About us
Artistic Director & CEO: John Savournin
Musical Director: David Eaton
Charles Court Opera has been described as one of the leading and most versatile chamber opera and music theatre companies in the UK, recently celebrating our 20th anniversary and receiving the Fringe Theatre Special Award for championing operatic innovation and consistent excellence.
We are considered one of the champions of the reinvigoration of Gilbert and Sullivan. We have co-produced four G&S productions with Opera Holland Park, namely The Yeomen of the Guard, Ruddigore, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance, garnering rave reviews in the national press.
For our mid-scale productions, we have won numerous awards, including the Off-West-End award for Best Opera Production for H.M.S. Pinafore. Recent G&S performances include acclaimed, award-nominated productions of Iolanthe, Patience, The Mikado and The Sorcerer at Wilton's Music Hall and on tour, as well as our much-celebrated G&S gala concert Around The World (of G&S) in 80 Minutes which has been performed at numerous festivals.
Our notorious ‘Boutique Pantos’ are a legendary part of London’s Christmas, known for their ‘off-piste’ nature and described by the Telegraph as “an annual madhouse”. Our production Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime at Jermyn Street Theatre won the 2024 Off-West-End award for Best Panto Production.
We have performed across the UK in a wide variety of venues, toured to the US and Europe, and have also co-produced operas with Iford Arts Festival and Musique Cordiale.
Aside from Gilbert & Sullivan, we have presented a wide range of repertoire, including Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Puccini’s La Bohème and Tosca, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Così fan tutte and Impresario, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, and an evening of the Avant Garde including music by Ligeti, Maxwell Davies and Schoenberg, linked to a composition education project supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and RC Sherriff Trust. Our murder mystery spoof featuring all the G&S operas, Express G&S, has been incredibly popular and has been presented in London and on tour multiple times.
CCO is committed to devising new work, education and outreach, securing a Concordia Foundation Legacy Award from Gillian Humphreys OBE, to create 'Young Audiences' projects for schools.
We collaborated with IF Opera (formerly Iford Arts) to present The Man in the Moon, an interactive new musical for families about ecological matters, written by John Savournin and Samuel Bordoli (a former composer in residence at Scottish Opera), which was originally commissioned by the Concordia Foundation, performed across London schools with accompanying workshops, and at the Royal Opera House's Family Sunday.
We have also created a live adaptation of the opera story's audiobook Dewi in the Deep for families, as a co-production between CCO, the opera story and the Royal Opera House.
CCO will release our new radio series for children 'Open Up the Opera House' in collaboration with Little Radio and CBBC's Chris Jarvis, which is supported by Arts Council England and the Concordia Foundation.
More information on CCO Outreach and Education initiatives can be found here.
During 2020 and 2021, CCO remained consistently adaptive and responsive. Aside from raising a significant sum for freelance performers and theatre practitioners that were engaged to be working with us, we commissioned a series of online work, including regular choral workshops, craft and cooking videos and our 'Dial-a-song' service, which aimed to combat loneliness and isolation during The Lockdowns.
Our 'lock down' pantomime, Snow White in the Seven Months of Lockdown, was filmed exclusively for online release in collaboration with the King's Head Theatre, of which we were proud to be an associate company. We also released a studio cast recording of Iolanthe, again in collaboration with the King's Head.
We are considered one of the champions of the reinvigoration of Gilbert and Sullivan. We have co-produced four G&S productions with Opera Holland Park, namely The Yeomen of the Guard, Ruddigore, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance, garnering rave reviews in the national press.
For our mid-scale productions, we have won numerous awards, including the Off-West-End award for Best Opera Production for H.M.S. Pinafore. Recent G&S performances include acclaimed, award-nominated productions of Iolanthe, Patience, The Mikado and The Sorcerer at Wilton's Music Hall and on tour, as well as our much-celebrated G&S gala concert Around The World (of G&S) in 80 Minutes which has been performed at numerous festivals.
Our notorious ‘Boutique Pantos’ are a legendary part of London’s Christmas, known for their ‘off-piste’ nature and described by the Telegraph as “an annual madhouse”. Our production Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime at Jermyn Street Theatre won the 2024 Off-West-End award for Best Panto Production.
We have performed across the UK in a wide variety of venues, toured to the US and Europe, and have also co-produced operas with Iford Arts Festival and Musique Cordiale.
Aside from Gilbert & Sullivan, we have presented a wide range of repertoire, including Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Puccini’s La Bohème and Tosca, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Così fan tutte and Impresario, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, and an evening of the Avant Garde including music by Ligeti, Maxwell Davies and Schoenberg, linked to a composition education project supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and RC Sherriff Trust. Our murder mystery spoof featuring all the G&S operas, Express G&S, has been incredibly popular and has been presented in London and on tour multiple times.
CCO is committed to devising new work, education and outreach, securing a Concordia Foundation Legacy Award from Gillian Humphreys OBE, to create 'Young Audiences' projects for schools.
We collaborated with IF Opera (formerly Iford Arts) to present The Man in the Moon, an interactive new musical for families about ecological matters, written by John Savournin and Samuel Bordoli (a former composer in residence at Scottish Opera), which was originally commissioned by the Concordia Foundation, performed across London schools with accompanying workshops, and at the Royal Opera House's Family Sunday.
We have also created a live adaptation of the opera story's audiobook Dewi in the Deep for families, as a co-production between CCO, the opera story and the Royal Opera House.
CCO will release our new radio series for children 'Open Up the Opera House' in collaboration with Little Radio and CBBC's Chris Jarvis, which is supported by Arts Council England and the Concordia Foundation.
More information on CCO Outreach and Education initiatives can be found here.
During 2020 and 2021, CCO remained consistently adaptive and responsive. Aside from raising a significant sum for freelance performers and theatre practitioners that were engaged to be working with us, we commissioned a series of online work, including regular choral workshops, craft and cooking videos and our 'Dial-a-song' service, which aimed to combat loneliness and isolation during The Lockdowns.
Our 'lock down' pantomime, Snow White in the Seven Months of Lockdown, was filmed exclusively for online release in collaboration with the King's Head Theatre, of which we were proud to be an associate company. We also released a studio cast recording of Iolanthe, again in collaboration with the King's Head.
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THE GUARDIAN
★★★★ "Wickedly funny" |
EVENING STANDARD
★★★★ "Exquisite" "Ingenious" |
TIME OUT CRITIC'S CHOICE
★★★★
"Extremely well sung"
★★★★
"Extremely well sung"
OPERA NOW
"...A sparklingly fresh package of laughs, pathos, foolery and high-class music making."
"...A sparklingly fresh package of laughs, pathos, foolery and high-class music making."
