Roberto Devereux Reviews

...the hottest ticket in town.
Each year Opera Holland Park appears more of an urban miracle. With galloping anger and fireworks from the Queen (Majella Cullagh), heroic angst for Devereux (Leonardo Capalbo) and poetic remorse, beautifully expressed by the excellent Yvonne Howard as the compromised Duchess of Nottingham. Fine orchestral playing from the City of London Sinfonia.
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer

This opera may not often be performed, but it’s dramatically gripping, and musically first-rate - provided it has a first-rate singing actress in the role of Elisabetta. And in soprano Majella Cullagh it gets exactly that: she brings to her laments and rages a glorious purity and versatility of tone. Mezzo Yvonne Howard, as Sara: a smaller voice, but with a lovely, carrying projection. Tenor Leonardo Capalbo looks and acts a brilliant Devereux. The orchestra plays with passion – Posner’s direction of the final scene allows Cullagh to lose her wits with convincing abandon; off comes the dress, and then the wig, leaving Gloriana like a mad Pierrot bathed in unearthly white light, while the cymbals crash and the winds and strings weep on.
Michael Church, The Independent

Opera Holland Park’s outstanding new production will hopefully secure the work a place in the regular repertoire. Bonynge and director Posner are both strong on the sense of psychological malaise. Bonynge’s pacing is immaculate and Posner conjures up a torch lit Tudor hellhole. Cullagh alternates between wheedling lyricism and vicious coloratura, Yvonne Howard’s Sara is infinitely vulnerable . Julian Hubbard as her husband is terrific. Recommended.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian

Cullagh established her credentials with secure, heartfelt singing, and an even weightier number to end the work. The latter, in which the desolate queen gives way to lovesick grief, becomes almost a mad scene. Cullagh rose to the occasion with throbbing, plangent tone. Equally strongly cast is Leonardo Capalbo as Essex, whose secure, ringing tone was heard to good effect in his Prison Scene. The role of his lover, Sarah, Duchess of Nottingham, is well taken by Yvonne Howard, who brings to it dignity, grace and vocal authority. Bonynge supports his singers admirably, distilling a lifetime’s experience into his pacing of each number.
Barry Millington, The Evening Standard

Roberto Devereux  is a fine piece, rich in strongly delineated characters and dramatic confrontations. Majella Cullagh sang Elizabeth with a pure style and considerable skill: rich tone in the middle of her voice, precise articulation of the runs, clean phrasing and a gleaming top register. Leonardo Capalbo displayed good looks and a polished lyric tenor as the hapless Earl of Essex, with Julian Hubbard and Yvonne Howard singing elegantly as the Duke and Duchess of Nottingham.
Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph

Cullagh’s Elizabeth sings with bite and venom, yet never so venomously as to obscure the parched beauty of the Queen’s increasingly self-destructive edicts. Leonardo Capalbo’s Devereux is stylishly delivered, and Yvonne Howard’s Sara, Duchess of Nottingham polished and affecting.
Neil Fisher, The Times

A cracking start to the season. Cullagh proves herself a coloratura superstar. Posner’s sumptuous production is admirably clear and Bonynge’s conducting is a thing of joy.
Warwick Thompson, Metro

Stylish and elegant. Richard Bonynge ensures stylish playing from the City of London Sinfonia and Majella Cullagh's feisty Elizabeth I, Leonardo Capalbo's elegant Essex (Roberto), and Yvonne Howard's Duchess of Nottingham — are terrific.
Hugh Canning, Sunday Times

A luscious evening. Leonardo Capalbo as Essex, Yvonne Howard as a dignified and graceful Duchess and Julian Hubbard as the cuckolded Duke are all strongly cast. As Elizabeth, soprano Majella Cullagh has a rich line in vituperation, letting rip with the coloratura as she eyeballs the hapless Earl.There's a high-octane finale, too, as she gives way to grief over his death, hysterically relinquishes her power and tears off her red wig to reveal a balding, elderly woman.
Clare Colvin, The Sunday Express

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has devised a suitably regal opening to the season at Opera Holland Park. The stage was set for a suitably stately evening - Lindsay Posner has succeeded in providing a display of Tudor splendour.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times

Under leading bel canto expert Richard Bonynge, the score crackles throughout. Leonardo Capalbo cuts a dashing figure as Essex, rising to a moving prison scene. Majella Cullagh, a comprehensively fine Elizabeth, who conquers each and every flamboyant difficulty in the role and gives a riveting interpretation. The result is an outstanding evening and a fine beginning to London’s main summer opera season.
George Hall, The Stage

This institution has now achieved an all-round level of performance which compares with anywhere else in the country.

This opera demands four first-rate singers and that is what it got. Majella Cullagh’s Elisabetta carried the big guns for some really torrid music, with Leonardo Capalbo producing wonderfully smooth but inflected lines as Devereux, and Julian Hubbard as impressive as the Duca.
Michael Tanner, Spectator

Thrillingly sung and clearly directed. Hugely recommendable and goes a long way to argue for full restoration rights into the repertoire. Majella Cullagh blossomed both vocally and dramatically as the tortured Queen. Richard Bonynge crafting the City of London Sinfonia’s contribution. No fuss, just small gestures, as if sculpting the music in miniature. Bonynge is here making his Opera Holland Park debut, and highly distinguished it was too.
Nick Breckenfield, Whatsonstage

An evening that grants us all the exuberance that we crave from OHP, but also a more profound experience than we might have expected.  As Elisabetta, Majella Cullagh's thick and effective voice combined a sense of vulnerability that might be felt by any woman who suspected that her 'chosen one' loved another. Yvonne Howard as Sara, Duchess of Nottingham, cut a lonely figure as she sang so intensely of her love for Roberto at the start, her voice trembling in lament. As Devereux, Leonardo Capalbo, with his dark hair and brilliantly light voice, was suitably dashing. But perhaps the greatest delight was witnessing Richard Bonygne wielding his baton. Demonstrating a general air of ease he extracted an incredibly sharp and precise sound from the City of London Sinfonia.
Sam Smith, MusicOMH

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