Page 196 - ASMF Marriner 100 Coverage Book
P. 196
Alison Buchanan and Bernadine Pritchett in Roman Fever. Photograph:
Dominique Nok
A majority female production team and orchestra match the theme of the
double bill, but this is treated as an opportunity rather than a condition.
Many of the young and efficient production team were from the Royal
Central School of Speech and Drama. Pegasus now has a forward-
looking partnership with Glyndebourne involving mentoring and
masterclasses. In classic Wharton style, the two widows, sung by the
soprano Alison Buchanan and the mezzo-soprano Bernadine Pritchett, are
women of leisure. All is revealed in the opera’s last, climactic bars. As Alida,
acid-tongued and glamorous, Pritchett was alluring, wry, diction clear.
Buchanan, who is also artistic director of Pegasus, has an operatic fullness
to her voice, well suited to the apparently dowdy Grace.
After this comedy came Poulenc’s intense monodrama in which a woman,
Elle, pours her suicidal emotion into a phone call. The lyric soprano Nadine
Benjamin, now a star name in British opera, balanced excess and restraint,
