Skip to main content

Reviews in for Gavin Higgins’s ‘The Monstrous Child’

Reviews in for Gavin Higgins’s ‘The Monstrous Child’

  • Date05 March 2019

The new opera’s recent run at the Royal Opera House has received critical acclaim.

MonstrousChild.png

Marta Fontanals-Simmons as Hel in The Monstrous Child. © 2019 Royal Opera House. Photograph by Stephen Cummiskey

The Monstrous Child was commissioned by the Royal Opera House and is based on a novel by Francesca Simon, author of the Horrid Henry books. It is an imaginative piece of theatre, with striking puppetry, aimed particularly at teenage audiences.

The ROH’s premiere production, in their newly refurbished Linbury Theatre, ran from 21 February – 3 March. It had a tremendous reception, including four-star reviews from The GuardianThe ObserverThe TimesThe Stage, and Bachtrack. The Department of Music’s own Mark Berry also reviewed it on his blog, Boulezian, writing that it was ‘certainly a successful first opera’, and commenting on the music as follows:

Higgins offers much in the way of readily associative and memorable leitmotifs in his score, as well as plenty of ‘atmosphere’ and ‘action’, after a fashion that would surely make sense to teenagers – and others – accustomed to the ways of film scores, without ever sounding ‘like’ film music.

The piece is Gavin Higgins’s first opera. Its success follows the recent premiere of the composer’s trombone concerto by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Gavin is in the final stages of a PhD in composition at Royal Holloway, but is already an established British name.

Explore Royal Holloway

Get help paying for your studies at Royal Holloway through a range of scholarships and bursaries.

There are lots of exciting ways to get involved at Royal Holloway. Discover new interests and enjoy existing ones.

Heading to university is exciting. Finding the right place to live will get you off to a good start.

Whether you need support with your health or practical advice on budgeting or finding part-time work, we can help.

Discover more about our academic departments and schools.

Find out why Royal Holloway is in the top 25% of UK universities for research rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

Royal Holloway is a research intensive university and our academics collaborate across disciplines to achieve excellence.

Discover world-class research at Royal Holloway.

Discover more about who we are today, and our vision for the future.

Royal Holloway began as two pioneering colleges for the education of women in the 19th century, and their spirit lives on today.

We’ve played a role in thousands of careers, some of them particularly remarkable.

Find about our decision-making processes and the people who lead and manage Royal Holloway today.