Opera at the Bussey building

From The Bussey building facebook: Review in the Sunday Express 22nd December 2013: Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Opera in Space at the Bussey Building, Peckham SE15

Opera is springing up in unlikely places, the latest being a Victorian former cricket bat factory, known as the Bussey Building, tucked away down an alley off Rye Lane in Peckham. Saved by Peckham Vision from demolition in 2009, it is now a home for the performing arts. Opera in Space makes the most of the three spacious floors with an immersive production by Richard Pyros of Humperdinck’s creepy classic Hansel and Gretel, its score adapted to piano, clarinet and cello. The show opens at cafe level in the poverty-stricken hovel of Hansel and Gretel’s parents. We proceed upstairs for the second act to a silvery, blue-lit forest. After a night in the forest, and an encounter with a friendly white bear, we reach the witch’s icing sugar cottage. Fine performances from Katie Slater as a boyish, startle-eyed Hansel and Sylvie Gallant as his bossy sister Gretel. Rhonda Browne is Mother and Witch, both pretty terrifying. Completing the cast is Stephen Holloway’s boozy Father and Honey Rouhau’s Dew Fairy/Sandman. A delightful, atmospheric evening, and sadly the last performance is today.
review by Clare Colvinoperainspace1
www.operainspace.org