Reviews
“Often, theatrical works receive much praise if they achieve a semblance of topicality and relevance to modern times. And yet, director Dionysios Kyropoulos’s work deserves admiration for delivering quite the opposite to his audience. The comic machinations of the characters, along with the magical feats of the fairies, make it hard for audience members to draw parallels with their own lives, but certainly engender a longed-for escapism that contemporary plays often struggle to achieve.”
“such a visionary delivery makes the Oxford Playhouse seem almost unworthy as a venue”
“one is forced to leave the theatre, with sore hands after minutes of well-deserved clapping”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Antonio Gottardello, Cherwell, 16 May 2016
“The acting was superb. The diction of both singers and actors was absolutely clear (with a few lapses in the title role) with real feeling for the shape of the text, putting to shame many professionals. (I was surprised to see no voice coach credited.)”
“This was a thoroughly professional production in all respects, down to each detail, including the programme, which must have taken hours of dedicated hard work to put together, comparable to that required of rowing crews. It is a Company and a Director to watch.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Peter Schofield
“Spellbinding, funny and beautiful”
“The simple fact is this is a triumph which had us on the edge of our seats, laughing, sighing, admiring and (jealously) wondering how performers so young could be so talented. What futures they have!”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Tim Hughes, Oxford Mail, 12 May 2016
“The lovers [...] were clearly very well-rehearsed, their scenes filled with the kind of fast paced interaction that can only come through copious work in the run up to the production.”
“The ensemble of the piece were slick and polished, big cast stage moments executed with vivacity and the sort of playful agility you’d expect of a band of fae. The staging itself was fairly stark in many ways, but given the colourfulness of the action going on in front of this carefully bare set it was not a surprising stylistic decision. And what breadth! Acrobats and singers, dancers and actors, comedians and tragedians; absolutely breath taking.”
“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a member of the audience that genuinely didn’t enjoy the evening of full entertainment. This reviewer certainly left the Oxford Playhouse with the impression that this was not your average production, and not your average cast.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Imogen Stead, The Oxford Student, 11 May 2016
“The acting itself was of an incredibly high standard throughout, and carried the performance through to the end so that any potential for the play to feel broken up or bitty because of the extended musical interludes was eliminated.”
“The chorus deserves a special mention, managing to effect complex movements around the stage whilst singing in beautiful harmony and complementing the highly talented individual acts of singing, dancing and acrobatics.”
“Overall, this was a very impressive production, especially considering the size and scale of the endeavour, and bodes well for the resurgence in Oxford student opera and semi-opera in the future.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Sorel Evans, The Oxford Student, 11 May 2016
“It was a great pleasure yesterday evening to attend an ambitious student production of ‘The Fairy Queen’, in which a compressed and modified version of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is combined with the sublime music of Purcell. Looking through the impressive cast list of actors, singers, dancers, orchestra and production team, I must have counted at least ninety participants, and to bind them together into a coherent whole, as the director, Dionysios Kyropoulos, contrived to do, was no mean achievement.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Charles Atkinson, Theatre World, 9 May 2016
“Theatron Novum production of The Fairy Queen at the Playhouse last night was spectacular”
“Director Dionysios Kyropoulos' reading was of a 'multifaceted spectacle' and he succeeded in bringing the magical story to magnificent life.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Alison Boulton, Daily Info, 4 May 2016
“The passion and commitment of Dionysios to his production and to his cast seeps through into all parts of the performance – everyone I was introduced to from the cast and crew was overwhelmingly excited about what they are achieving”
“a collective, collaborative effort, from a cast that is clearly proud of itself, its achievements, and each other, all led by the energy and enthusiasm of their director, dancing along with them, springing into action and injecting a good dose of fun and lightheartedness into the proceedings, as is only fitting for the nature of what he is directing.”
- Preview of The Fairy Queen by Imogen Stead, The Oxford Student, 17 May 2016
“a truly resonating performance - in every sense of the word”
- Review of The Prophetess by Catrin Haberfield, The Oxford Student, 6 November 2015
“a show professionally produced and executed with acuity”
“Special praise must be reserved for the director, Dionysios Kyropoulos, who injected considerable flamboyance into what might easily have been a static, drab production – opera of this period is tricky: its fondness for long arias sets a considerable challenge for any director. The movement, the set, the costumes: all was efficient without ever trespassing into the officiousness which lamentably characterises the majority of modern opera, student and professional. The slick ideas with which the production teemed seldom obscured the action or music, and often enhanced it. Quite an accolade.”
“ambitiously assailed – efficiently executed”
★★★★
- Review of The Prophetess by Titus Badawi-Crook, Cherwell, 31 October 2015
“an immensely slick and self-assured production”
“lots of different styles, modes and types of performance”
“poetry in motion”
- Review of The Prophetess by William Shaw, The Oxford Student, 31 October 2015
“imaginative staging, and a striking interpretation of old and new”
“a performance which makes liberal use of physical theatre techniques”
“The Prophetess’s greatest strengths lie in its ensemble scenes and songs, when the actor-singers really show what they are made of, and the level of detail in the interlocking of old and modern motifs”
“The elements of physical theatre were almost flawlessly integrated, and especially well handled in the transitioning between scenes”
“Any expectations about what opera is, and about what opera can and should do, will be completely blown out of the water by this production. The Prophetess is the imaginative, innovative result of tradition and modernity interlocking to form a virtually seamless opera”
- Review of The Prophetess by Alexia Kirk, The Oxford Culture Review, 30 October 2015
“extremely well-choreographed and well-executed, a testament to Dionysios’s attention to detail”
- Preview of The Doctor In Spite of Himself by Hannah Dewhirst, Cherwell, 9 March 2015
“such a visionary delivery makes the Oxford Playhouse seem almost unworthy as a venue”
“one is forced to leave the theatre, with sore hands after minutes of well-deserved clapping”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Antonio Gottardello, Cherwell, 16 May 2016
“The acting was superb. The diction of both singers and actors was absolutely clear (with a few lapses in the title role) with real feeling for the shape of the text, putting to shame many professionals. (I was surprised to see no voice coach credited.)”
“This was a thoroughly professional production in all respects, down to each detail, including the programme, which must have taken hours of dedicated hard work to put together, comparable to that required of rowing crews. It is a Company and a Director to watch.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Peter Schofield
“Spellbinding, funny and beautiful”
“The simple fact is this is a triumph which had us on the edge of our seats, laughing, sighing, admiring and (jealously) wondering how performers so young could be so talented. What futures they have!”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Tim Hughes, Oxford Mail, 12 May 2016
“The lovers [...] were clearly very well-rehearsed, their scenes filled with the kind of fast paced interaction that can only come through copious work in the run up to the production.”
“The ensemble of the piece were slick and polished, big cast stage moments executed with vivacity and the sort of playful agility you’d expect of a band of fae. The staging itself was fairly stark in many ways, but given the colourfulness of the action going on in front of this carefully bare set it was not a surprising stylistic decision. And what breadth! Acrobats and singers, dancers and actors, comedians and tragedians; absolutely breath taking.”
“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a member of the audience that genuinely didn’t enjoy the evening of full entertainment. This reviewer certainly left the Oxford Playhouse with the impression that this was not your average production, and not your average cast.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Imogen Stead, The Oxford Student, 11 May 2016
“The acting itself was of an incredibly high standard throughout, and carried the performance through to the end so that any potential for the play to feel broken up or bitty because of the extended musical interludes was eliminated.”
“The chorus deserves a special mention, managing to effect complex movements around the stage whilst singing in beautiful harmony and complementing the highly talented individual acts of singing, dancing and acrobatics.”
“Overall, this was a very impressive production, especially considering the size and scale of the endeavour, and bodes well for the resurgence in Oxford student opera and semi-opera in the future.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Sorel Evans, The Oxford Student, 11 May 2016
“It was a great pleasure yesterday evening to attend an ambitious student production of ‘The Fairy Queen’, in which a compressed and modified version of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is combined with the sublime music of Purcell. Looking through the impressive cast list of actors, singers, dancers, orchestra and production team, I must have counted at least ninety participants, and to bind them together into a coherent whole, as the director, Dionysios Kyropoulos, contrived to do, was no mean achievement.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Charles Atkinson, Theatre World, 9 May 2016
“Theatron Novum production of The Fairy Queen at the Playhouse last night was spectacular”
“Director Dionysios Kyropoulos' reading was of a 'multifaceted spectacle' and he succeeded in bringing the magical story to magnificent life.”
- Review of The Fairy Queen by Alison Boulton, Daily Info, 4 May 2016
“The passion and commitment of Dionysios to his production and to his cast seeps through into all parts of the performance – everyone I was introduced to from the cast and crew was overwhelmingly excited about what they are achieving”
“a collective, collaborative effort, from a cast that is clearly proud of itself, its achievements, and each other, all led by the energy and enthusiasm of their director, dancing along with them, springing into action and injecting a good dose of fun and lightheartedness into the proceedings, as is only fitting for the nature of what he is directing.”
- Preview of The Fairy Queen by Imogen Stead, The Oxford Student, 17 May 2016
“a truly resonating performance - in every sense of the word”
- Review of The Prophetess by Catrin Haberfield, The Oxford Student, 6 November 2015
“a show professionally produced and executed with acuity”
“Special praise must be reserved for the director, Dionysios Kyropoulos, who injected considerable flamboyance into what might easily have been a static, drab production – opera of this period is tricky: its fondness for long arias sets a considerable challenge for any director. The movement, the set, the costumes: all was efficient without ever trespassing into the officiousness which lamentably characterises the majority of modern opera, student and professional. The slick ideas with which the production teemed seldom obscured the action or music, and often enhanced it. Quite an accolade.”
“ambitiously assailed – efficiently executed”
★★★★
- Review of The Prophetess by Titus Badawi-Crook, Cherwell, 31 October 2015
“an immensely slick and self-assured production”
“lots of different styles, modes and types of performance”
“poetry in motion”
- Review of The Prophetess by William Shaw, The Oxford Student, 31 October 2015
“imaginative staging, and a striking interpretation of old and new”
“a performance which makes liberal use of physical theatre techniques”
“The Prophetess’s greatest strengths lie in its ensemble scenes and songs, when the actor-singers really show what they are made of, and the level of detail in the interlocking of old and modern motifs”
“The elements of physical theatre were almost flawlessly integrated, and especially well handled in the transitioning between scenes”
“Any expectations about what opera is, and about what opera can and should do, will be completely blown out of the water by this production. The Prophetess is the imaginative, innovative result of tradition and modernity interlocking to form a virtually seamless opera”
- Review of The Prophetess by Alexia Kirk, The Oxford Culture Review, 30 October 2015
“extremely well-choreographed and well-executed, a testament to Dionysios’s attention to detail”
- Preview of The Doctor In Spite of Himself by Hannah Dewhirst, Cherwell, 9 March 2015