Madama Butterfly and Carmen at Theatre Royal Brighton

Award-winning opera producer Ellen Kent returns to Theatre Royal Brighton with the International Opera Festival tour.

Madama Butterfly will be on Wednesday, March 9 and Carmen on Thursday, March 10.

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Korean soprano Elena Dee returns to sing her critically-acclaimed role as Cio Cio San, plus soprano Alyona Kistenyova.

Vasyl Vasylenko, artistic director and conductor for the National Municipal Opera and Ballet Theatre, Kiev, returns. Also returning is the guest conductor and artistic director of the National Opera of Moldovo, Nicolae Dohotaru with 30 members of the National Ukrainian Orchestra, Kiev.

Madama Butterfly, playing Wednesday, March 9 at Theatre Royal Brighton, is Puccini’s popular tale which the hit West End musical Miss Saigon is based on. One of the world’s most popular operas, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly tells the heart-breaking story of the beautiful young Japanese girl who falls in love with an American naval lieutenant – with dramatic results. Highlights include the Humming Chorus, the aria One Fine Day and the Love Duet.

Bizet’s masterpiece, Carmen, playing Thursday, March 10 at Theatre Royal Brighton, is an evening of passion, sexual jealousy and death. Carmen is the story of the bewitching gypsy girl whose tantalising beauty lures a soldier to desertion and leads to her own murder. The opera includes some of the most evocative and best-loved melodies in opera – The Habanera, The Sequidilla, The Flower Song, The Chanson Boheme and perhaps the best-known baritone aria of all The Toreador’s Song.

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Maria Davydova, a Russian mezzo soprano, will be singing Carmen and Suzuki in Madama Butterfly on the Opera Festival International Ellen Kent tour in the UK and Ireland. She lives in Rostov, Russian and sings with the Rostov State Musical Theatre, Rostov State Philharmonic. She has sung many roles including Carmen in Carmen, Suzuki in Madam Butterfly, Olga in Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky), Polina in The Queen of Spades (Tchaikovsky), Flora in La Traviata (Verdi), and Laura in Iolanta (Tchaikovsky). Maria has won many awards in competitions in Moscow, Izmir (Turkey) and Europe.

Madama Butterfly will be sung in Italian and Carmen in French with English surtitles.

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