Theatreship Presents: Tales of Hoffman + Live Opera + an introduction by Martin Scorsese

Theatreship presents Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger, part of a BFI major UK-wide celebration of one of the greatest and most enduring filmmaking partnerships: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.    Over six events, we celebrate their bold, subversive and iconoclastic films, pairing each with contemporary and complementary performance.

Tales of Hoffman

Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Cast: Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann

UK 1951.  133 mins

Rating: U

With a video introduction by Martin Scorsese.

In Powell and Pressburger's film Tales of Hoffman, Metropolitan opera star Robert Rounseville plays Hoffmann, a university student who is spectacularly unlucky in affairs of the heart. Each of his love affairs with Olympia (Moira Shearer), an animated doll, Venetian courtesan Giulietta (Ludmilla Tcherina) and singer’s daughter Antonia (Ann Ayars) is doomed for failure due to circumstances far beyond our hero’s control.

Alongside this main feature, Theatreship is presenting a live operatic performance of Dido's Lament by Purcell sung by Eve Rhodes.  Eve Rhodes is a British/Jewish Mezzo Soprano from London with a particular interest in contemporary opera and Jewish music. Last summer she received a first in performance from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where she was an Old Royal Naval College chapel choir scholar and Elisabeth Schumann Lieder Competition 2023 finalist. She has performed at venues such as the Barbican, Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall and also enjoys regular musical involvement at her synagogue. Recent performances include playing ‘Justine’ in the UK premier of Libby Larsen’s Frankenstein (Trinity Laban Summer opera), Dixit Dominus soprano soloist (Northampton Bach choir) and 2nd Lady in Die Zauberflöte (Prins Claus Conservatorium opera, Netherlands). Eve recently organised and performed in a concert involving classical, jazz and electronic music and looks forward to continuing this concert series.  

Eve will be accompanied on the piano by Melinda Peschut.  Melinda is a London-based pianist who has just completed her undergraduate degree at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where she received a Trinity College London scholarship and David-Gosling Award. She has had the opportunity to perform in different concert venues in Europe and England. Having achieved first prizes in the competition Jugend Musiziert, she recently made her debut with the youth orchestra of the city of Reutlingen in Germany playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Her passion is chamber music and together with Eve she has been a finalist in the Elisabeth Schumann Competition this year. 

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