Programme
The Telephone is a comic one-act opera written in 1946 by the Italian composer Menotti. It tells the story of a young woman’s obsession with the telephone and it’s effect on her would-be fiance. Despite being written in the mid 20th century, it is enchantingly tuneful, its arias being pastiche of arias written much earlier by such composers as Mozart, Rossini and Puccini.
The Telephone was initially conceived as a comic “curtain raiser” for another of Menotti’s darker one act operas, The Medium.
Despite its rather racy alternative title “L’amour á trois”, the piece is quite a chaste “scena” where a baritone attempts to propose to a soprano, but is prevented from doing so by constant interruptions of his beloved’s telephone.
The first half of the programme will feature a selection of songs, arias, and duets by Menotti, some of his contemporaries, and the composers who he so expertly parodied in The Telephone, which will be performed in the second half.
Rich Moore
Bass-Baritone Richard Moore studied at the RNCM and has sung in the choruses of Buxton, Nevil Holt, Holland Park, Opera North. From 2018-19 he was a chorister at La Monnaie in Brussels. Concert performances include Handel Samson, and Saul with Laurence Cummings at Dartington International Festival, and St Matthew Passion at St John’s Smith Square. He studies with Matthew Best. Following certain health related global events in 2020 he took a step back from singing. He is currently studying for a degree in Physiotherapy, and hopes to find some way of combining singing and healthcare in the future.
Chad Vindin
Chad Vindin is a vocal coach at the Royal Academy of Music and a staff pianist at the Royal College of Music, and he performs regularly across the UK and internationally.
As a collaborative pianist he is the winner of the accompanist prize at the Royal Overseas League Competition, the Ludmilla Andrew Russian Song Accompanist Prize at the Royal Academy of Music, and the Maureen Lehane Vocal Awards Accompanist’s Prize at the Wigmore Hall.
Chad has worked extensively in opera for many years as a répétiteur and conductor. He was a founding member of the Sydney Chamber Opera Company, and has worked as a répétiteur for the Grange Festival, Bury Court Opera, Bergen National Opera, and the Royal Opera House, London. He was assistant conductor for the Grange Festival’s production of Yeoman of the Guard, and conductor for Uncovered Opera’s production of two Strauss operas: Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos.
He is a regular staff pianist at the Oxenfoord International Summer School for Singers and Accompanists with Malcolm Martineau, and he is an alumni of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme. As a chamber musician he has worked with ensembles including Manchester Collective, the Magnard Ensemble, and the Instante Collective.
Christine Buras
Soprano Christine Buras is a versatile artist, equally at home on the operatic and concert stages, whose repertoire ranges from early music, to opera, to contemporary performance art. She received her BA in Music History and Theory from the University of Chicago, and subsequently undertook her vocal training at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Historical Performance Institute and the Royal Academy of Music.
She currently studies with American soprano Pamela Kuhn. Operatic roles include both Susanna and Contessa Almaviva (Mozart Le Nozze di Figaro), Gretel (Humperdinck Hänsel und Gretel), Erste Dienerin (Strauss Die Ägyptische Helena), Cupid (Purcell King Arthur), Suor Dolcina and La Prima Sorella Cercatrice (Puccini Suor Angelica), Hélène (Chabrier Une Éducation Manquée), Lucy (Menotti The Telephone), Theodora (Handel Theodora), and Belinda (Purcell Dido and Aeneas). In concert she has performed as soprano soloist at venues such as St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. John Smith Square, and in works including the Bach St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, and B minor mass; Handel Messiah, Dixit Dominus, Judas Maccabaeus, and Samson; Mozart Exsultate jubilate, Requiem, and C minor mass; Haydn Creation; Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem; Mendelssohn Elijah; and the Verdi Requiem. She is a founding member of the Hampstead Collective, which performs a monthly concert series of song, oratorio, and chamber music at Hampstead Parish Church.
Curry Rivel Music 