A Dream Comes True as RNCM Wins MTA Best Opera

The RNCM’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has won the 2015 Manchester Theatre Award for Best Opera, just months after the College won the Times High Education Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts.

Competing against professional performances from Opera North, Buxton Festival and Clonter Opera, the opera was directed by Garth Bardsley and conducted by Andrew Greenwood, with set and costume design by Michael Holt and lighting by Jason Taylor.

Garth said: ‘I am thrilled and proud that A Midsummer Night’s Dream has won this award. I have always considered it a great privilege to work with the students at the RNCM knowing that with their talent, hard work and good humour it is possible to achieve great things. I was especially fortunate on this occasion to work with a magnificent production team all of whom helped make this ‘Dream’ into something truly remarkable.’

Stefan Janski, Head of Opera, added: ‘I am so proud of Garth and the entire RNCM Production Team and Casts who have achieved this eighth accolade in 26 years, which demonstrates that RNCM Opera continues to fly the flag high against stiff professional competition. Long may it continue.’

The Manchester Theatre Awards were established in 2011 to replace the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, set up in 1981. Between 1990 and 2005 the RNCM won a total of seven MEN Awards and was nominated an additional four times.

The 2015 Manchester Theatre Awards took place on Friday 4 March at HOME. This year, the College was nominated three times, including RNCM Opera’s December production of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene (for Best Ensemble) and RNCM Youth Perform’s On the Town (for the Youth Panel Award).

7 March 2016