Ted Huffman

Ted Huffman’s semi-staging was deftness itself. Everyone in black. And who will forget Felicity Palmer’s searing Mrs Peachum, John Tomlinson’s stentorian Peachum or the cabaret artist Meow Meow’s smokily and movingly sung Jenny?

Paul Driver, The Sunday Times (March 10 2013)

(Four Stars) Vladimir Jurowski’s performance of The Threepenny Opera with the London Philharmonic Orchestra had more tang and grit, more Beethovenian ambition. Brecht’s brutal lyrics (required listening in an age when we are being encouraged to hate and fear the poor) and Weill’s sour-sweet orchestrations registered vividly in Ted Huffman’s icily stylised semi-staging.

Anna Picard, The Independent (March 09 2013)

(Four Stars) With a band drawn from the London Philharmonic, Vladimir Jurowski conducted The Threepenny Opera in a simple but edgy semi-staging by Ted Huffman that allowed Brecht’s commentaries on monetarism, racism and sexuality to hit home with tremendous force.

Tim Ashley, The Guardian (March 05 2013)

(Four Stars) Putting on Die Dreigroschenoper is a challenge. Perform it as low-life entertainment and you miss its poisonous satire. Present it quasi-operatically and it becomes too beautiful. The LPO’s German-language performance, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, directed by Ted Huffman and lit by Malcolm Rippeth, steered clear of both extremes. By presenting the narrative as a concert hall cabaret – snappy, fluent, minimalist – it stressed the innocent simplicity of the music and the cynical wit of the words.

Andrew Clark, The Financial Times (March 04 2013)

(Four Stars) ...with superb instrumental playing and a top-notch cast it worked equally well as straightforwardly entertaining satire. Ted Huffman’s crisp stage direction replaced the dialogue with Brecht’s own sardonic linking narration (delivered with brilliant impassiveness by Max Hopp) and added a few extra witty touches of Brechtian alienation.

Richard Morrison, The Times (March 03 2013)

The minimalist concert staging by Ted Huffman was nonetheless elegant, wherein all of the elements, like the lighting by Malcolm Rippeth, contributed to a propitious atmosphere.

Jean-Marcel Humbert, Forum Opera (February 28 2013)

[The Lighthouse] created a terrifyingly claustrophobic sense of drama, aided by the no-nonsense designs by the ETO team…

Flora Willson, Opera (December)

Director Ted Huffman chose to set the piece in a café of the mythical Riviera town and with the sense of a 1940s movie musical and Samal Blak’s sharp, stylish design achieved this admirably…the performance bristled with energy and elan, roles and costumes interchanging seamlessly…The sharp, astringent edge that is such a characteristic and attractive feature of Poulenc’s music was gloriously captured…For one hour the mist and rain swirling round the hall were forgotten in a joyous outpouring of musical theatre. An excellent performance of an all-too-rarely heard work.

Gareth Jones, Ipswich Star (November 12 2012)

A marvellous and entertaining production…directed with great flair, imagination and skill by Ted Huffman, an American stage director…

Tony Cooper, East Anglian Daily Times (November 01 2012)

Together with the three singers, director Ted Huffman and Richard Baker conducting the Aurora Orchestra deliver an engaging and thought-provoking performance of this intriguing opera.

Catriona Graham, The Opera Critic (October 29 2012)

The Lighthouse was brilliantly, claustrophobically evoked by the same designer in Ted Huffman’s gripping staging of this chilling opera about the true-life disappearance of three Scots lighthouse men.

Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times (October 28 2012)

[Maxwell Davies] chose to attend both performances and was clearly delighted with the interpretation…this is one of Maxwell Davies’s top five works and English Touring Opera have done it justice with this engaging production…The director, Ted Huffman does an excellent job in getting his three protagonists to act with great intensity… Don’t miss this modern classic.

Miranda Jackson, Opera Britannia (October 17 2012)

Huffman wisely keeps things simple, allowing the spare elegance of the score to do its work, while establishing some neat visual tensions in his differing three-way reminiscences. The framing outer sections, in which the three singers become the patrol team sent in to investigate the tragedy, flow neatly into the central drama. The ghosts here are no alien spirits but the guilty secrets of the past – flesh and blood spectres whose weapons are also very much of this world. In this latest production by English Touring Opera it’s a show that will haunt you well beyond its brief 80-minute span.

Alexandra Coghlan, The New Statesman (October 16 2012)

(Four Stars) ...the stage effectively drew spectators into the claustrophobic world of this maritime signal tower as well as its wider aura of isolation…The last scene was exquisitely managed, and provoked an ecstatic reaction from the audience.

Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Bachtrack (October 15 2012)

(Four Stars) This touring version of Peter Maxwell Davies’s chamber opera conjures dark magic with utmost skill.

Richard Fairman, Financial Times (October 15 2012)

(Four Stars) Wisely, Ted Huffman’s new staging for English Touring Opera allows the music to weave its spell by playing the drama pretty straight — though straight is not the word to describe the relationship between Adam Tunnicliffe’s needy Sandy and Nicholas Merryweather’s unhinged Blazes, smashing chairs and breaking into falsetto shrieks. Richard Mosley-Evans, as the morbid killjoy Arthur, is the third member of this excellent cast, living their final moments in Neil Irish’s aptly grim lighthouse interior.

Richard Morrison, The Times (October 14 2012)

With its oilskins and bare, drum-like walls, Ted Huffman’s new production only enhances the taut, free-flowing storytelling…Every minute is utterly riveting as the tension builds inexorably to the final revelation. Maxwell-Davies himself emerged at the final curtain to congratulate the cast - I can’t imagine he could be anything but delighted.

, Intermezzo (October 14 2012)

If I have not yet drawn attention to Ted Huffman’s sweetly paced production, that is because it does not draw attention to itself. Unshowy yet never less than thrilling, the American director’s stagecraft somehow manages to be restrained and explosive at the same time. As a masterly staging of a great opera it deserves the widest possible audience. Do catch it on its travels: it’ll lift you up and leave you drained.

Mark Valencia, Classical Source (October 13 2012)

The third of English Touring Opera’s autumn trio of contrasting and complementary chamber operas, this production is also the best - the success of Ted Huffman’s magnificently intense period setting heightened by Neil Irish’s lighthouse interior and Guy Hoare’s superbly atmospheric lighting. The three-man cast is outstanding - Adam Tunnicliffe, Nicholas Merryweather and Richard Mosley-Evans each fully committed and engrossing…You will rarely experience a more compelling and affecting night at the opera than this. Don’t miss it.

Graham Rogers, The Stage (October 12 2012)

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s chamber opera, The Lighthouse, received a splendid performance from English Touring Opera…Both Huffman’s staging and Richard Baker’s conducting are excellent, equal in precision…these were performances that would have graced any stage. The excellent news is that they will grace a good few more stages….

Mark Berry, Seen and Heard International (October 12 2012)

(Four Stars) Parallel to this is a narrative of explosive psychological tension, handled with consummate theatrical adroitness. English Touring Opera’s pitch-perfect production doesn’t drop the easy catch, and the director Ted Huffman has drawn sensitive portrayals of the imploding keepers (doubling up as investigators who decide on a cover-up) from Adam Tunnicliffe, Nicholas Merryweather and Robert Mosley-Evans. Neil Irish’s set contributes greatly to the success of the staging…this is a truly gripping yarn, and it’s not often one can say that of an opera.

Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph (October 12 2012)

(Four Stars) Neil Irish’s set doubles cleverly as the courtroom and the lighthouse interior, just as the three remarkable performers – tenor Adam Tunnicliffe’s flakey Sandy, baritone Nicholas Merryweather’s lairy Blazes and bass Richard Mosley-Evans’s forbidding Arthur – switch fluently between the two sets of characters. Ted Huffman’s English Touring Opera staging is taut and direct.

George Hall, The Guardian (October 12 2012)

(Four Stars) Overall it is a very satisfying piece of theatre which this production (designed by Neil Irish and directed by Ted Huffman) gets the absolute best out of. No arbitrary updating here: in this world of oilskin and shadows, everything, from lighting to costumes via the characters’ chain smoking, is geared towards a murky atmosphere, entirely faithful to the piece.

Kimon Daltas, The Arts Desk (October 12 2012)

What followed was a precedent-setting performance of the “The Soldier’s Tale.” In one hour, a group of actors, dancers, musicians (the Deviant Septet) and a narrator took Stravinsky’s creation to another dimension…This dark, androgynous production brought images to mind of Bertolt Brecht and Berlin in the 1930s. According to the program, the production was inspired by Shakespeare’s play within his play, “Hamlet. ” In this production, what came across is the striking originality, the elegant level of professionalism.

Anne Semmes, Greenwich Citizen (June 29, 2012)

The Greenwich Music Festival added another feather to its cap with a thought-provoking, atmospheric performance of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale,” a chamber piece for instrumentalists, dancers, actors and an actor/narrator….One consistent characteristic of GMF fare is, in a word, class. Regardless of the subject matter, the musical work or the composer, GMF patrons can count on its class. “The Soldier’s Tale” added another entry to the already long list.

Jerome Sehulster, Stamford Advocate (June 27, 2012)

Pittsburgh Opera’s welcome revival of “Hansel & Gretel” in a new production Saturday night featured an especially appealing cast drawn from the young professional singers of its Resident Artists program and impressive stage direction by Ted Huffman.

Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune (January 29, 2012)

Stage director Ted Huffman and set designer Patrick Rizzotti sent Hansel and Gretel down the rabbit hole with a set of chairs and cabinets…It was a nontraditional setting to be sure, but it didn’t hinder the story for me. Even the last scene, (spoiler alert) where a table of sumptuous cakes and a miniature gingerbread house take the place of the candy house, worked for me. I hope it showed the many kids in the audience that you don’t need literal representation to capture meaning…With the run on tickets for this production, I would recommend the company not wait so long to bring it back.

Andrew Druckenbrod, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (January 28, 2012)

…this work was emotionally riveting, poignant, and ultimately heartbreaking; as the protagonist’s lover called, she wrestled with a party line…three performers held lights, moving with the singer, going up and down and in and out with her, ultimately blinding the audience briefly so that the denouement would be a shock and surprise. The audience erupted in bravos for this marvelous performance.

Linda Phillips, Greenwich Citizen (June 24, 2011)

Seated at the crossroads of the annual buzz of summer festivals and economic talk of companies making musical magic on tight budgets, the Greenwich Music Festival is a particular gem…La Voix Humaine is one of those works that, while belonging to a very specific time period of party lines and telephone interferences, doesn’t demand much more than a singer and a telephone. Huffman embraced the minimalism of the opera and used it as a metaphor for the isolation inherent to the piece. All told, it made for some appropriately haunting stage pictures and brought a visceral freshness to the work.

Olivia Giovetti, WQXR (June 11, 2011)

The marvelously engaging story of the torrid love affair of a sensuous Gypsy temptress with a young Spanish soldier lost little in this abridged version. If anything, it seemed more concentrated and accessible. Partly this was due to the power of its principle singers. But a big part of its success lies in its thoughtfully conceived, well-planned staging. Subtle moving video images in black and white — drifting clouds, a moon floating across a starry sky, twinkling lanterns — projected onto a large screen filling the back wall of the stage added to the romantic atmosphere and drama. And drama there certainly was.

Steven Siegel, Allentown Morning Call (February 2011)

There’s still time to keep on your Sunday best and head to the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts to catch Amarillo Opera’s impassioned La Boheme. When you do, you’ll see a marvelous cast giving a striking, new interpretation of one of the most popular operas in the world. It’s not a radical departure from what you may have seen before, but director Ted Huffman and his cast lay bare the opera’s beating heart by focusing on the emotional truth of the characters and their world…It was breathtaking.

Chip Chandler, Amarillo Globe-News (October 2, 2011)

El Cimarrón does not specifically require staging, but the performance was greatly enhanced by the work of directors Ted Huffman and Zack Winokur. The theater space is in the low-ceilinged basement of the church, which rules out the possibility of elaborate sets. Huffman and Winokur impressively relied on creative use of lighting and highly athletic dancing to convey the drama in a meaningful yet unobtrusive way.

Arlo McKinnon, Opera News (September 2010)

The three-hour showcase, conducted by Dean Williamson and directed with winning tact by Ted Huffman, turned a revealing light on the 25 young artists in this year’s crop. If the Gounod duet - a sumptuous display of close-knit harmonies and emotional intensity - was a high point of the evening, it was far from the only one. Things got off to a splendid start with the opening scene from “The Rake’s Progress,” Stravinsky’s neo-classical take on the operas of Mozart and Donizetti.

Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle (August 23 2010)

Among my umpteen Merola Program closing concerts — all memorable in various ways — Saturday’s was one of the most enjoyable. Programmed, directed, and performed with care and effectiveness, this was what opera doesn’t always manage to be: delightful entertainment. Directing the quasi-staged evening was one of the program’s apprentice stage directors, Ted Huffman, a young artist who will go far.

Janos Gereben, San Francisco Classical Voice (August 21 2010)

We, the audience for El Cimarrón, were unexpectedly hurtled back to the very origins of music, when rocks struck served as percussion, the voice as instrument, the leaves, wind and water as accompaniment. That the Greenwich Music Festival was able to portray the entire history of musical sound within this short presentation was brilliance. That the production itself conveyed dream states, memory, phantasms, and actual events was akin to harnessing the music of the spheres, and bringing it to earth: sheer genius.

Linda Phillips, Greenwich Citizen (June 14 2010)

...the enthusiastic reception awarded Ted Huffman’s excellent new production of the work demonstrated the open-minded attitude and artistic freedom often denied Mr. Henze, 83… a compelling musical and theatrical experience, especially in this tightly wrought production.

Vivien Schweitzer, New York Times (June 11 2010)

There are still some diamonds of artistic excellence hidden in this seaside town, including the shockingly well-done production of Hans Werner Henze’s The Runaway Slave (El Cimarrón) by the Greenwich Music Festival. This most likely will be the only time I will ever see this rarely performed gem live, but after experiencing the awesome power of the work last night, I am happy that I’ve seen this amazing piece realized to its greatest potential. This production is a shining beacon of minimalism, using sparse staging and simple, elegant and realistic costumes by Austin Scarlett (yes, he of Project Runway fame).

Valmont, Parterre Box (June 10 2010)

Some of the most visually striking, emotionally resonant local opera productions in recent years have been the work of the Greenwich Music Festival, founded in 2004 by artistic director Ted Huffman…

Critic's Pick, Time Out NY (June 10 2010)

This production, engagingly directed by the festival’s artistic director Ted Huffman…beautifully caught the spirit of the original conception.

Eric Myers, Opera (November 2009)

The best proof of this came in the fine playing of the International Contemporary Ensemble under his aegis and the impressively mounted, visually memorable and well-sung staging by Ted Huffman…Deserved standing ovations greeted the committed team of artists.

David Shengold, Opera News (September 2009)

…true art does not always please. It can repel, attract, surprise, shock and change us. That is the accomplishment of this production, which was at once absurd, grotesque, and brilliant…

Linda Phillips, Greenwich Citizen (June 16 2009)

In a word, superb. That sums up the Greenwich Music Festival’s premiere of Viktor Ullmann’s one-act opera, Der Kaiser von Atlantis…This “Kaiser” succeeded by dint of expert musician ship by all, crisp and creative stage direction by Ted Huffman, and performers who never lost their focus or energy.

Jerome Sehulster, Stamford Advocate (June 14 2009)

This is the happy genius of this burgeoning little music festival’s accomplishment: under the direction of Ted Huffman, this crack team of performers and designers has managed to present this many-faceted jewel of an opera in a manner utterly respectful of its unique origins while remaining so fresh that it feels incidentally composed for this moment.

Georges Briscot, Operaticus (June 2009)

The five-year-old Greenwich Music Festival, created by conductor Robert Ainsley and baritone Ted Huffman, enriches the musical life of Connecticut’s Fairfield County every June. To judge from this year’s centerpiece — an affecting, musically rewarding staging of Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria conducted by Ainsley and directed by Huffman — it does so on a high, destination-worthy level.

David Shengold, Opera News (August 2008)