forty different operas. His productions invariably featured traditional scenery and costumes, an orchestra of forty-five and chorus of fifty lusty Yorkshire voices. Alternating casts of principal singers would be hand picked from around West Yorkshire and beyond. Gounod’s Faust was the final opera to be staged at the Civic Theatre before its conversion into the new city museum.
West Riding Opera’s subsequent move to the Carriageworks, the Civic Theatre’s smaller replacement, saw dwindling audience numbers. WRO’s lavish productions soon became unviable and the society sadly folded in 2014.