Kllen Kent presents Tosca at the Liverpool Empire _320
Settling on Puccini’s Tosca and La Boheme as the two other works to round off the tour (touring a single opera on its own is not a profitable endeavour, it transpires), the Liverpool run is towards the end of the tour.
“I have gone rather over the top with these three,” she says cheerfully. “We do things to a high level – if I had more money, I would do it even higher.
“I blow my budget every time, but I am driven by my ideas. My style of opera is painting a picture for the audience, so everything has to look believable. For me, it’s a mix with what I do running a business. If I don’t have the money to pay my staff, there’s not much point indulging in fantasies.
“But when I do something and have an idea, I really go to the bitter end. Every time I do a show, I like to feel I’ve gone a bit higher up the ladder.”
It’s Bizet’s Carmen that has been tweaked the most this time, as Kent decided to take the opera back to its deep Spanish roots, with flamenco, a brass band (local at each venue – in this case from the University of Liverpool, and children from the Elliott-Clarke Theatre School are also involved in the productions), gipsy music, and a bit of tinkering to the ending.
Her Tosca, she says, “has a set to die for” with its attention to detail and finery.
People return to the classic operas again and again, she says, because of “the story, the music, the same way people keep watching EastEnders, Coronation Street or Emmerdale, a love of some sort of soap.
“People just like a good story presented in technicolour.”
And, despite such difficult economic times, she says, if anything, more people are coming out to see her work than ever before.
“People seem to have had enough of the credit crunch and seem to be coming in even greater numbers – it gets people depressed, and if you have any money you want to cheer yourself up.
“We have not been affected in England, although overseas with the state of the pound we have been damaged.
“But we always do well in Liverpool, we have got quite a nice following for what we do.”
The amphitheatre will return for the company’s spring touring season of Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s Aida and Puccini’s Turandot, with one thing for sure – there will be plenty more of what the lady herself calls “Ellen Kent touches” yet.
