![Anthony Michaels-Moore [Photo by Dario Acosta]](http://www.operatoday.com/AMichaels-Moore%2C_b_w_hdsht%2C.gif)
18 May 2009
Anthony Michaels-Moore — from the army to the world stage.
Currently, Anthony Michaels- Moore is singing Belcore in L’Elisir d’amore at the Royal Opera Hose, London.
Recently in Commentary
ETO Autumn 2020 Season Announcement: Lyric Solitude
English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
Eight Songs from Isolation: first opera written for a socially distanced world
Conductor Oliver Zeffman has commissioned the very first opera for a socially distanced world, which is now available to watch exclusively on Apple Music. Eight Songs From Isolation has been written by eight leading composers, specifically for streaming - rather than live performance - and is the first opera written for a time when the performers were unable to meet in person.
Let Music Live
Leading freelance musicians unite in Parliament Square to call for targeted support for colleagues in the arts and entertainment sector.
Murphy & Attridge celebrate performers' humanity with a creative response to lockdown
Duo Lewis Murphy (composer) and Laura Attridge (writer) have launched a charitable song project entitled Notes From Isolation. The resulting songs, featuring some of the UK's top singing talent, are being released online between August and October 2020 and can be enjoyed free of charge.
The Royal Opera House unveils programme of new work alongside much-loved classics for live audiences this Autumn
The Royal Opera House is thrilled to announce an exciting, wide-ranging new line-up for its autumn programme. For the first time, extraordinary performances will be accessible online for a global audience through livestreams and for socially distanced live audiences at our home in Covent Garden. In a global first, we present a new opera in hyper-reality, alongside repertory favourites from both artistic companies.
Wexford Festival Opera Gala Concert - Remote Voices: as part of Waiting for Shakespeare …The Festival in the air
Some of the most famous and outstanding stars from the opera world are to take part in a very special evening from Wexford Festival Opera, including Aigul Akhmetshina, Joseph Calleja, Daniela Barcellona, Juan Diego Flórez, Igor Golovatenko, Ermonela Jaho, Sergey Romanovsky, and many more.
OperaStreaming announces second season of nine new productions from the opera houses of Emilia-Romagna, free to view on YouTube
Following its successful launch in 2019, OperaStreaming streams nine operas on YouTube from the historic opera houses of Emilia-Romagna during the 2020-21 season, with fully-staged productions of Verdi's La traviata in October from Modena and Verdi'sOtello from Bologna in...
Connections Across Time: Sholto Kynoch on the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival
‘A brief history of song’ is the subtitle of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival (10th-17th October), which will present an ambitious, diverse and imaginative programme of 40 performances and events.
Bampton Classical Opera 2020: Gluck's The Crown at St John's Smith Square
Bampton Classical Opera returns to the Baroque splendour of London’s St John’s Smith Square on November 6 with a concert performance of Gluck’s one-act opera The Crown, the first in the UK since 1987. The performance will also be filmed and available to watch on demand on the Bampton website from 9 November.
A new opera written during lockdown with three different endings to choose from to premiere this October as part of Wexford Festival Opera
While many of us spent lockdown at home taking it a little easier, composer Andrew Synnott wrote an opera.
Grange Park Opera presents Britten’s Owen Wingrave, filmed on location in haunted houses in Surrey and London
Owen Wingrave is part of the new Interim Season of 19 brand new events, all free to view online between September and December 2020.
Music and Theatre For All launches three major new projects supported by The Arts Council
The Arts Council has awarded innovative UK charity Music and Theatre For All (MTFA) a major new grant to develop three ambitious new projects in the wake of Covid 19.
English National Opera to reopen the London Coliseum with performances of Mozart’s Requiem
English National Opera (ENO) will reopen the London Coliseum to socially distanced audiences on 6 and 7 November for special performances of Mozart’s Requiem. These will provide audiences with an opportunity to reflect upon and to commemorate the difficulties the nation has faced during the pandemic.
The Royal Opera House launches autumn digital programme with a new series of Friday Premieres and screenings on Sky Arts
The Royal Opera House is proud to continue its curated #OurHouseToYourHouse programme into the autumn, bringing audiences the best of the ROH through a new series of Friday Premieres and cultural highlights.
Take a Bow: Royal Opera House opens its doors for the first time in six months as part of Open House London
After six months of closure, the Royal Opera House is thrilled to be opening its doors to the public as part of Open House London weekend, giving visitors a taste of one of the world’s most famous theatres for free.
Academy of St Martin in the Fields presents re:connect - a series of autumn concerts at St. Martin-in-the-Fields
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is thrilled to announce re:connect - an eight concert series with live socially distanced audiences at its namesake church, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The autumn concerts will take place at 5pm & 7:30pm on two Saturdays per month with guest artists including baritone Roderick Williams, soprano Carolyn Sampson and composer-conductor-pianist Ryan Wigglesworth performing a wide range of repertoire.
Connections Across Time: The Oxford Lieder Festival, 10-17 October 2020
Music and poetry unite and collide across centuries, from the Medieval to the Enlightenment to the present day. This year, the Oxford Lieder Festival will present a thrilling and innovative programme comprising more than forty events streamed over eight days.
The English Concert Autumn 2020 series: Handel and Purcell, Britain’s Orpheus
The English Concert with artistic director Harry Bicket is delighted to announce a series of concerts from 1-15 October 2020. The concerts take place in historic London venues with star soloists and will be performed and streamed live to a paying audience at 7pm GMT on each performance date. The programmes include first-class vocal and instrumental works from the two pillars of the English Baroque, covering different aspects of the repertoire.
Glyndebourne announces first indoor performances since lockdown, and unveils 2021 Festival repertoire
Glyndebourne has announced plans for a ‘staycation’ series of socially-distanced indoor performances, starting on 10 October 2020.
Royal Opera House announces autumn opera and ballet concerts
The Royal Opera House is delighted to announce two packed evenings of opera and ballet, live from our stage in Covent Garden and available to view wherever you are in the world online.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Commentary
He made his name singing Verdi, so Donizetti is a refreshing change. “I tend to play dark, obsessive characters”, he says, “but L’Elisir is fun and happy, so I can loosen up and really have a go playing up the ridiculous parts of the character”. Loosening up is a good word to choose. Michaels-Moore is so experienced that he no longer has to prove anything, so he can give Belcore an ease that brightens the role. He sang the part early in his career, reprising it more recently in Vienna and Barcelona. Soon he’ll be recording a CD of arias, with more Donizetti, Mozart and Tosti.
His next big project will be something entirely new. It’s a new opera, to be premiered at Santa Fe in September. It’s The Letter, based on the story by Somerset Maugham. In the 1930’s Bette Davis starred in the iconic film adaptation, though Hollywood had to censor the racier aspects of the plot. The music is by Paul Moravec. The librettist is Terry Teachout, the opera aficionado and music writer.
Moravec has written a lot of orchestral and chamber music but this is his first opera, and he wanted to involve his singers from the start. Michaels-Moore, who sings regularly at the Met) met the composer in New York, who asked him what he particularly liked in the music he sang “Right !”, said Moravec, “we’ll do it that way”. Because he writes with the singers, details can be tweaked and adapted, even in rehearsal. It’s very creative. Moravec also consulted Patricia Racette, who will sing Leslie Crosbie, the scheming wife. The result is an opera which “sings” well, and is user-friendly in performance. This could make it a regular part of the repertoire.
The plot of The Letter is complicated, full of intrigue. Michaels-Moore plays James Crosbie, the husband who doesn’t know he’s being deceived. The music starts out tenderly romantic, but soon develops an edge as Crosbie begins to find out what his wife is up to. Then there’s a mysterious death. The score has been pared down to flow fluidly to intensify the dramatic pace. It runs around 85 minutes, concentrated in one act and eight fast paced scenes.
The opera is set in tropical Malaya in the 1930’s, and the characters are stylish colonials. Costumes will be by Tom Ford, the designer, so expect beautiful cream linen and crisp cotton. This could be a visual treat. Direction is by Jonathan Kent.
Michaels-Moore is perhaps a natural for The Letter, as he started his career as a commissioned officer in the British Army. He went to Sandhurst and served in a tank regiment in Germany. Status and stability would have been assured. But his love for music was so strong that he quit the army, opting for the risky life of a singer. It must have taken courage and strength of personality. The army made him refund all they’d paid him over the years (he went to University on the British equivalent of ROTC) so he had to work as a teacher in Crowhurst until he was able to join the prestigious postgraduate opera course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
His breakthrough came when he won the Pavarotti International Voice Competition in 1985, the first British singer to do so. Since then, he’s performed regularly with the Royal Opera House in London, where he has appeared in L’Elisir d’amore, La Bohème, I Pagliacci (Silvio), Die Fledermaus, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Cunning Little Vixen, Massenet’s Manon, Stiffelio, Tosca, Simon Boccanegra in concert, Macbeth, Le Nozze di Figaro, Andrea Chénier, La Battaglia di Legnano, Il Trovatore, Falstaff (Ford), Tosca, Attila, Lucia di Lammermoor and La Traviata. He has worked with all the British opera companies, including ENO and Glyndebourne, and has even starred in the keynote First Night of the Proms for the BBC.
Because his forte is Italian repertoire, he sings frequently in Europe. With the Vienna State Opera, he’s done Don Carlos, Rigoletto, Tosca, Nabucco, Manon Lescaut, L’Elisir d’Amore, Stiffelio, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, I Vespri Siciliani. He has appeared frequently in Milan, Paris, Munich, Barcelona, Athens and Berlin.
In the United States, he sings with the Metropolitan Opera, at Santa Fe, Chicago and San Francisco. He was Captain Balstrode in the Met’s Peter Grimes in 2008 : the DVD is now available. His discography is extensive, ranging from Henry Purcell and Mercadante, to Gilbert and Sullivan and Szymanowski. In a few weeks, he’ll be recording a new CD of arias by Donizetti, Tosti and Mozart.
Anne Ozorio
L’Elisir D’amore runs at the Royal Opera House, London to 25th May 2009. http://www.roh.org.uk/