Nicky Shaw

“a splendidly compact stage set which, at first, seemed like a big box until, eventually, it opened up to full-stage width – revealing a striking use of colour and lighting”

“Nicky Shaw’s designs – a unit set that could be broken up and re-shaped, with good looking Edwardian costumes – were quietly effective”

“a very well sung Alcina in a blissfully simple and searingly emotional staging by the artistic director of the company, Annilese Miskimmon.”
“I have rarely been as moved as I was by this glorious masterpiece.”

“Annilese Miskimmon’s observant, chamber version … admitted the sadness at the opera’s heart and brought a woman’s sensibility to something usually presented from Ruggiero’s point of view.”
“The setting was Edwardian – all those buttons yearning to be popped open; the set a simple unfolding cube that was Alcina’s funeral cypress-girt island outside and her red-lit sanctum within.”