I’m out in Kingston at the moment working on a new musical production of The Three Musketeers, at the Rose Theatre Kingston. Some really wonderful music by George Stiles (Mary Poppins, Honk and the upcoming Cameron Mackintosh production Betty Blue Eyes). Click on the pic to link to the official website.

This is the first musical I’ve worked on and I’m loving it! The Rose Theatre are dedicated new company staging ambitious productions. Earlier this year they had Judi Dench starring as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The show is directed by the sure hand of Francis Matthews – this is the third project where I have work with Francis and he’s been a very inspiring mentor in my career to date. It’s capped off a big year of learning on top industry shows, and I’ve been very fortunate.

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Coming up next for me is a project I am developing at the Hospital Club in the New Year. Can’t wait!!

I’m in rehearsals at the English National Opera, assistant-directing on a new production of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Katie Mitchell is directing. It’s turning out to be an incredibly sexy, dark and psychologically complex treatment of the story, brought bang up-to-date!

The story goes:

King Idomeneo returns from the Trojan War having been there for 10 years and probably having killed a lot of people. On the way back home to Crete his ship is caught in a storm; he makes an ill-fated vow to Poseidon, god of the sea, that if he lands safely on dry land he will sacrifice the first person he sees. Unfortunately that turns out to be his son. But wait – it’s also a love story! (of course – it’s opera after all…) Idomeneo’s son is caught in a bizarre love triangle with a Trojan princess bearing a huge grudge, and a maniacal bunny-boiler named Elektra…

I’m not gonna give away too much more, but if you’re curious about coming to see an opera told more like a thriller feature film and sung in English, then get a ticket to this one!

Click on the poster to link to the Idomeneo page on the ENO’s website:

Things are off to a great start – there’s a lot of momentum behind this Programme and Lolo seems to have limitless energy in bringing it all together.

As you’ll probably have read in the side-bar, I am a theatrical Director who is spending this year continuing an ongoing exploration of opera. The smallest opera project usually becomes a big undertaking due to the resources and people needed. I’m not a singer or a musician but I find it very inspiring to collaborate with people who make music and add my own skills in staging drama to the mix. This Residency provides an exciting opportunity to see what other creative specialists outside the proscribed opera domain might be open to collaborate on new work too.

I paid a visit to the lovely ladies at Wild Kat PR last week – they were quite taken by some large-scale photo stills of my last opera film project Tales of Hoffmann – so I dropped the pics off to festoon a tiny corner of their enormous new office. (If you happen to go there and see big glossy pictures of dancing blow-up dolls or femme fatales, that would be them..!) We’ve started a great dialogue about some ideas I have to get opera into the Club, so watch this space.

I’m currently preparing to assist the Director Katie Mitchell on her new production of Idomeneo at the ENO which starts rehearsals in a few weeks’ time – picked up my phone-book sized score the other day!

Please say hi if you see me around in the Club – I’m looking forward to meeting some interesting people here.