St Barnabas Proms – Friday July 31st 7.30 pm

Opera Gala !
An evening of glorious arias from
operas and operettas sung by :

Laure Meloy (soprano)
Jeanette Ager (mezzo)
Anando Mukerjee (tenor)
Samuel Queen (baritone)
with
Gamal Khamis (piano)

Gluck : ‘Che faro senza Euridice’ (Orfeo)
Mozart : ‘Se voul ballare’ (The Marriage of Figaro) 
Donizetti :’Fra poco a me ricovero’ (Lucia)
Verdi : ‘Caro Nome’ (Rigoletto)
Mozart : ‘Voi che sapete’ (The Marriage of Figaro)
Mozart : ‘La Ci Darem’ (Don Giovanni)
Mozart : ‘Non so piu’ (The Marriage of Figaro)
Mozart : ‘Deh vieni alla finestra’ (Don Giovanni)
Mozart : ‘Soave sia il vento’ (Cosi fan Tutte)
Puccini : ‘Che gelida manina’ (La Bohème)
Puccini : ‘Si mi chiamano mimi’ (La Bohème)
Puccini : ‘O soave fanciulla ‘ (La Bohème)

interval

Bizet : ‘Au fond du temple saint’ (Pearl Fishers)
Bizet : Habanera (Carmen)
Bizet : Flower Song (Carmen)
Wagner : ‘O du mein holder Abendstern’ (Tannhäuser)
Verdi : “Gia nella notte densa” (Otello)
Verdi  : ‘Sempre libera’ (La Traviata)
Verdi :  “La vita e inferno” (The Force of Destiny)
Offenbach : Ah! quel diner (La Perichole)
Strauss : Rosalinde’s aria (Fledermaus)
Coward : ‘Senorita Nina (From Argentina)’
Verdi : ‘Bella figlia dell amore’ Quartet (Rigoletto)

Laure Meloy (soprano) made her Royal Opera House debut as Queen of Night in Die Zauberflöte, a role she has also sung with English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, and English Touring Opera. Other roles include: Fiordiligi, Constanze, Lucia, Lulu, Zerbinetta, Despina, and Poppea. She has performed throughout Europe and the USA, and recently joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera, New York, to cover the role of Ariel in The Tempest. Her performances have been broadcast on radio and television, and her voice was featured on the soundtrack of the BBC/Sony film ‘Rocketmen.’

Jeanette Ager (mezzo soprano) was born in Dorset and began singing at the age of 12. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where she won many prizes. In 1996 she won the Gold Medal at the Royal Overseas League Music Competition, and gained an award from the Tillett Trust Young Artist Platform. In 1998 she won the Richard Tauber Prize for Singing at the Wigmore Hall. Since then she has performed widely in oratorio, including performances with the London Mozart Players, and at the Barbican and Winchester Cathedral, and appeared in various opera productions.

Anando Mukerjee (tenor) read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University and studied singing with Kenneth Woollam, Richard Nunn and Nicolai Gedda. . From 2002 onwards he has appeared in opera, concert, recital and oratorio throughout the UK and Europe. In 2006 he made his international debut at the Belgrade National Opera, Serbia, as Rodolfo in La bohème   He is India’s leading lyric tenor, and has sung many principal roles in operas by Mozart, Puccini, Verdi and others. He is also an accomplished recitalist and has a large oratorio repertoire.

Samuel Queen (baritone) is a scholar of Royal Academy Opera. He was Choral Scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read English, and is an alumnus of the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, having played the role of Mr Gedge in Albert Herring in 2011, and appeared at the Barbican with the BBCSO, singing in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges. He won the Sir Thomas Armstong Prize, the Blyth-Buesst Prize for an operatic aria and the Major Van Someren Prize for English Song at the RAM.

British pianist Gamal Khamis has recently graduated from the Artist Diploma course at the Royal College of Music. Having studied at the RCM Junior Department, Gamal completed an undergraduate degree in Mathematics at Imperial College London before undertaking a Masters in Advanced Performance. He has performed at such venues as the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Cadogan Hall. Gamal works with a wide variety of singers and instrumentalists, and was recently awarded first prizes at both the Joan Chissell Schumann Competition and the Brooks-van der Pump English Song Competition for singers and pianists at the RCM, and the Accompanist Prize at the the RCM Lies Askonas Singing Competition.

The sixth series of St Barnabas Summer Proms will be held from Monday July 27th to Friday August 7th 2015, with 6 concerts, ending with a ‘Last Night of the Proms’ Gala Concert on Friday August 7th.   The emphasis is on popular classics played by well-known musicians, providing perfect entertainment for summer evenings in Ealing.     Concerts are held ‘in the round’, with the piano and musicians in the centre of the nave, so everyone is reasonably close to the performers. We have a superb Bosendorfer concert grand, used by the BBC at Maida Vale studios for broadcasts, and a state-of-the-art projection system and big screen so that everyone can see the musicians at close quarters.

Admission for the Opera Gala is £15.   No tickets will be sold beforehand – just turn up ! The church is very large and admission is guaranteed to all events. There is ample free parking in nearby streets. All proceeds will go towards St Barnabas church funds. Thank you for your support.

Location : St Barnabas church is on the corner of Pitshanger Lane and Denison Road, in North Ealing. Its postcode is W5 1QG. Parking is always available on neighbouring streets, and there are no meters or residential parking schemes. The nearest tube station is Ealing Broadway (on the Central and District Lines). From Ealing Broadway, use the E2 or E9 bus services.  Taxis are also available outside the station.