p r e ss
harry fehr opera director
Oberon – New Sussex Opera
This brave production of Weber’s Oberon is
honourably
executed,
says
Rupert
Christiansen
… the performance it presents has many
virtues, not least in sidestepping the
extravagant scenic demands specified by
the libretto. Instead, the director Harry
Fehr has stripped everything down to
basics, using only minimal costuming and
stitching the episodes of dialogue together
with a connecting narration, delivered by
chorus members.
The Telegraph, 20 November 2014
Naive charm and delight in Harry Fehr's
staging of this hard to bring-off opera.
The beauty of Fehr's staging was that he
took the opera seriously. He did not poke
fun at the story, but instead stripped it back
to basics… Fehr did not push things, so that
he never overstated the idea of the fairies
creating the entire story but just left us to
work it out for ourselves. Similarly, he did
not over-work the striking modern parallels
of a soldier going to Bagdhad and coming
back with a clearly Muslim wife!
Planet Hughill, 20 November 2014
The Adventures of Count Ory –
Blackheath Halls Opera
Harry Fehr works wonders in imbuing
each chorus member with a fully-rounded
character.
What’s on Stage, 16 July 2014
La Finta
Festival
Gardiniera
–
Buxton
Harry Fehr’s Buxton staging makes a
surprisingly
strong
case
for
this
disregarded piece.
5 stars The Guardian, 9 July 2013
… in this dazzling, bold and inventive
production we have a novel modern setting
under Harry Fehr’s direction … For a
production full of ideas and fun, Fehr has
an exceptional seven-strong cast, who give
a first-rate ensemble performance.
The Arts Desk, 8 July 2013
Cont / …
cphillips@caroline-phillips.co.uk
T: +44 [0]1249 716 716
www.caroline-phillips.co.uk
The Flying Dutchman for Scottish
Opera.
This enthralling production of The Flying
Dutchman goes back to Wagner’s original
plans of staging the opera in Scotland... By
grounding the action in a small Scottish
fishing community, director Harry Fehr
highlights the incongruity between the
fantastical legend and reality.
The Lady From The Sea for Scottish
Opera. Winner of a Bank of Scotland
Herald Angel Award
And filmic solutions are fundamental to the
joint visual input of director Harry Fehr
and designer Yannis Thavoris, whose
uncluttered treatment of the quick-fire
episodical structure is strikingly deepened
by evocative watery projections.
4 stars The Telegraph, 5 April 2013
Scotsman, 30 August 2012
He showed how to bring Handel up-to-date
by setting Orlando at the start of the 20th
century, now Harry Fehr has turned a
similar trick with Wagner, bringing his
Dutchman ashore from the North Sea to
1970s Scotland. It is a device that is a
complete success in narrative terms. This
may be a very domestic version of the story,
full of recognisable scenes, but it loses none
of the psychological depth …
… and Harry Fehr's production, in Yannis
Thavoris's elegant period designs, looks
handsome, making neat uses of video
projections of a dark, roiling sea.
4 stars The Herald 5 April 2013
By restoring the original location and
names, then, Scottish Opera's new
production brings the drama back home.
Director Harry Fehr has more sense than
to go in for tartanalia, though, or the
Romantic mists of Walter Scott's Scotland
... After a sturdy overture, the curtain rises
on a 1970s northeast fishing town … It’s a
thoughtful
and
thought-provoking
production
4 stars The Guardian, 5 April 2013
It is the triumph of Harry Fehr's
production that it wrings every last drop of
emotional engagement from the material
Scottish Daily Express, 14 April 2013
The Guardian, 30 August 2012
Scottish Opera’s production, however, is
first-rate.
Harry
Fehr’s
elegantly
designed staging does what it can to clarify
and sharpen the hazy drift of the
proceedings
The Telegraph, 30 August 2012
Cendrillon for Blackheath Opera
Back at Harry Fehr's cutesome celebrityculture reading of Perrault's fairy tale, it
was time to break open the tissues as
fairies of all ages, from primary-school
children to pensioners, sang with Sally
Silver's Fairy Godmother and a sublime
quintet of Trinity Laban students in
nighties, pyjamas and wings.
The Independent, 22 July 2012
Cont / …
Cosi fan Tutte for Opera Holland
Park
A lively, well directed staging by Harry
Fehr.
Opera, August 2012
Perceptive details are equally abundant in
Harry Fehr's bone-china staging of Così
fan tutte. … For a comedy, Così is bitterly
sad.
The Independent, 18 June 2012
What a refreshing novelty! A production of
Così fan tutte that actually places the
action in its original eighteenth century
setting! It almost seems unusual to find
one today, but Harry Fehr proves that it
is far from necessary to utilise a single
mobile phone or video projection to
produce a conceptually clever, brilliantly
dynamic and ultimately relevant evening
for a twenty-first century audience. .. This
Così fan tutte may be a laugh a minute, but
it is also remarkably bitter sweet, and all
the more effective for being so.
**** Music OMH, 1 June 2012
Harry Fehr’s cunning
intelligent production
and
highly
The Times, 12 June 2012
This is a polished and pacey display, buffed
to perfection by director Harry Fehr.
The Stage, 11 June 2012
Opera Holland Park’s Mozart-Da Ponte
cycle … concludes with a Così fan tutte
that’s near-ideal. On second thoughts scrub
the “near”, for this hidden gem of a
production, tucked away in a London park,
is the best thing I’ve seen all year. With
sublime singing and playing, sensitive
conducting and a stage concept of
disarming ingenuity … [the concept] is a
brilliant idea, apt yet unsettling, and it
succeeds on every level. […] This
production of Così fan tutte is a total
triumph and a proud peacock-feather in
OHP’s cap. Intelligent, clever, beautifully
designed by Alex Eales and musically
transcendent, it demands to be seen …
ClassicalSource.com, 8 June 2012
Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor for
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
One of the most entertaining evenings of
opera I have been at for many years. … a
production of Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber
von Windsor that puts into the shade many
offerings by some larger state-funded
organisations
Seen and Heard
November 2011
International,
12
Especially in such an excellent production
as Harry Fehr’s, the wonder is that the
opera isn’t more often seen… Wonderfully
directed; witty, inventive and congruous to
each character
ClassicalSource.com, 10 November 2011