Salisbury Cathedral School News

02/02/2011

Venus and Adonis - Girl Choristers sing for Love

The Year 7 girl choristers travelled to Oxford’s iconic Sheldonian Theatre on Friday to reprise their performance of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis. The girls were playing the part of Little Cupids who are being trained in the arts of love by Cupid played by Rebecca Lyles (who left us in July to join Marlborough College on a music scholarship). They were performing with The Theatre of the Ayre a period instrument group of strings, recorders and continuo including interesting instruments such as the enormous theorbo, small guitars, lutes and harpsichord all led by the renowned lutenist Elizabeth Kenny and professional adult singers. The girls were joined from children from an Oxford school.

A review of the concert said:

13 year old soprano Rebecca Lyles stood alone on the stage as the prologue began, very much the young girl, dressed in her school uniform, smiling nervously into the audience at a parent, teacher or friend - and then she opened her mouth and brought forth the pitch perfect, skilfully tuneful sounds of a mature and professional singer. I don’t think I was the only one in the auditorium who found themselves beaming with pleasure, sitting a little further forward in their seats and looking forward to her next part in the performance.

There were further great moments to come when some 15 or so more children joined Rebecca and Sophie Daneman (Venus) in an amusing choral number. They played their parts brilliantly as the crowd of little cupids, teaching lessons in love. In the final tragic act, their carefully timed, funereal march around the stage, to finally bear away the fallen Adonis, added a real solemnity and emotion to the already heart rending final cries of Venus as she laments the loss of her love.

The performances of all the professionals were impressive and highly entertaining, but the children really stole the show.

The girls were wonderful ambassadors for the choir and the school and the opportunity to take part in such a performance in the amazing surroundings of the newly restored Sheldonian Theatre will surely live in the memory for a long time to come.

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