OUR SHOWS

WAGNER IN PARIS

Wagner in Paris introduces audiences to a Richard Wagner they may not know.
Well before the Ride of the Valkyries, Wagner and his wife Minna endured an impoverished three years in Paris while Richard tried to establish himself amid Europe’s artistic elite.

Ignored, shunned and eventually imprisoned, Wagner chose to conveniently forget these details and barely referred to them again. This story is exposed by Minna’s illegitimate daughter, Natalie, the least written about but most enduring woman in Wagner’s life.

The play breaks with convention by excluding all male characters (aside from Wagner himself), and allows light to be cast on the less visited shadows of Wagner’s personal life.
With Wagner's own rarely heard French Art song of the era woven throughout the play, this is a musical journey not to be missed.

SHE AND HE: MY LIFE WITH CHOPIN

Exploring not just the sound of song but the personal stories that lay behind the lyrics, The Parlour and their guests shine a light on those figures often hidden in the shadows of a composer’s inner world.

In the foreground of this story is Chopin’s celebrated relationship with the writer George Sand. Told from the view of Sand’s daughter Solange, the audience is guided on a journey from the glittering Salons of Paris, through a bitter Winter in Majorca to Chopin’s remarkable funeral and unconventional burial. 

George Sand, describes her tempestuous romance with Chopin, their travels and the Parisian ‘demi monde’. Along with Pauline Viardot, singer, composer and close friend of Chopin, these two woman, artistic giants of their time, explain to us how exile and nationalism, poetry, art and desire compelled Chopin to write his little know collection of Art Songs.