Tribute to a stage genius

Any opera company is a community. But few take that idea quite as far as Birmingham Opera Company (BOC), whose bold site-specific productions expand to embrace international artists, amateur performers and (more often than not) the entire city. It’s a team effort on the biggest and bravest of scales. Everyone is committed; everyone is vital. So how does a company like this react when, in one devastating, unthinkable instant, it loses one of its most inspirational members? BOC’s founder and artistic director Graham Vick had been preparing this summer’s production of Wagner’s RhineGold for over two years. Rehearsals were just getting under way when news arrived that he had been hospitalised with complications arising from Covid-19. On 17 July, he died.

Two weeks later, on 30 July, opened, directed by Vick’s long-term Birmingham collaborator Richard Willacy. But as the company’s music director Alpesh