Kim Brandstrup
Opera productions featuring choreography by Kim Brandstrup
Opera
Kim Brandstrup works extensively in opera, where he both directs and choreographs. As a choreographer he is collaborating with some of the leading opera directors of the time, including Deborah Warner, Phyllida Lloyd, and Jonathan Kent.
He works regularly at some of the major opera houses of the world, including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; La Scala, Milan; and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Opera Projects
Billy Budd
Teatro Real/Royal Opera House Covent Garden
Teatro Real/Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 31 January 2016
With an immense chorus, plentiful extras and a large cast of principals, the stage heaves with activity (carefully choreographed by Kim Brandstrup) but there are occasional moments of calm, or of quiet, deadly menace. Under conductor Ivor Bolton, the orchestral playing is powerful but transparent, so that voices ring out clear and true.
Carousel - Théâtre du Châtelet
"If the first faltering refrain of "You'll never walk alone" doesn't get you, Kim Brandstrup's exquisite ballet portrait of Billy's orphaned daughter Louise (Alex Newton) will."
Carousel
Opera North
Barbican London, August 2012
"If the first, faltering refrain of "You'll never walk alone" doesn't get you, Kim Brandstrup's exquisite ballet portrait of Billy's orphaned daughter Louise (Alex Newton) will."
**** The Independent on Sunday
Carousel - Opera North
Opera North
Leeds Grand Theatre, May 2012
Death In Venice
"There are subliminal echos of the Rite of Spring in the young boys games on the beach (choreographed with great natural ease by Brandstrup), where the one sacrificed is no longer the Chosen One (Tadzio) but the Elder (Aschenbach)."
Le Mond
Handel's Messiah
English National Opera
The London Coliseum, 27 November 2009
Kim Brandstrup reprised his fruitful creative association with director Deborah Warner to choreograph ENO’s new staging of Handel’s Messiah, marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death.
The Fairy Queen
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 21 June 2009
"Kim Brandstrup’s choreography is both discreet and exquisite"
Edward Seckerson . The Independent
The Seven Deadly Sins
Greek National Opera
Olympia Theatre, Athens , 25 November 2007
The narrative is thrust forward at a cinematic pace akin to a documentary or a newsreel - at times even a cartoon short.
Death in Venice
English National Opera
The London Coliseum, 24 May 2007
“I don’t think I have seen the dance element better handled than by Warner and her choreographer Kim Brandstrup, whose routines of organised athleticism in the Games of Apollo seem to emerge organically out of the youthful playfulness of Tadzio and friends.”
Hugh Canning, Sunday Times
The Fall of the House of Usher
Bregenz Festival
Bregenz Festspielhaus , August 7 2006
“A unique and bewitching experiment…Lloyd and Brandstrup work seamlessly with a superb cast of singers and dancers”
Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph
Death in Venice
Metropolitan Opera
The Met, New York, January 1994
'It may be heresy to say so, but Kim Brandstrup's choreography for Tadzio, his family and friends seems far more relevant to the action than Frederick Ashton's stately Apollonian dances from 1974, which had more the character of a divertissement.'
Peter G. Davis, New York Magazine
Eugene Onegin
Royal Opera
Royal Opera House Covent Garden , July 1993
Valery Gergiev headed a strong russian cast including Galina Gorchakova and Sergei Leiferkus in this production directed by John Cox.
Death in Venice
Royal Opera
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, March 1992
"Another that is new about this Death in Venice is the inventive choreography by Kim Brandstrup ,and a poetic danced performance as Tadzio by Giacomo Ciriaci, the stuff of which stars are made"
- The Observer
