Abigail Kelly

The stand-out performance in all respects for The Magic Flute lies with Pamina (Abigail Kelly), a scene stealer in every respect. Kelly may not get to show off her range to the same extent as Briginshaw, but her arias fill themselves with pathos and emotional depth – none more so than in 'Ah, I feel it, it is vanished'. Even in harmonic duets and trios, Kelly's tone is instantly recognisable, beautifully blending with the remaining vocal lines but subtly standing out through its timbre and vibrato. This performance draws the ear without fail every time.

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Just six singers (alternating casts working through the week) deliver the whole show, working hard with costume changes, visits into the audience and, naturally, wonderful singing, the highlights including Kelly's aria . . 

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The other stand-out for me was Abigail Kelly who played Pamina, like with Stoddart her performance really made the production. As her character switched between reality and dream she was able to portray a number of different personality aspects and she was accomplished at all, being caring and loving to heartbroken to funny.

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Luci Briginshaw's Queen of the Night has all the high notes, and Abigail Kelly's Pamina is more feisty than most."

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Photo Credit: Christopher Tribble - www.thestage.co.uk

Following their hugely popular and critically acclaimed re-imaginings of operas including Tosca and Don Giovanni, OperaUpClose return to Soho Theatre with this bold new take on a classic. With magic supplied by Glyn Maxwell's mischievous poetry, Alex Beetschen's witty orchestration and Valentina Ceschi's theatrical creativity, this production will re-invent The Magic Flute in fabulous new robes for the era of Trump and recessions, casting rays of light and love into the darkness.

Invited behind the velvet rope at London's most exclusive club, Tamino doesn't have time to stop for beggars, paparazzi, or even his girlfriend Pamina.

Above Abigail is in rehersal. Photo credit: Marco Borggreve

For further information and tickets see the OperaUpClose website: www.operaupclose.com/themagicflute

Friday 20 October 2017 7:30 PM
Barbican Hall, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

Laura Bowler - Navigating the Dog Watch
Gershwin - Porgy and Bess (Litton concert version)

Crouch End Festival Chorus
London Orchestra da Camera
Inner Voices

David Temple - conductor
Francesca Chiejina - soprano
Abigail Kelly - soprano
Ronald Samm - tenor
Rodney Earl Clarke - bass-baritone

Crouch End Festival Chorus presents the vibrant and dramatic Porgy and Bess alongside the world premiere of Navigating the Dog Watch by young theatrically-minded composer Laura Bowler.

Based on a recent visit to some remote Atlantic islands, Bowler's wordless piece transforms their environment into an aural landscape using the infinite possibilities of the human voice, with a backdrop of film projections.

This performance marks a new collaboration with Inner Voices, one of London's emerging and talented youth choirs. Boldly juxtaposing Bowler's new work with Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, this performance brings together the passion, energy and quality that Crouch End Festival Chorus is known for.

Booking information

Friday 20 October 2017, 7.30pm
Barbican Hall, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS

TICKETS: £28 / £24 / £18 / £12.50 plus booking fee*

Half price for full time students aged 21 and under
20% discount for CEFC Friends, Crouch End Project Cardholders, and Barbican members and residents
Open to Barbican Young Members' scheme
Barbican box office: 020 7638 8891

Bessie's Wings is a new opera devised with nearly 100 children from primary schools in Lambeth, including Vauxhall, Ashmole and St Mark's schools. Working with a team from ETO the opera will be performed at Morley College on the 22nd and 23rd June 2017. Bessie is played by soprano Abigail Kelly. A jazz ensemble will create the musical world of the show.

Bessie Coleman is a figure of huge significance in African American history. Born into poverty in Texas at the end of the 19th century she became the first black woman to gain a pilot's license, having travelled to France for flying lessons when she was denied opportunities in the US because of her gender and colour. She went on to become a celebrity, thrilling crowds with her aerobatic displays. These stunts eventually led to her untimely death.

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Birmingham's Black churches honor the forgotten contributions of millions of African and Caribbean servicemen to WW1

Up to 1,000 people are expected at the New Testament Church of God, Lozells Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, B19 1NP from 5pm – 7pm on Sunday 2 July 2017 at a special WW1 centenary event to honor the often forgotten contributions of millions of African and Caribbean servicemen who contributed to World War 1, 1914 - 1918. The service will take place in the presence of the Lord Mayor of Birmingham Councilor Anne Underwood, with guest speaker The Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Chaplain to Her Majesty The Queen and The Speaker of the House of Commons. Also gracing the service will be international operatic soprano Abigail Kelly and well-known poet Roy McFarlane. It marks the end of the 18-month 'They Also Served' (TAS) research project led by historian Dr Angelina Osborne.

JESSE OWENS (1913–1980), the legendary African–American track-and-field athlete, grew up in poverty in Alabama but went on to win four gold medals—an unprecedented achievement—at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. (This reportedly displeased Hitler, who expected the Games to be a display of Aryan athletic superiority.) British composer Michael Stimpson's opera about Owens is represented here by five tracks of incidental music for full orchestra, and eight songs in reductions for soprano, baritone, and piano. The songs provide a good overview of both Jesse's triumphs and his struggles. Stimpson's expressive, immediately accessible music reveals hints of the blues and period popular music, but mostly it has a firm classical grounding, evoking the dignity and historical importance of Owens's life and achievements. The haunting and mournful "Home" starts with a slow, steady bass ostinato as the middle-aged Jesse (baritone Johnny Herford) and his wife Minnie (soprano Abigail Kelly) pay tribute to Jesse's hardworking father, who could barely make ends meet as a sharecropper. Both Herford and Kelly sing with stirring dramatic depth, and they blend well. Next comes a bouncy, breathlessly flirty number as young Jesse and Minnie meet in junior high school; Herford and Kelly do a nice job of lightening their voices to play the kids. The third number, "Minnie's Song," is a standout, set in the wistful mode of G harmonic minor, as she contemplates what exactly she loves in Jesse. Kelly gives an arresting, well-controlled performance of this gentle but emotionally probing number, all the way up to a very expressive high C. She also has a strong turn as the ghost of Luz Long, a German athlete who helped Jesse prepare for his long jump event. "Jim Crowe" (with Kelly singing the part of Jesse's coach) features some affecting duet singing about "them poplar trees" that make no judgments about a person's skin color. "Four world records" begins as an excited family scene just after Jesse's historic showing at the Big Ten Track and Field Championships in 1935. It ends, however, much more fraught, as Jesse reflects, "It all counts for nothing / If the battle over myself ain't the battle I win." "Money lies" covers some of the indignities Jesse suffered upon returning home after his Olympic wins. Disappointment and domestic strife are treated with encroaching dissonance and starker textures. Despite unusual passages like this, all the deliberately paced, tonally similar laments run together after a while; as a result, the closing duet, "The empty stadium," doesn't have the impact it should. The five tracks of incidental music, however—sumptuously played by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Stuart Stratford—indicate that the complete work contains plenty of variety. This collection thus proves to be a good argument for a complete recording of the full opera. The five Preludes In Our Time, performed nimbly by the skilled and sensitive pianist Megumi Fujita (who is also the pianist for the vocal selections), offer further evidence of Stimpson's versatility, and some welcome forays into rhythmically and harmonically spikier territory. - Joshua Rosenblum