If there’s a catalogue of all the theatres that exist in London, I don’t know of it. But there are more than you’d expect, in sometimes hidden places. And one I’ve only just discovered is the McIntosh Theatre, Fulham, which you wouldn’t know about unless you’d visited the London Oratory School – because the McIntosh (named for a previous headmaster) sits within the school grounds and is mostly used for school productions.
But in truth, it’s far too good for schoolboys. Built some 20 years ago, it is well-appointed, comfortable, with 305 seats that make it perfect for small-scale productions. And should you wonder why the capacity is fixed at such an odd number, the story is that those few extra seats were put in for Tony Blair’s security guards when his children were at the school and he dutifully came to watch their end-of-term shows.
Being too good for schoolboys, though, the McIntosh gets used for other things at weekends and holiday times. And this month it plays host to something rather different from its normal function in a Catholic comprehensive school. For one week it becomes an international academy for baroque opera that will draw in promising young singers from around the world.
They’ll work on a production of Cavalli’s 17th-century comedy La Calisto, which will then play to the public. And they’ll do it at the invitation of a seasoned opera impressario, Monika Saunders, who’s been setting up academies like this for several years – though never previously at the London Oratory School.
They’ve usually happened at her home: an Arts and Crafts house outside Dorking, Surrey, with extensive Gertrude Jekyll gardens and a rustic amphitheatre by a lake where Saunders stages opera in the open air. Called Woodhouse Copse, it’s been in business as a concert/opera venue since 2000, running like a small-scale Glyndebourne but without the corporate hospitality, the black-tie dress code or the wickedly expensive tickets.
As her singers always tended to be young and at the start of their careers, it was by natural development that Saunders hit on the idea of turning what she did into a training opportunity, as much about the process of creating opera as the end result. Hence her academy.
“In some ways it’s not so different from putting on a normal production,” says Saunders, who was brought up in what she calls a “desperately strict” convent school in Germany, studied piano, but rebelled and came to England, where she remained (although her Surrey house flies a Bavarian flag above the door, for old times’ sake). “The singers come, we rehearse, and at the end of it there’s something for the public to enjoy,” she says.
“But the way the singers are selected is different; and so is the approach to rehearsing, which becomes more like teaching. These are students who’ll need bespoke guidance as they prepare their roles, so we surround them with experienced professionals who give intensive coaching. Sometimes round-the-clock.”
That the academy concentrates on baroque repertoire is for practical reasons as much as anything else: baroque opera tends to be more manageable in scale, without a big role for a chorus, and lends itself to the close-focus detail that this kind of working process asks for.
“But another reason,” says Saunders, “is that there are parts of the world where baroque repertoire doesn’t get studied in much depth, and young singers are never confronted by the issues of style, idiom and ornamentation it involves. Nor do they always get the chance to work with period instruments, which demand a different vocal response to their modern equivalents.
“So we get applicants from all over the place: Germany, France, Israel, America – and usually Brazil, because our music director, Marcio da Silva, is Brazilian and draws people from his homeland. They know about us from advertisements we place in music colleges. And we audition them from videos they send through.”
A standard problem is that there are always more sopranos jostling for roles than any other voice. And a particular problem of La Calisto is that it requires a rare male voice-type called an haute-contre: a high tenor who sings so high it’s on the way to being falsetto, but not quite.
“We actually found our haute-contre here in London,” Saunders says, “and it was so important to secure him we’ve given him a special bursary” – effectively a bribe to stop him pulling out for better offers.
At the end of what will be about a week of preparation, La Calisto gets two public stagings, with a different cast for each one, on April 22 and 23; both 7pm starts.
The Oratory School’s McIntosh Theatre is in Seagrave Road SW6, close to West Brompton Tube and overground. For tickets check the website: woodhousesounds.com
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