Viriditas
Viriditas is a new opera company under the directorship of Mary E. Larew and currently based in York, England. Since its formation in late 2006, Viriditas has lent its unique vision, musical excellence, and unbridled energy to its critically-lauded productions of medieval music dramas and other operatic work from the fringes of the repertoire.
In February 2007, Viriditas made its debut with a staging of the 13th-century Fleury Playbook's Image of Saint Nicholas. March 2007 brought a shift of seven centuries, as the company brought to life Kurt Weill's 1928 one-act comic opera The Tsar Has His Photograph Taken. Previewed by the Yorkshire Post, Viriditas's production of Tsar featured an international cast of musicians, drawing on their diversity of backgrounds to create a quirky sensibility that would prove characteristic of future productions as well.
Other Viriditas productions in York include Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents, also from the Fleury Playbook, which had a two-night run at York's National Centre for Early Music and a third performance at the Leeds International Medieval Congress.
In 2008 Viriditas presented the world-premiere of Jon Hughes' opera Antigone, scored for Indonesian gamelan and strings. The two-night run was mounted at the NCEM, to great acclaim. Following quickly was Stravinsky's music-drama The Soldier's Tale, with an opening in honour of Professor Nicola LeFanu's retirement from the University of York, followed by a tour performance at the Paxton Chamber Music Festival at Paxton House, near Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Plans for 2009 include two projects in the Spring -- a York Playbook production of new short works by York-based composers, followed by Quem Queritis, a selection of medieval Easter dramas.
Viriditas is currently undertaking a new production of Hildegard von Bingen's masterwork Ordo Virtutum.