...rhapsodic romanticism... The Telegraph
Critics have praised Colin Matthews’ debut opera A Visit to Friends, which opened a focus on the composer at the 2025 Aldeburgh Festival on 13 June. The 110-minute work in ten scenes, with a libretto by William Boyd after a short story by Anton Chekhov, sees a group of singers come together to rehearse a fictional opera with words by the Russian playwright. As they being to stage the opera-within-the-opera, the boundaries between life and art begin to blur, with seismic consequences.
…an exceptionally subtle and affecting one-act drama…rhapsodic romanticism…Matthews’s vocal writing…is beautifully crafted…it is in the dramatic instrumental interludes between the scenes that the passions are fully unleashed…We are left with the regretful, Chekhovian sense that much remains unspoken and unsung in the taut drama…
The Telegraph (Nicholas Kenyon) 15 June 2025 ****
The surprise consists in the totally new harmonic language Matthews evolves for his opera…a score of mellifluous melodic inspiration and opulent post-Romantic harmony, albeit with modest orchestral forces…Written with consummate skill and grateful on the ear, it’s an opera that should be taken up by any company desirous to prove there’s still life in the genre…sensitivity to word-setting worthy of Britten.
The Evening Standard (Barry Millington) 16 June 2025 ****
Ingeniously scripted by William Boyd…much of the music is gorgeous…Matthews drew on existing music by Scriabin…But it is virtuosically reworked by Matthews, who imbues it with an incredibly lush hyper-romanticism.
The Times (Richard Morrison) 16 June 2025 ****
Matthews’ score moves between the charged, late-Romantic meandering of the internal opera and something a little more incisive for the rehearsals…much of the music is slow and delicately loose-limbed…suavely luminous.
The Guardian (Flora Willson) 15 June 2025 ****
…rewards its audience with an opulent score…
The Stage (Inge Kjemtrup) 16 June 2025 ****
The cast included Marcus Farnsworth, Lotte Betts-Dean, Susanna Hurrell, Edward Hawkins, and Gary Matthewman in a non-singing role as the production’s repetiteur; Jessica Cottis conducted Aurora Orchestra. The production is directed by Rachael Hewer, with designs by Leanne Vandenbussche and video by Sasha Balmazi-Owen. A Visit to Friends is kindly supported by the Basil Coleman Memorial Fund and The Boltini Trust.
The Times and Guardian also lauded the world premiere of Matthews’ String Quartet No.6 from the Gildas Quartet on the morning 14 June – a 17-minute work comprising eight suite-like movements.
The eight movements of Matthews’ quartet were vividly characterised: there were impish cascades of pizzicato, melodic lines that wandered, unhurried, and a slow-motion elegy that lingered like the perfume of a loved one.
The Guardian (Flora Willson) 15 June 2025 ****
…unlike in his opera, there’s no pastiche involved. Instead a hint of each dance rhythm, nothing more, is used to trigger a set of miniature mood-pictures deploying everything from scampering pizzicato to eerily meandering atonal polyphony.
The Times (Richard Morrison) 16 June 2025 ****