Another show draws to a close and the cast return to their regular day-jobs with the usual mixed feelings: relief that it all went off without a hitch and sadness that we won't get to do it one more time. And what a show it was, Verdi knew what buttons to press and something in his operas always seems to carry through to the modern era. Non more so perhaps than Rigoletto with its story of a vain and powerful man abusing his position to exploit the vulnerable.

Verdi creates a cast of characters with real depth to tell his story, Rigoletto, Gilda and the Duke have most of the action but the assasin Sparafucile, his sister Maddalena and Monterone who's curse sets the story in motion all serve to bring the drama to life. Not to mention the chorus with its trio of leaders Borsa, Ceprano and Marullo whose spite and complicity bring about the disaster.

Our principals did not disappoint. Nick Forrest gave a masterful performance as Rigoletto, Veronica Brooks's Gilda was heartbreaking and Tim Crouch's Duke was a study in self-serving nastiness! The music was sublime and the Heber Ensemble delivered a fantastic performance every night as always. Each venue was busy and the audience as always were brilliant and played their part in making each performance special.

Personally, I can't wait for next one - I hope we see you there next year.

The Carverhills have sung with Heber for a while now - most recently in Faust when Dave was the air-raid warden and Liffey the landlady of "The Golden Calf". They are a lovely sociable couple and we really enjoy having them with us, not only for the enthusiastic way they enter into any given project but also because they regularly create cocktails for the cast dressing-room ( substituting this for mulled wine at our annual sessions of carol singing for the Bluebell Railway)!

Dave and Liffey tripped over each other in Zambia, where they were working for the copper mines. There they enjoyed an eclectic (aka random) theatrical experience including madrigal singing, barbershop and performing in and eventually directing a variety of shows including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Wizard of Oz, Godspell and Oklahoma. They moved to South Africa where they continued to sing (Johannesburg Bach Choir) and perform in a musical theatre company. After 13 years in Africa, they finally became homesick and returned to the UK, where they have sung with Worthing Philharmonic Choir, Worthing Operatic, Wandering Minstrels and are now happy members of Heber Opera, Coro Nuovo and East Sussex Bach Choir (for a restorative dose of baroque singing).

photo: Nick Ford

One person who Heber would be hard pressed to replace is Tim Nail our regular rehearsal accompanist.

A talented player and composer in his own right, Tim has been with us for some years now, through the good times and the days when things don’t go so well. Good repetiteurs are hard to find and always in much demand so we are indeed fortunate that Tim can continue to fit us into his busy schedule.

Sitting at the keyboard throughout every rehearsal Tim does everything from “note-bashing” individual lines during the preliminary learning process of a piece through to acting as a one man orchestra when we reach the stage of rehearsing complete runs of an opera. When we initially decide on an opera and present Tim with a score hot off the press he will often just remark “ Umm, there are a lot of notes! “ before sitting down and starting to play from sight. As someone who never mastered any instrument apart from basic recorder and the kazoo, I am in awe of such musical expertise.

Not only our valued repetiteur, Tim has also conducted Heber Opera performances of ‘Acis and Galatea’, ‘Savitri’ and ‘Suor Angelica’.

Tim was born in Wiltshire and grew up in Scotland where he studied music at Glasgow University. He went on to study music therapy at the Guildhall School in London before moving to Sussex where he now lives with his partner. Working extensively in the south east as a teacher, accompanist and repetiteur he also composes, and has written a Mass, a Requiem, a short one-act opera, several choral pieces and solo songs. He works with the Brighton Chamber Choir (who will perform Rossini’s ‘Petite Messe Solennelle’ on June 16th at St.Nicholas Church), the Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus for which he does a lot of arranging and also with Neil Jenkins and his ensemble the ‘NJ Chorale’. He has performed with Stefan Holmstrom and his ensembles ‘Resound’ and ‘Rebelles’ and recently accompanied Stefan for a song recital featuring the works of Faure, Sibelius and Vaughan Williams which was very well received. A regular pianist at ‘Jackdaws Educational Trust’ in Great Elm, Tim works with Penny Jenkins and these two will be performing at Bramber Church on June 3rd. Tim also works as the accompanist for Shoreham Oratorio Choir with their MD Marc Yarrow.

March 2017 saw the first performance of his ‘Stabat Mater’ by the Brighton Chamber Choir conducted by the composer. It was written for female voices and 4 instruments (cor anglais, french horn, ‘cello and harp) and was very well received.

Tomorrow is our last full rehearsal before dress and we are putting the finishing touches onto the production. Don't forget to book your ticket for the venue of your choice - they are selling out fast!

Rigoletto & Duke with Ceprano

Set - table ready for play

Rigoletto contemplates the curse

Sparafucile the contract killer

Sparafucile explains his work to Rigoletto

A sleeping Gilda is unaware she is about to be kidnapped

Some fiendish plotting

Marullo dupes Rigoletto

Ceprano's revenge is in sight

Rigoletto blindfolded

Gilda taken

Giovanna has not been doing her duty!

Mike comes from a musical background – dad ran one of the most popular dance bands in Scotland and his sister studied voice and violin at Warwick university- but it was not until he finished college in 1980 that he started to take a serious interest in singing. Since then however, he has not let the grass grow under his feet and has chalked up over 200 stage productions with various societies covering most if not all of the musical theatre genres. Mike’s first performance was in Kurt Weill’s “Down in the Valley” with Opera 3 in Cheltenham and thus “Opera” has remained a constant in his repertoire ever since. During the years he has sung an eclectic mix from the Savoy Operas of Gilbert & Sullivan, to musical comedy and main stream musicals such as by Andrew Lloyd Webber and along the way has even managed the odd play and tap dance routine too. His involvement is not restricted to just performing as he also directs, designs sound and lighting, stage manages, serves behind the bar and on occasion has been found sweeping the stage. Possibly best known locally for his appearances in musicals (he has been the recipient of 3 Sussex Best Performer awards) some of the groups he has worked with are The Wandering Minstrels, (many G & S principal roles) Southwick Opera, (Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus) Oxted Operatic (Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof) and of course with us here at Heber Opera. Being in such demand we are delighted that Mike is back with us for his 5th outing with Heber. In 2011 he appeared as the jailor in “Fidelio”and a couple of years ago took the demanding tenor role of Nadir in Bizet’s “Pearl Fishers”. Mike says he first fell in love with Verdi’s masterpiece when singing the role of Marullo so is looking forward to portraying another character, Borsa, the libidinous Duke’s right hand man in our forthcoming production of “Rigoletto”. When not singing Mike has his head in the “cloud” working for an international IT company. His two lovely daughters having now flown the nest he lives with his dance teacher partner Karen, and their large but loveable retriever in Turners Hill. Along with Rigoletto (Nick Forrest) Mike also enjoys sampling a post rehearsal brew at one of the local hostelries. Purely medicinal of course!

Richard has enjoyed singing operatic roles for the past 30 years or so and has appeared in a wide variety of shows with around 20 amateur companies in areas such as South London, Surrey, Kent, Berkshire and of course here in Sussex. He has sung in 6 productions with Heber Opera, most recently in Dvorak’s “Rusalka” when he gave a very moving portrayal as the Water Gnome.

We are delighted to have Richard ( or Dick as we know him) back with us for our forthcoming production of Verdi’s Rigoletto when he will perform the role of Monterone, a respectable and honourable gentleman whose young daughter has been badly treated and abandoned by Duke. Denouncing Duke as a lewd scoundrel and seeking justice for his daughter Monterone is mocked and treated with great disrespect by both Duke and Rigoletto and consequently delivers a curse on the two men. Duke shrugs it off but the curse deeply affects Rigoletto and becomes the over-riding theme of the events that follow.

Rehearsals are well under way for our May production of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Having had around six weeks of familiarising ourselves with the music we have now taken “to the floor” and started to move the action.

This is always a tricky time initially, as instead of sitting in our separate voice sections with the music in hand and Michael our musical director standing right in front of us to give us our leads we now have to think about positioning, using the floor space, reacting to the drama that is unfolding and trying not to trip anyone up.

Gradually the actual scores will be put down as musical memory muscles kick in, and hopefully attention can then be really focussed on projecting the story by gesture, expression and movement.

It has only been a couple of weeks so we are still in the early stages of production but already characterisations are starting to form. We begin to differentiate the “goodies” from the “baddies” and understand the nuances of the plot a bit more.

Here are a few photos from the second week of floor rehearsal which have been taken by Ruth Harper, the daughter of Jo, one of Heber’s regular performers. Ruth is currently studying for her GCSEs and is hoping to go on to study media and film at college.