Performances in this series:
Previous performances in this tour:
A Visit to Friends II (Sat 14 June 2025)
A Visit to Friends I (Fri 13 June 2025)
Colin Matthews and William Boyd’s first opera, based on an intriguing Chekhov short story.
A Visit to Friends is an opera about love. Or, more accurately, about love’s frustrations. Drawing on Anton Chekhov’s short story and William Boyd’s Chekhovian play Longing, Colin Matthews’ opera (with libretto written by William Boyd) is, beguilingly, an opera within an opera, with music strongly influenced by Scriabin.
Four main characters are rehearsing for the first performance of a recently discovered opera with a libretto written by Chekhov. Two women are both in love with a man who cannot commit himself, and during rehearsals their relationships begin to mirror the characters they are playing…