Overview
“Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine…”
When Venus, goddess of love, comes across handsome young Adonis hunting in the woods, she immediately falls in love. But when he rejects her advances and sets off in pursuit of the deadly wild boar, what starts as light-hearted comedy pivots towards heart-rending tragedy. Shakespeare’s ravishing early narrative poem, based on Ovid’s classic tale, was a runaway success when it first appeared in 1593 and was the first work he had published in his own name.
Christopher Kent’s bravura performance of Venus & Adonis, first commissioned for Stratford’s 2025 Shakespeare in Music Festival, is a solo tour de force. Virtuoso pianist Gamal Khamis intersperses the poem with Mendelssohn’s hauntingly beautiful Songs Without Words as they once again bring their unique partnership to Jermyn Street Theatre, following the sell-out success of An Exquisite Harmony last year.
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“Remarkable and of the highest quality”
