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Ghost Patrol is a one-act chamber opera in composed by Stuart MacRae to an English-language libretto by Louise Welsh.

Background

Louise Welsh is a crime writer; Suart MacRae has been a BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's Composer in Association. In 2009 they collaborated on an opera called Remembrance as part of the Five:15 – Operas Made in Scotland 2009 season. Ghost Patrol was co-commissioned by Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales. It's first performance was given on 30 August 2012 at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, directed by Matthew Richardson and designed by Samal Blak. It has a running time of about 58 minutes and is scored for three singers accompanied by a small orchestra of 4 woodwind, 2 brass, percussion, harp and strings.

The opera's plot follows the fall-out after landlord Alisdair discovers that Sam, a thief he has apprehended in his pub, was in the same army platoon as he: they had "colluded in a traumatising atrocity".

Performance history and reception

Ghost Patrol was premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival. It then transferred to Glasgow, before touring throughout in England and Wales in the autumn on 2012, including three performances at the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House in London. Fiona Maddocks wrote that the opera employs "close-knit musical argument and a constantly simmering orchestral style, using electronics, pre-recorded chorus and inventive aural effects: violins in eerie, double-stopped harmonics, the double bass creating percussive menace by bouncing the wood of his bow. You can hear Birtwistle's influence in the high woodwind laments, but more as homage than imitation". In March 2013 the production won the 2013 South Bank Show Sky Arts Award for Opera.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 30 August 2012 (Conductor: Michael Rafferty)
Sam, an ex-army sergeant	tenor	Nicholas Sharratt
Alasdair, an ex-army captain and pub landlord	baritone	James McOran-Campbell
Vicki, an aspiring singer	soprano	Jane Harrington

Reaction

• FT: "...the orchestra finally gets something seriously dramatic to play....Welsh’s harrowing story, summed up in the line “Only the dead have seen the end of war”, lays bare the lasting trauma of military action, which MacRae drapes in a score as sophisticated as it is soulful – beauty and pain indivisible"
• DT: "Ghost Patrol seems slack and prolix in comparison: it’s a piece of arresting musical gestures and punchy ideas which haven’t been smoothly stitched together, and the interesting dramatic situation .... never builds any operatic momentum."
• ES: "Ghost Patrol struggles, perhaps because Louise Welsh’s libretto tries to say too much. ... MacRae works his orchestra work hard but, despite the cast’s best efforts, the sung lines feel over-determined:"

Stage: "Slightly overlong, but wracking up the intensity, Stuart MacRae and Louise Welsh’s Ghost Patrol ... there is a sense of foreboding"

• Observer: "In Ghost Patrol uses the same palette and an equally sparse and punchy libretto, but opts for close-knit musical argument and a constantly simmering orchestral style, using electronics, pre-recorded chorus and inventive aural effects: violins in eerie, double-stopped harmonics, the double bass creating percussive menace by bouncing the wood of his bow. You can hear Birtwistle's influence in the high woodwind laments, but more as homage than imitation"

Critical opinion admired the dramatic nature of the opera and MacRae's "constantly simmering orchestral style", but some felt that the work is overlong, that the "punchy ideas haven't been smoothly stitched together" and that the libretto "tries to say too much".

• BTG: "Musically Stuart McRae mixes recorded sound with a percussion driven score to reach a climax reminiscent of a war zone....This piece is an exciting mix of stunning voices, interesting new sound worlds and a gripping idea of the ghost ex-soldiers. McRae at times mixes in touches of corrupted folk, wailing strings and an intensely percussive score. However, whereas The Locked Room ensured each minute was truly necessary, this opera could be whittled down further"
• CS: "Stuart MacCrae and Louise Welsh’s Ghost Patrol proved a more-even creation, in which words, direction and score always worked togethe... MacCrae’s music sparkles like broken glass and bubbles like lava. As the tension mounted, clarinets screamed high in their registers. He matched Welsh’s claustrophobic fascination with the horrors of war, through militaristic effects from the percussion. Although more successful as an entity than In the Locked Room, Ghost Patrol poses more challenges to audiences. MacCrae’s music is far more ‘difficult’ than that of Watkins, often discordant and sometimes unpleasant, intentionally so. Sam’s night of terror, complete with taped voices and newsreel footage, was genuinely, deliciously terrifying."

Stanford Olsen

Stanford Olsen is an American operatic tenor.

Between 1986 and 1997 he performed over 160 times at the Metropolitan Opera, specialising in light lyrics role such as Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville..

He was educated at the University of Utah and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. In 1986 he won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions After retiring from full-time performance in the late 1990s he became a faculty member at the Florida State University's College of Music, where he is Professor of Voice and Lucille P. and Elbert B. Shelfer Eminent Scholar. He continues to perform on the concert platform in addition to his teaching and coaching.

Career

A BFA graduate of Juilliard, she joined MOMIX in 1983 where she collaborated and performed with Moses Pendleton throughout the world for eight years. She choreographed and performed with Pilobolus, creating a number of pieces including "Television", "Return to Maria La Baja" and "Lands Edge" which remain in the repertoire, as well as with Marta Clarke including the "Garden of Earthly Delights", "Vienna: Lusthaus", "Wienna: Lusthaus Revisited", "Endangered Species" and "A Midsummer Night’s Dream."

Giobbi founded the Lisa Giobbi Movement Theatre when she was working on circus arts and dance with Circus Flora and working as a staff choreographer for the Big Apple Circus. Lisa Giobbi performed aerial work most notably at The Joyce Theatre in NY, La Scala in Milan, La Fenici in Venice as well as the Boston Dance Umbrella Aerial festivals, the Frequent Flyers Festival and the Santa Rosalia Festival in Palermo. She was a three-time guest artist in the Deutche Opera in Berlin.

Giobbi has created choreography for films including What Dreams May Come and Temptesta and for independent films, music videos, commercials, fashion shows (Victoria’s Secret 2000, 2001, and 2003 runway shoes), benefits, television specials, cabaret theatre, gala presentations and rock cocerts (2005 Amsterjam). Her Off-Broadway theatrical productions include David Rabe’s "Those the River Keep" and David Lynch’s "Industrial Symphony #1". Giobbi has been nominated for M.T.V. choreographer awards for videos such as Gloria Estefan and Tommy Lee’s "Hold Me Down", among others. Her work has been presented in Variety Teatre at the Wintergarten Variety in Berlin, the Apollo in Dusseldorf and the Friedrichbau in Stuttgart. She has toured excerpts from the “Falling Angels” show throughout Europe in collaboration with the British band the Tiger Lilies in "The Tiger Lilies Circus".

Roles performed at the Metropolitan Opera

Opera	Role	Performances	First performance	Last performance
I Puritani	Arturo	6	1986	1997
Rigoletto	Borsa	15	1986	1989
La Traviata	Gastone	9	1987	1988
L'elisir d'amore	Nemorino	14	1988	1996
Lucia di Lammermoor	Arturo	17	1988	1989
Il tabarro	Song Seller	4	1989	1989
Barber of Seville	Count Almaviva	20	1989	1995
Die Entführung aus dem Serail	Belmonte	5	1990	1991
Der Rosenkavalier	Italian Tenor	20	1990	1995
Don Giovanni	Don Ottavio	28	1990	1997
Semiramide	Idreno	7	1990	1993
Falstaff	Fenton	6	1992	1996
La Fille du Régiment	Tonio	3	1994	1994
Die Fledermaus	Alfred	5	1995	1995

Grant Doyle

Grant Doyle (born in Adelaide) is an Australian operatic baritone.

Biography

Doyle studied at the Royal College of Music and was then a member of the Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, where he played Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia in the Linbury Studio Theatre.

With Opera North he has played Sasha in Paradise Moscow, Albert in Werther and Robin Oakapple/Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd in Ruddigore.

With the State Opera of South Australia he has played Starbuck in Moby Dick, Count Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro and Zurga in The Pearl Fishers.

In 2012 he will play Figaro in English Touring Opera's Barber of Seville.

Table

Nadal	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Australian Open	4R	A	QF	SF	W	QF	QF	F
French Open	W	W	W	W	4R	W	W	W
Wimbledon	2R	F	F	W	A	W	F	2R
US Open	3R	QF	4R	SF	SF	W	F

Federer	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Australian Open	4R	W	SF	W	W	SF	F	W
French Open	1R	3R	SF	F	F	F	W	QF
Wimbledon	W	W	W	W	W	F	W	QF
US Open	4R	W	W	W	W	W	F	SF

Sampras	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
Australian Open	SF	W	F	3R	W	QF		SF
French Open	QF	QF	1R	SF	3R	2R	2R	1R
Wimbledon	W	W	W	QF	W	W	W	W
US Open	W	4R	W	W	4R	SF		F

Borg	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980	1981
Australian Open	3R	A	A	A	A	A	A	A
French Open	W	W	QF	A	W	W	W	W
Wimbledon	3R	QF	W	W	W	W	W	F
US Open	2R	SF	F	4R	F	QF	F	F

table

Rank	Player	Win	F	SF	QF
1	Federer	17	7	8	5
3	Nadal	11	5	3	4
2	Djokovic	5	3	8	5
9	Del Potro	1	0	1	4
4	Murray	0	4	6	3
6	Tsonga	0	1	3	4
7	Berdych	0	1	1	3
5	Ferrer	0	0	4	5
10	Almagro	0	0	0	3
8	Tipsarevic	0	0	0	1
11	Isner	0	0	0	1
12	Simon	0	0	0	1

references

Category:Living people Category:Australian baritones Category:Australian opera singers Category:Operatic baritones