English Music Festival 2018
Radley College, Oxfordshire. “Can’t recommend Lucy Stevens play with music about Ethel Smyth highly enough. Superb acting and vocal performances and some exceptional navigation of fiendish piano reductions by Elisabeth Marcus. Funny, touching and uplifting- A must see!” Light Music SocietyKathleen Ferrier Whattalife!
Cambridge Stapleford Granary “Any singer to take on this task is either delusional or superbly gifted, Lucy Stevens is the latter, with a voice of this calibre, it would be easy for a singer to indulge, but Whattalife! is a seamless balance of speech and music” Jane Bower localsecrets.com
Tourette’s Diva
BAC “Daughter Diva,immaculately sung by Lucy Stevens, is undergoing a nervous breakdown and receiving little sympathy from her mother, sung with equal beauty by Lore Lixenberg.”Maddy Costa, The Guardian.Die Fledermaus
Opera Holland Park“Lucy Stevens caught Orlovsky’s strutting enniu to a T.”David Blewitt, The Stage.Pierrot Lunaire
Edinburgh Festival Fringe.“It takes as much an actress as a singer to bring off successfully that early 20th century shocker Pierrot Lunaire. In Lucy Stevens, the [MillenniumEnsemble] has the appropriate performer. Stevens’ Pierrot was a lone soul, evoking with apparent ease and conviction the variously extreme sentiments and poetic images.”Kenneth Walton, The Scotsman.The Ignoramus and the Maniac
“Eventually, Lucy Stevens stalks on to prepare for her role in Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’, and the effect is electrifying. She’s every bit the prima donna, yet sympathetically vulnerable; her despair is lucid as she expresses her frustration with fame, her loathed audience, and hercareer’s routines. Stevens is breathtaking in the role: her impeccable pronunciation, gorgeous voice and maniacal laughter, itself edged with coloratura, are hilarious and disquieting at once.”Maddy Costa, Time Out.The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
“…some powerful performances. Lucy Stevens as the White Witch, décolletée in shimmering white ball gown and looking like a deranged Grace Kelly, is operatic in her cackles of triumph and rage.”Ronnie Haydon, Timeout.The House of the Spirits
“Lucy Stevens’ portrayal of a spinster whose frustrated desire to love results in adulation of her sister-in-law is an outstanding contribution.”Jim Greenfield,Yorkshire Evening Post.-
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Virginia Woolf: Killing the Angel
“Such a great show … amazing performance as Virginia Woolf and well deserved standing ovation” March ’20
Weaves the life of Virginia Woolf, as expressed in her own words, with music and songs by female composers who were her contemporaries – much of which is out of print and rarely performed. Through Woolf’s writing, it reveals her troubled childhood and her views on literature, Bloomsbury and the challenges women face as artists.
“Lucy is a remarkable performer the way she can go into and out of song and dramatic monologue is just amazing.” Dr Debbie Challis LSE Library
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- Kathleen Ferrier Whattalife! Tells the story of the great English contralto from her debut as a singer in 1940, through her meteoric rise, to her tragic death in 1953. The text is taken from her letters and diaries interwoven with music from her repertoire. Just like Kathleen during her short but full life, the show has a great sense of fun and talks straight from the heart.
★ ★ ★ ★ “Lucy Stevens as Ferrier, capturing the singer’s radiant personality most winningly…always at home in the Ferrier songbook, the warmth in her own voice, matching to a large degree Ferrier’s own contralto, causes a frisson in the audience.” – Adrian Edwards Musical Theatre Review
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- Shakespeare in Song
A song recital that dovetails Shakespeare’s songs with poetry from his plays and sonnets. Exploring love, lust, power and decay. Fourteen composers set, over four centuries, songs from Shakespeare’s plays, interwoven with spoken poetry.
“A remarkable performance, with
magical, deeply touching moments – the audience spellbound, the recitations beautifully delivered and subtly interwoven with the songs – some well known, others less familiar and fresh. Lauderdale House 2017“Another triumphant performance!! Brilliant singing and accompaniment.” Nick Barnes, Chairman Cambridge The Arts Society, South Cambs.
- Shakespeare in Song
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- Ethel Smyth: Grasp the Nettle This is the story of Ethel Smyth, composer, writer and activist, and her personal conflicts, triumphs and relationships – told in her own words and compositions, in a flowing fusion of drama and music. She was the first woman composer to be performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and is now acclaimed as “the missing link” between Purcell and Britten.
“An amazing and important story presented up close and personal by the immensely talented dramatist and contralto Lucy Stevens. This will make your soul sing.” – Rob Webb, founder Quietrevolution
Photographs by Laura Doddington
