The Yellow Wallpaper

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

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 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

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 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.

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.

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.

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 piece holds together remarkably well, its unified approach underpinning its quietly terrifying power.

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.