Opera Maker & Director
Founder/Artistic Director of Hull Urban Opera
Russell is a director, composer, librettist, translator and orchestrator of opera based in Hull whose work has been supported by Sky Arts and Screen Yorkshire.
Under his artistic leadership, Hull Urban Opera has become known for its imaginative approach to programming and passionate belief in honest and direct audience engagement. The company’s ethos is friendly, playful and innovative, exploring the where, when and why of operatic performance. Accessibility is key, be it in disability access, price, subject matter or type of engagement and his ‘Brain Jar Sessions’, new music upstairs in a relaxed and popular wine bar, are typical of this approach.
Russell has directed all of HUO’s productions including his own opera Christmas Meeting and HUO commissions The Bar, and Crocodile which was acquired by Sky Arts for TV broadcast in 2023. He also developed and directed a mindful production of Satie’s Socrates with mindfulness leader Jim Rogers for performances in Hull Minster.
Russell has translated operas for Opera Up Close, Hull Urban Opera and Riverside Opera and created new libretti for his own operas, Lente Verelst's The Party and Raymond Yiu’s Snappy Opera for children, Teacups & Tentacles.
As composer, he recently completed his second chamber opera Mr Tilly’s Seance based on the short story by EF Benson and his chamber orchestration of Milhaud's Médée has been performed in the UK and abroad. His other works include choral pieces and chamber music.
Director
The Party | 2023/4
LIbrettist & Director
A mysterious host throws an End of the World themed party but fails to show up himself. It’s up to the audience to get the party started but who is really pulling the strings?
Following a period of R&D with volunteer performers, I created a narrative out of their donated stories offering a variety of responses to our impending mortality. The result featured 5 soloists, 20 volunteer performers and even audience members as contributors.
Reviews Hub wrote “this brilliant and bonkers immersive experience… is out of this world – …the real star here are the lyrics – with a libretto deftly imagined by Russell Plows. Funny & often poignant.”
More Bumps in the Night | 2022
Director
A follow-up to 2019’s popular format with three new stories including a revised live version of Crocodile, a revised version of Louis Mander’s Whistle & I’ll Come to You My Lad and a short play based on the folk tale At The Gate by Myla Jo Closser.
The production was immersive and promenade, occupying three rooms over two floors at 18 Whitefriargate in Hull and climaxing in a wild oversized Punch & Judy opera.
Audience loved being part of the action and described the production as “absolutely exhilarating”, “brilliant, original, inventive” and “like being on Derren Brown’s Trick or Treat”.
It Must Have Been a Tuesday | 2021
Composer & Director
Inspired by the US hit Moth Radio Hour, Russell conceived the piece as a Lehrstücke for the company collective. The aim was for the performers to “be with” an audience with as few barriers as possible to direct communication. To this end, each performer crafted a 10-minute true story from their lives which they then told live to a small, intimate audience. Since singers have an expanded range of expression, I set about a third of each story to music accompanied by violin resulting in a free-flow between speech and song.
Audiences responded strongly to the performance describing it as “brave and honest” and “very moving”.
Crocodile | 2021
Director
This HUO commission from young Belgian opera-makers Lente Verelst & Lena Vercauteren imagines the characters of Punch & Judy transposed to modern day and unendingly reenacting their misdemeanours.
A natural collaborator for this project was Hull artist Anna Bean who animated to pre-recorded voices under my direction.
The world-building for this project included a website and identity for Crocodile UK, a secret URL and password and police surveillance ending in a raid.
Audience reaction ranged from “one of the best digital operas created in lockdown” to “unbridled nastiness”. Opera Critic Alexandra Coghlan described the work as “very dark and very clever”.
Acquired by Sky Arts for broadcast in 2023 
Bumps in the Night | 2019
Director & Composer of Christmas Meeting
I conceived this site-specific anthology of two new operas and a theatrical adaption as a ghost-tour through one of Hull’s most haunted buildings. Led by a mysterious tour-guide, the audience first encounters my short opera Christmas Meeting based on the clever short story by Rosemary Timperley, then a play based on Mandragora by the same author and lastly The Bar, HUO’s first commission from Verelst & Vercauteren.
Each of the pieces emerged from and receded into darkness and local volunteers were used to supplement the action.
The work really caught the public imagination and tickets were hard to come by with audiences describing it as “brilliantly staged” and “exciting and unpredictable”. A follow-up to the piece is planned for 2022.
Socrates | 2019
Director & Translator
Developed under the alternative title of “Music & Mindfulness”, this production was an attempt to create the right conditions in which to experience Satie’s delicate monodrama. The challenge was to find a way to achieve the unsentimental distancing effect of the soprano singing all four male roles whilst still making the storytelling compelling and theatrical. Soprano Poppy Shotts and I created an outer story in which a recently bereaved woman experiences three stages of grief while points of her emotional journey kiss those of the characters in the story.
The performance began with a 10 minute body scan led by mindfulness expert Jim Rogers to get the audience into a state of relaxation and his further interventions helped to sustain the reflective mood.
Audiences found the performance “captivating and beautifully crafted” and “well-presented & very moving”.
Composer
It Must Have Been a Tuesday
Duration: 30 minutes
Three true stories written by the performers
Soprano, Mezzo, Baritone & Violin
Synopsis
1) Embracing your roots
2) Overcoming personal adversity
3) Reconnecting with lost family
I commissioned true stories from Poppy Shotts, Alex Grainger & Joanna Gamble and set about a third of each to music accompanied by violin. The result was a heartfelt expression by three sensitive performers who committed wholly to baring their souls before an intimate audience.
Mister Tilly’s Seance
Duration: 25 minutes
Libretto by the composer based on the short story by EF Benson
10sax0/010/harp/perc/10101
Roles
MR TILLY, c.30 – Baritone | MADAME CUMBERBATCH, c.50 – Mezzo
MISS SOULSBY/MRS TALTON, c.30 – Soprano
MRS MERRIOTT/MRS INGLIS, c.40 – Mezzo
MR MERRIOTT, c.30 – Tenor | COMMANDER PLAICE, c.45 – Bass
Time and Place
1930s London
Synposis
Mr Tilly is on his way to an afternoon seance held by Madame Cumberbatch when he is run over and killed by a steam engine. He decides to attend anyway.
Christmas Meeting
Duration: 12 minutes
Libretto after the short story by Rosemary Timperley
0000/000/harp/10111
Roles
THE WOMAN, c.50 – Soprano
FRANCES RANDEL, c.20 – Tenor
Time and Place
c.1950, an ordinary rented room
Synopsis
An older woman, alone at Christmas, is thinking about Christmases past when a strangely dressed young man bursts in convinced the room is his…
Orchestrator
Medea / Médée
Chamber reductions
An Opera in One Act
Duration: 1 hour
Music by Darius Milhaud
Libretto after Euripides and Seneca by Madeleine Milhaud
Translated by Russell Plows
Roles
Medea … Soprano
Creusa … Soprano
Nurse … Contralto
Jason … Tenor
Creon … Baritone
Scoring
1 (alt pic) 1 1 (alt sax) 0 / 1 0 0 / harp / strings
or
0000/000/harp/11111
Held by Wise Music
Time and Place
A square in Ancient Greece
Synopsis
The Colchian sorceress Medea, abandoned by her husband Jason in Corinth, plans to kill his new bride Creusa on her wedding day. After an encounter with Jason and the Corinthian king, Creon, Medea sends her two sons to Creusa with a poisoned robe. In attempting to save her, Creon is also killed and he commands Jason to avenge their death. When Jason finds Medea, she has already killed their sons and has planned her escape in a winged chariot. She tells Jason he should know his wife better as she escapes justice.
The Lost Sheep / La Brebis Égarée
Chamber reduction
An Opera in Three Acts
Duration: 150 minutes
Music by Darius Milhaud
Libretto after the play by Francis Jammes
Translated by Russell Plows
Roles
Francoise … Soprano
Pierre … Tenor
Paul … Tenor
Mme Denis … Contralto
Claudine & Jacquot … Trebles
Scoring
1111/100/harp/11111
Time and Place
Provence in the early 20thC
Synopsis
Francoise lives a pleasant but dull existence as a farmer’s wife in Provence. She yearns for passion and creativity and believes she will experience it with her husband’s close friend, Pierre. After secretly meeting, the pair run away to Burgos but Paul, a composer, can only find work as a clerk. Francoise becomes ill and Pierre promises God that if she survives, he will give her up. In hospital, Francoise receives a letter from Paul assuring her that his door will always be open for her return. After making a full recovery, Francoise meets Paul at the train station and the two leave together.
The Seamstress
For large orchestra
Duration: 2 minutes 40 seconds
Music for piano by Modest Mussorgsky
Scoring
2p 2ca 2bs 2cbsn/4331/3timps perc harp celeste/strings
About the piece
Mussorgsky’s writing seems to indicate the hum of an early sewing machine and the orchestration reflects this repetetive momentum.
Translator
Roméo et Juliette – Gounod
Médée, La Brebis Égarée – Milhaud
La Voix Humaine – Poulenc
Der Kaiser von Atlantis – Ullmann
Socrate – Satie
Recent Activity
2023/4
Director & Librettist | The Party
2022
Director | More Bumps in the Night
2021
Composer | It Must Have Been a Tuesday
Director | Crocodile, a darkweb opera (Sky Arts)
2020
Composer & Librettist | Mr Tilly’s Seance
Librettist | Snappy Opera (Mahogany)
CONTACT ME AT ADMIN@RUSSELLPLOWS.COM