The Yellow Wallpaper
A yellow wallpaper adorns the walls of the room in which a young woman undergoes an involuntary “rest” cure following a postpartum depression. The story of the obsession of this woman forced into isolation with the wallpaper’s unattractive colour and patterns carries an urgent message about social structures discriminatory to women that is still highly relevant today.
Acclaimed mezzo-soprano Clare Presland is an alluring reference point in the role of the woman who secretly tries to write her way out of captivity. Together with a pianist, a cellist, and a dancer, she redeems Dani Howard’s melancholic and extremely beautiful composition with libretto written by Joseph Spence
Our Team
Amy Lane
Director
Clare Presland
Soloist
Valerie Ebuwa
Dancer
Midori Jaeger
Cello
Previously with The Opera Story: Repetiteur in “Snow” (2017), Repetiteur and Assistant Conductor in “Goldilocks and the Three Little Pigs” (2018), Conductor in “Robin Hood” (2019), Piano in “The One with the Skype Call”, “Egg”, “Got your Goat”, “Love and Light” and “Life is Sweet, Life is Shit” (“Episodes” series, 2020), Conductor in “Beauty and the Seven Beasts” (2022)
Berrak Dyer
Piano
Joseph Spence
Librettist
Charlie Morgan Jones
Lighting Designer
Emma Ryott
Set and Costumes Designer
Rachel Bell
Stage Manager
Damien Stanton
Associate Designer
Reviews
Opera Now
The Yellow Wallpaper is a work that creates a comfortable zone to reflect on the past, and discuss how we want things to be as we move forward. The protagonist’s journey through isolation highlights the need to communicate, and though it may trigger difficult conversations it can help us explore how we take better care of each other
Sceneblog.dk
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A little bright yellow pearl finishes off Copenhagen Opera Festival array of newly written works, when the young composer Dani Howard captivates her audience with The Yellow Wallpaper
Financial Times
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Clare Presland sings the role with delicious clarity, velvety low down and steely high up. She cannily underplays the woman’s mental decline, leaving us to oscillate between sharing her delusion and seeing it for what it is. The same might be said for Howard’s entire score and Amy Lane production at the intimate Aveny-T theatre.
Reaction
As an artwork it is profound. In execution it was compelling. Delivered by a team of top quality artists in harmony, with a common cause. The Yellow Wallpaper is opera with true purpose.
Opera
This small company stages a newly commissioned opera each year and the strike rate has been unusually high. The latest work and its staging were both exemplary… This further success for the company also speaks of the entrepreneurial and creative talents of those running it -exactly what’s needed in the business at higher levels, too.
Freq
I sat totally entranced by the opera as it moved along, delving into the thoughts of its character and taking us on a rollercoaster ride of emotions; but at the same time leaving us slightly uplifted by the end.
The Stage
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The piece holds together remarkably well, its unified approach underpinning its quietly terrifying power.
Planet Hugill
This opera was a remarkable, confident step for both Dani Howard and The Opera Story… This felt very much like a personal project, the opera was the shape it was because the creators felt it should be like that, and this was a terrific evening in the theatre. Wisely, the company did not try to perform it with anything else, for a first outing, The Yellow Wallpaper was strong on its own.
Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Studio
183 Rosebery Ave, London EC1R 4TJ, United Kingdom
Many thanks to
Cockayne
London Community Foundation
John S. Cohen Foundation
Golsoncott Foundation
Individual Donors
- Ivan Katzen (in memoriam)
- Kate Olver & Jeremy Young
- Robin Farr
- Helen & Adam Gac
- John Meltzer
- Catherine Hubbard
- Meriel & Jeremy Greenhalgh
- Kelly Hong
- Anna Andreyeva
- David Roblou
- Vladimir Vlaicu
- John Ward
- Martin Pickard
- Fiona Jane Schopf
- 5 anonymous donors