Apollo's Cabinet - A Star is Born

Apollo's Cabinet - A Star is Born

Stromness Town Hall, Stromness, KW16 3BA

Tue 21st March 2023

A Star is Born tells the story of Kitty Clive, soprano, actress and first comedienne, star of London's Drury Lane Theatre, with music by Handel, Pepusch, Geminiani and Thomas Arne.

Kitty Clive was the most famous singer-actress of the mid eighteenth century and was sought after by the managers of Drury Lane Theatre in London. Composers such as Pepusch, Arne and Handel wrote arias specifically for her and she even collaborated with them, re-writing music to fit her style and persona, and championing English musical theatre. Clive advocated for womens' rights both in and outside the playhouse throughout her career, defined her own image and even reimagined herself as the first female comedienne.

Apollo’s Cabinet are an early music ensemble founded at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2018. Since then they have grown in size and perform with a flexible line-up to offer versatility and variety in programming. Their focus is to create storyline-based programmes, interweaving multiple art forms to rethink historical performance practice in a way fit for a modern audience, often including spoken word, reading, singing, poetry, historical dance, acting and videography.

In May 2022 Apollo's Cabinet won the Göttingen Handel Competition and Felix! Cologne Music & Space Prize for their performance of this show and the Göttinger Tagblatt praised it as “an unconventional and original” show where “Baroque meets Bridgerton”.

They are Tunnell Trust winners for 2022/23.