***** The Telegraph
’one of the best-staged productions in the history of this Irish festival’
’This magnificent soaring Vanessa deserves a wider audience’

***** The Times
’pitch-perfect production… in Cordelia Chisholm’s superb designs’

**** Bachtrack
’Utterly gripping performance of Barber's Vanessa’
’The sets and costume design by Cordelia Chisholm were both tremendously stylish and sumptuous.’

**** The Stage
’Beautifully realised production’

**** The Irish Times

The Sunday Times
’Samuel Barber’s Vanessa was performed at such a high level that its neglect in Europe, and particularly the UK, seemed baffling…the triumph is thanks to Rodula Gaitanou’s immaculate staging in handsome sets and 1950s costumes by Cordelia Chisholm, which gave the opera a special, near-masterpiece atmosphere.’

The Spectator
’Faded into creams and greys – interiors with all the muted elegance of a Hammershoi painting, and something of that emotional charge, that air of expectancy — Cordelia Chisholm’s exquisite set places us postwar, possibly in East Coast America, possibly the anonymous ‘northern country’ of the original. Into this promising frame Rodula Gaitanou pours a production of dextrous subtlety that lives in the understated detail of its human observation.’

L’Oracolo

Mala Vita

The Guardian
’Cordelia Chisholm’s revolving tenament set is the real star. Its doorways, windows and shop fronts double as Chinatown and the Neapolitan slums, and – as in Hitchcock’s Rear Window – there is always plenty going on behind the curtains.’

**** Bachtrack
’Bloody and sensational’
’Cordelia Chisholm's sets were thoroughly opulent and magnificent, an equal feat of engineering and artistry.’

**** The Times
’Both operas, were punchily staged by Rodula Gaitanou and skilfully designed by Cordelia Chisholm.’

**** The Stage

Opera Canada
’all it took was a top-flight staging to bring this duo to whopping veristic life. Director Rodula Gaitanou infused Cordelia Chisholm’s updated Chinatown/Little Italy (the same rotating, four-sided set did versatile double duty) with a vibrant atmosphere to match the music’s, which, illuminated by the stage action, yielded many an unexpected pleasure.’

Opera Today
’Director Rodula Gaitanou and designer Cordelia Chisholm leave us in no doubt of the squalor and sadism of life in the ghetto. Dimly lit by Paul Hackenmueller, Chisholm’s set is dominated by a towering, three-story brick edifice which revolves to reveal the business premises of Dr Uin-Scî, a Chinese herbalist, the imposing entrance to the domestic quarters of Hu-Tsin, and the red-lit steps which descend into the bowels of Cim-Fen’s opium den. We are swirled along with the chattering Chinese inhabitants through the network of grimy alleyways. A corner street-light illuminates the coarseness and brutality of the gamblers, drug-takers and drinkers departing Cim-Fen’s den: knives flash in the lamp-light gloom, fists lash out, grievances are born and nurtured. Even the festive spectacle of a Chinese New Year Dragon Procession doesn’t alleviate the shabby sleaziness: the festooning red balloons can’t hide the shabbiness of the parading wagons, and the arching Dragon dips and dives menacingly, glaring with a mean, sharp-toothed stare.

After the interval, Chisholm’s set was deftly transformed - out with the herbalist and in with Valentino’s cobbler’s shop, the Bella Napoli café replacing the opium den, and laden washing-lines adding to the authenticity of the milieu in the second Act - in order to transfer us from Chinatown at the turn of the century to Little Italy in the 1950s.’

***** The Express
’breathtaking’

**** The Financial Times
’It is a long time since any La Traviata looked and felt as beguiling as this.’

**** WhatsOnStage
’this is the most distinguished new Traviata to reach London in years’
’Cordelia Chisholm's ravishing Second Empire setting is an object lesson in spinning a small budget into gold’

Opera Today
’It is a delight to see Gaitanou and her designer Cordelia Chisholm making a virtue rather than an issue of the extensive breadth of the Opera Holland Park stage. Gaitanou and Chisholm have created a gracious sweep of reflective glass and decorous greenery: a single set which serves equally well as society salon or country chateau. As the strains of the overture unfurl, a footman refreshes the bouquets and un-drapes a chaise-longue. The curtained circle is first boudoir then conservatory; at the close, quasi-brothel then death chamber. The lack of scenic fuss sharpens the dramatic clarity and colours are similarly simple and striking.’

**** The Stage’
a remarkably complete depiction of the work’s central themes, handsomely conveyed in visual terms.’

**** Bachtrack
Cordelia Chisholm’s period set is elegantly assembled, with clear sightlines and uncluttered central spaces that allow for a large chorus to mingle without looking crammed. It adapts easily from salon to country home with a natty circular room on the right that switches from a classic conservatory to Violetta’s deathbed.’

**** The Independent

**** The Guardian

**** The Times

**** MusicOMH

**** Bachtrack’
’powerful and unmissable production’

**** The Telegraph

Act 1 - Morning

Act 2 - Evening

**** The Guardian
’Shot through with grace and magic ‘
’Douglas Rintoul’s production uses the same basic set (designed by Cordelia Chisholm) as Giulio Cesare, but its gilded corridors of power have now become a shuttered mausoleum in a modern-day war zone, where the ashes of countless fallen are strewn on the floor and relatives assemble to collect mementoes of the dead…The closing scenes, in which the machinery of war is finally dismantled and people begin to smile again, are profoundly touching.’

**** Bachtrack

The Telegraph
’Cordelia Chisholm’s luminously simple circular design’

**** MusicOMH
’Simon Iorio’s production, with designs by Cordelia Chisholm and lighting by Paul Pyant, evokes the sea in all its moods… It’s a beautiful stage picture, done with skillful simplicity’

Winner of ‘Best Participatory Project’ at the YAM awards 2019

**** Bachtrack
’Moving and brilliant’

**** The Herald
’Given the limited range in the current diet of new work being created for television, it seems little short of incredible that Benjamin Britten's pacifist opera Owen Wingrave was commissioned by the BBC, reaching the screen 45 years ago. The brilliance of this staging of it by director Oliver Platt and designer Cordelia Chisholm, with lighting by Alex Kilgour, is that it responds directly to those origins, scenes changing perspective and "dissolving" using gauzes, while the set and costuming are only a few subtle tones away from the monochrome of the Cold War years original.’

**** The Stage
’Cordelia Chisholm’s handsome set and costumes offer one of the company’s finest ever shows visually, while Conway’s direction is both astute and detailed.’

Bachtrack
’the Baroque costumes and Cordelia Chisholm’s gilded set look sumptuous’

The Guardian
’It’s a hit. Don’t miss it’

**** The Times

***** The Express
'Director Rodula Gaitanou has brought out the feverish psychosis that burns through the intense melodrama with its chilling supernatural twist.'

***** Classicalsource.com
'a highlight of recent seasons'

**** The Telegraph
'Opera Holland Park delivers a corker with its sumptuous new production of The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky’s most sophisticated and ambitious work for the theatre... an enthralling performance.'

**** The Independent
'Rodula Gaitanou's production is directed, designed, conducted, lit, and choreographed with wonderful assurance.'

**** The Times
'A frightful success.'

**** The Evening Standard
'A work of hallucinatory intensity that chills the soul... Cordelia Chisholm's set gradually acquires sinister aspects to match the story's darkening mood. By the time we reach the final act, everything has become nightmarish and the singing reaches feverpitch.' 

**** The Stage
'The masked ball (marvellous costumes here and indeed throughout), the Countess's bedroom and the gambling den are superbly visualised'

Bachtrack
'Cordelia Chisholm's beautifully crafted confection of evening dress and military uniforms - none more so than the all-black-and-gold tableau for the masked ball scene.
This Queen of Spades is quite superbly staged.'

Seen and Heard International
'This is a remarkable opera, and it deserves a remarkable staging and performance such as this.'

**** The Scotsman

The Herald
'The staging is slick: huge block letters (modern sans serifs) set the scene and provide neat shifts in spacing and atmosphere. Director Ashley Dean moves the cast in stark, striking poses that look good and leave them room to sing.'

**** The Herald
'For plot summary, suffice it to say that the opera was radical in 1786 as a setting of Beaumarchais' subversive pre-revolution play, and when its done with the clarity of this modern-look production (slick, simple designs by Cordelia Chisholm) it's still a hard-hitting commentary on class and gender politics.'

**** Bachtrack
'This is the opera school's fourth production [of Figaro] in 20 years, this one happily kept fresh and alive under Ashley Dean's well thought through lively direction with stylish set and costume design by Cordelia Chisholm. There was a contemporary feel from the modern costumes to the set of individual pieces of furniture, objects and stand-alone doorways all under a metal lattice lighting rig at a slightly wonky angle. Chisholm's changing colour palette, a feature of this production, was particularly effective with monchrome giving way through creams and browns to muted pastels with bolder colours arriving in the wedding scene.'