How do you descend into Nibelheim and soar to Valhalla in a theatre with no fly tower and limited wing space? How do you manage the tonal shifts of the Ring within a single set design? How do you decide when to use staging to present another layer of storytelling on top of what the music offers?
These are all questions a director of the Ring faces. Amy Lane, Artistic Director of the Copenhagen Opera Festival and the director of Longborough's current cycle, leads an informal session with Longborough's Ring Conducting Fellow Harry Sever, where she unfolds her process, and her notebooks, offering the audience opportunities to ask questions throughout the session.
This event is part of Between the Ring, our standalone series of exciting events designed to fit around our Ring cycle. You don’t need a ticket to the Ring to book for these events.
Biographies
Amy is the Artistic Director of the Copenhagen Opera Festival.
Awards: 2020 Best New Opera Production at Copenhagen Culture Awards for La bohème (Copenhagen Opera Festival); 2019 Reumert Award for Best New Production for Drot Og Marsk (Royal Danish Opera).
Credits as Director include: Roméo & Juliette (Malmö Opera, Savonlinna Opera Festival); The Ring Cycle (Longborough Festival Opera, 2019-2024); Gianni Schicchi (Canadian Opera Company); La bohème (Copenhagen Festival Opera); La bohème (Den Norske Opera & Ballet); National Opera Studio at Cadogan Hall (NOS, ENO); A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Concert production (Royal Academy of Music); Noye’s Fludde for the ACT partnership (Amiens, Compiegne, Cambridge).
Credits as Stage and Video Director include: Bryn Terfel at 50 (Royal Albert Hall); Tosca and Falstaff (RLPO, WNO, Abu Dhabi Festival all with Sir Bryn Terfel); War Horse in Concert with Michael Morpurgo, Simon Callow, Joanna Lumley and Juliet Stevenson (Royal Albert Hall, Usher Hall Edinburgh, Leeds Town Hall); The Spirit of Christmas and Rudolph on Hope Street (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra).
Credits as co-Director (with Kasper Holten) include: Drot Og Marsk (Royal Danish Opera); Marco Polo (Guangzhou, Beijing, Quanzhou, Genova).
Amy was Head Staff Director at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden from 2015 to 2019.
BBC Music Magazine ‘Rising Star’ conductor Harry Sever studied at Oxford University and trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Royal Academy of Music. A finalist in both the LSO’s Donatella Flick and the Athens International Conducting Competitions, recent and upcoming engagements include Cavalleria Rusticana / Aleko (Opera North), Siegfried (Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester / Den Ny Opera), Carmen (Opera North), Fantasio (Garsington), La traviata (Opera Holland Park); concerts with the orchestra of Welsh National Opera and recordings with the orchestra of Opera North.
He is currently the Ring Cycle Conducting Fellow at Longborough Festival Opera, and Music Director of the Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus.
As an Assistant Conductor and member of music staff, Harry has worked with Scottish Opera, Opera North, Kammerakademie Potsdam, English National Opera, the Royal Danish Opera, Den Jyske Opera, Garsington, Opera Holland Park, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the Grange Festival, and the Britten Sinfonia at Sadler’s Wells. His education work has included projects with The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Royal Opera Academy, Copenhagen, British Youth Opera, Birmingham Conservatoire and Trinity Laban Conservatoire.
