Act Four: Young Artists from the National Opera Studio on terrific form in scenes directed by Ruth Knight

Donizetti: La fille du regiment – Young Artists of the National Opera Studio

Act Four: Rossini, Lortzing, Stravinsky, Britten, Berlioz, Cilea, Donizetti; Young Artists of the National Opera Studio, director: Ruth Knight, conductor: Andrew Griffiths; Bishopsgate Institute
Reviewed 31 March 2026

Director Ruth Knight and the Young Artists weave together a selection of scenes, well-known and lesser known, into an engaging tale of love and relationships, forming a terrific showcase

For the past year the current intake at the National Opera Studio have been working with the various national opera companies. The final of these collaborative events took place on Sunday at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff after a week of work with Welsh National Opera under director Ruth Knight. The resulting show, aptly named Act Four, was brought to London on Tuesday 31 March 2026 at the Bishopsgate Institute. Directed by Ruth Knight, the ten Young Artists of the National Opera Studio – sopranos Elisabeth Eunsoo Lee, Rachel McLean, Biqing Zhang, mezzo-sopranos Mathilda Goike, Lil Mo Browne, Clover Kayne, tenor Tomos Owen Jones, baritone Ambrose Connolly, bass-baritone Jack Sandison, bass Peter Lidbetter – performed a range of operatic excerpts by Rossini, Lortzing, Stravinsky, Britten, Berlioz, Cilea, and Donizetti, accompanied by répétiteurs André Bertoncini, Henry Reavey and Alfonso Sanchez Pérez and conducted by Andrew Griffiths.

Ruth Knight’s production took place in and around a Tudor wedding (the men in modern suits but with ruffs), the long table forming a backdrop for various scenes between the wedding guests where love and relationships were put under the spotlight. This meant that guests overheard and eavesdropped, even participated in the scenes as the drama flowed freely, losing a sense of operatic scenes and weaving into a drama. One point about the selection of music, the cast included only one (hard-working) tenor, Tomos Owen Jones, so not every scene featured a conventional operatic hero and some were at an interesting tangent.

Rossini: Il barbiere di Sivigla – Tomos Owen Jones, Ambrose Connolly – Young Artists of the National Opera Studio

We began with the duet ‘All’idea di quel metallo’ from Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia with Jones and Connolly as the Count and Figaro. The two had an engaging presence allied to impressive technical ability which made the opener a delight. The next duet featured the bride and her older guardian/husband with a duet from Lortzing’s Der Wildschütz performed by Lee and Lidbetter. She was a serious heroine but with real charm whilst he brought characterful swagger to the role of jealous older lover.

Stravinsky’s The Rakes Progress is more familiar, and we got the scene were Nick Shadow persuades Tom Rakewell to consider marrying Baba. Sandison made a winning Nick Shadow, engaging and rather seductive, paired aptly with Jones’s vivid Tom. Lidbetter returned with Browne for Anna and Narbal’s duet from Berlioz’s Les Troyens, the two both impressing with their French diction, whilst Lidbetter brought a very different, very French timbre to his voice here. So his dark, serious tones contrasted with Browne’s ample warmth and sense of drama. Perhaps the volume was too much for the space, but it was definitely taking Berlioz and running with him in an impressive and idiomatic manner.

The quarrel quartet from Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was equally vivid as the four singers, McLean, Goike, Jones and Connolly brought a real sense of operatic drama to the piece, leaving the polite English pastoral well behind. This was Britten that was vividly theatrical and highly coloured. The first half ended with more Rossini, this time from Mose in Egitto. The duettino for Anaide (Zhang) and Maria (Kayne ) where Anaide admits her secret love to her maid. Zhang was touching and plangent as the heroine with Kayne wonderfully supportive.

Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Rachel McLean, Mthilda Goike, Tomos Owen Jones, Ambrose Connolly – Young Artists of the National Opera Studio

Part two opened with a piece of strong meat, the end of Act Two from Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. This is where our heroine, Adriana (McLean) is forced to help her rival, the Principessa (Browne) even though the two do no know who each other is. The scene is dramatically risible, though Knight and her performers rose to the challenge, but what lifted it was the vivid drama from the two singers with Browne’s powerful thrilling Principessa facing off against McLean’s dramatic and rather touching Adriana. Over the top? Yes, but terrific.

Things were a little more subdued and arguably more sophisticated in the trio from Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, where Hero (Lee) and Ursule (Goike) prepare for Hero’s wedding and try to persuade Beatrice (Kayne) that she too wants to marry. The result moved between moments of beauty and highly characterful interactions. Kayne made a terrific Beatrice, and the concluding trio was magical. We ended with something of a showpiece, from Donizetti’s La fille du regiment; no, not that showpiece but the duet for Marie (Zhang) and Sulpice (Sandison). Here Zhang made Marie full of charm and character, and she certainly has all the notes, whilst Sandison swaggered engagingly, and at the end the other soloists wandered in and formed the final chorus.

Lortzing: Der Wildschutz – Elisabeth Eunsoo Lee, Peter Lidbetter – Young Artists of the National Opera Studio

The singers’ year is nearly over and their final event is on 19 May 2026 at Wigmore Hall when they will be giving a lunchtime recital.