Alpesh Chauhan

Alpesh Chauhan

N/A

Most Known for...

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Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk - BOC 2021

A bored, unhappily married woman dreams of love and of starting anew elsewhere. When she starts an affair with a rakish farmhand, her passion pushes her to crime... Birmingham Opera Company's 50th production relocates Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk to a disused, iconic nightclub where, amidst the 150 volunteer actors and chorus, audience members encountered bloody brides, oversized rats and poisoned wedding guests. Accompanied on stage by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and a band from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and with a radical set design by the Banksy collaborators Block 9, ‘the production is perhaps its most brilliant so far’ (The Observer)
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The Rhinegold - BOC 2022

Hidden in plain sight, three guardians collude to protect the gold for those in power. An outsider, Alberich stumbles upon them and an opportunity to make his life matter, but at a cost. Meanwhile, Leader Wotan desperate to hang on to the Gods’ fading glory, struggles to balance power, his own laws and the standards of public life. Birmingham Opera Company, known for staging opera in empty warehouses and disused factories, here performs RhineGold in the relatively conventional surroundings of Birmingham Symphony Hall. The production is from August 2021 with the pandemic still dictating so much of our lives. This is an urban RhineGold; Rhinemaidens are selfie-taking party girls, Alberich is cycle courier, and Wotan is first seen giving a press conference for FNN: Fake News Network. This RhineGold, complete with the new English translation by Jeremy Sams, can be seen as a step closer to Wagner’s vision of a total work of art acting as a lever of change in society.
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The Decision – BOC 2023

Four agitators are dispatched from Soviet Russia to foster revolution in pre-communist China. En route they meet a young sympathiser who offers to be their guide, but when they return to Moscow, they confess to his killing. When is it right to kill? Birmingham Opera Company presents The Decision, a visceral, rarely performed work by writer Bertolt Brecht and composer Hanns Eisler. Here artistic, moral and social challenges come hand in hand. Living through a period of intolerance and censorship in the 1920s and 30s, Brecht and Eisler were both banned by the Nazis. Later, in their new adopted home on the other side of the Atlantic, the pair were investigated by the House Committee of Un-American Activities. Now in the 2020s, Brecht’s ‘learning play’ The Decision still has the potency to provoke. Birmingham's production is described by The Stage as ‘impressive, immersive’ and by The Spectator ‘as an encounter with a genuinely evil work of art.’