Discs — Shakira Tsindos

Little England

In a lonely little corner of little England, Jack and Jill appear to us with a problem. The famous duo informs us that there is a monster nearby, a Miniaturist, who lives in isolation, preying upon children and those alone after dark. They reassure us he is a threat that needs dealing with and that they are up to the challenge, and to trust them as they set off on their adventure to slay the monster.

But the Miniaturist isn't what they said - a quiet man, a conscientious man, living alone and building a model world in miniature in his home. When Jack and Jill arrive, professing to need help, he lets them in, only for the fairy tale pair to attack him and knock him out with their trusty hammers. They subject him to threats, to insults, to violence and to seemingly impossible riddles as they expose who he really is - a gay man, shunned and alone, having fled a society that rejects him and those he would love.

As Jack and Jill delight in exposing all of his secrets, the quiet man explodes with anger, turning their riddles against them and mercilessly beating them to death with their own hammers. The Miniaturist, realising that the bigots and monsters will seek him out even here, resolves to leave behind his isolation and refuses to hide away anymore. Amidst the shattered remains of his little... more

credits

released July 15, 2022

Music – Mark Bowler
Libretto – Gareth Mattey
Jack – Nathan Mercieca
Jill – Shakira Tsindos
The Miniaturist – Andrew Randall
Flute / Piccolo – Enlli Parri
Clarinet / Bass Clarinet – Raymond Brien
Trumpet – Tom Kearsey
Piano – Natalie Burch
Percussion – Aidan Marsden
Violin – Lara Agar
Cello – Polly Bowler

Character design and artwork – Sam Haynes

Amalgamated, mixed and mastered by Mark Bowler at One Glass Eye Studios, 2020-2022

Special thanks to Matthew King, Julian Philips, and James Alexander at Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

Fêtes Galantes

RETROSPECT OPERA

This album brings together, for the first time, important works by two of Britain’s leading female composers of the early twentieth century: Ethel Smyth and Liza Lehmann. Smyth described her beautiful opera of 1923, Fête Galante, as ‘A Dance Dream’. It is a romantic evocation of the traditional commedia dell’arte – the world of Harlequin, Pierrot and Columbine. In an idyllic Watteau-esque garden, we find love, jealousy, deception and danger as life mysteriously mimics art. Will Pierrot identify the Queen’s lover, or must he pay the ultimate price for silence? Lehmann’s dramatic ‘recitation’, or melodrama, of 1908, The Happy Prince, is a musical retelling of Oscar Wilde’s celebrated story of self-sacrifice and redemption, composed for reciter and pianist.