A Kind Man
A new opera by Jonathan Finney based on Susan Hill’s book
Following The Woman in Black’s three decades on London’s West End, Jonathan Finney has adapted another work by Dame Susan Hill, and this one will become his new opera, A Kind Man.
Finney has been a great fan of Hill’s work so when she published her novel A Kind Man in 2011, he thought it would make a great opera.
‘The themes of her book really hit a chord with some of my own experiences. In the decade that followed, I kept thinking about it, and finally, I bit the bullet and asked Susan Hill for permission to write an opera of A Kind Man and I was thrilled when she said yes.’
Like Hill’s novel The Woman in Black, A Kind Man has supernatural elements, but Finney feels that here they are of a consoling kind. This is ultimately an optimistic tale of moving on after the death of loved ones.
A Kind Man tells of a couple – Tommy Carr and his wife Eve – who are grieving the loss of their daughter, when he falls dangerously ill. However, Tommy experiences a miraculous recovery that gives him healing powers. But as quickly as the powers appear, they fade and he dies.
But there is hope when his wife, Eve, gives a home to their young nephew, and we leave them as they face their future together.
Finney’s music has been compared to ‘a confluence of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music’. With many years’ experience of singing, conducting and arranging opera, Finney’s understanding of the genre – and a personal connection to the themes of Hill’s A Kind Man – has created an exciting and musically sympathetic work as his first opera.
More details about Jonathan Finney’s A Kind Man are available if you CLICK HERE where you can buy tickets for New Palace Opera’s four fully staged performances in London’s famous Hoxton Hall on 7, 8, 10 and 12 June 2022.
The composer will conduct the London Concertante and A Kind Man will be directed by Paul Higgins, with designs by Harry Pizzey and lighting from Ali Hunter. Gerrit Paul Groen (Tommy Carr) and Rebecca Afonwy-Jones (Eve) head the cast which also includes Lizzie Holmes, Nicholas Morris, Zoe South and Kieran White.
About New Palace Opera: New Palace Opera aims to present riveting, dramatic and often unusual repertoire from both the orchestral and operatic canon and was formed in 1993 by the late Anya Kubrick and Jonathan Finney as ‘Palace Opera’ and has toured staged productions at Holland Park and the QEH, as well as well-received concert productions of repertoire from composers including Richard Strauss, Wagner and Britten. December 2022 will see the company’s performance of the third of Britten’s chamber operas, Albert Herring, following on from The Turn of the Screw (2019) and The Rape of Lucretia (2021).
CLICK HERE for more details and reviews of New Palace Opera