“A magnificent piece of drama… The libretto is packed with intelligent cross-references and telling one-liners…and Adamo’s music is incredibly effective at setting the right tone for the scene that it accompanies, always imparting the right emotion for the people and events you’re watching. By its end, I felt that my understanding of people and life and love had been enhanced, which is a rare thing for an opera…Why has it taken nearly a quarter of a century to reach the UK? On the basis of this production, I cannot imagine.”
“Like a great deal of the best film or television music, it’s incredibly effective at setting the right tone for the scene that it accompanies, always imparting the right emotion for the people and events you’re watching. “
“Treat yourself to Little Women at Opera Holland Park. Adamo’s libretto is smart, his music is accomplished and thoughtful, and its UK premiere features lovely vocal performances in an effective staging by Ella Marchment, while conductor Sian Edwards’s musicality brings out the best from the City of London Sinfonia.”
“An evening full of rewards, musical and intellectual; a long way from the lazy stereotype of Little Women as a novel for teenage girls finding themselves… Though Mark Adamo wrote this opera at the end of the 20th century, it feels relevant, urgent and very 21st century on this, its UK premiere.”
“An imaginatively engaging opera… The orchestral writing was a lot more complex than the Sondheim model, yet the articulation of the text often owed something so that moments of Sondheim-esque dialogue would flower into more complex lyrical moments, and whilst ostensibly tonal the work has all sorts of interesting harmonic corners and crunch bits…Friday night's audience (near capacity I think) was highly enthusiastic and rightly so. Adamo's skill has been to create an operatic entity which has the power to engage the opera novice as well as the cynical old hands like myself. “
“A welcome outing at Opera Holland Park…Adamo made the skillful distillation of Louisa May Alcott’s much-loved novel himself. Sensibly not trying to fit in too much of the story, it gives space to Jo’s emotions, especially her sense of loss as the childhood idyll of the four sisters breaks up. This is where his music is able to flower, contrasting the homely contentment of an apple-pie childhood with the bittersweet pain of memory… The UK music colleges should give Little Women a look. It would be ideal for them.”
"This work is far removed from the verismo style and romantic era productions of Alcott’s lifetime, but I can’t help feeling that she would have been quietly pleased with Adamo’s rendition of the key components from her book.”
