EO Production Team

COMPANY MANAGER

Helen has wide range of experience in administration, music production and music publicity and media. She first discovered her love of the stage appearing in a local production of ‘The King and I’ at the age of seven, and through years of multi-disciplinary dance training. At sixth form level Helen was awarded a Special Provisions place (voice, saxophone, viola, piano) to attend Wells Cathedral School, one of the UK’s top five specialist music schools. She subsequently graduated from Cardiff University with a BMus (Hons).

After graduation Helen broadened her horizons with an eclectic range of employment and volunteer opportunities. After a year as a Boarding House Assistant at Headington School, Oxford, Helen was invited to spend a term at the Ballanta Academy of Music in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Here Helen acted as a teaching and learning adviser, working alongside staff to improve the administrative infrastructure at the academy and to develop the quality of their teaching. Subsequently Helen volunteered in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand, teaching in a child-care centre and helping with building renovation work. She also spent time in Ecuador, working in Quito as an assistant in a childcare centre and a disabled young person’s centre, and then volunteering in the Amazon and the Galapagos Islands as a conservation project worker. On her return to England, Helen worked in administration for Resource for London, a charity providing meeting spaces for voluntary organisations, and as part of the front of house team at the Almeida Theatre in north London. She subsequently completed a Master's in Music Performance with Distinction at the Royal Academy of Music.

For the past six years Helen has worked as a core member of the administrative team of the Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra. For HPO she initially worked as adminstrative assistant, publicity and media manager, and clerk to the board of Trustees. In 2021 she took on the role of General Manager of the orchestra. Helen has worked as production manager for Ensemble OrQuesta since 2017 for over 20 productions, handling all administration and coordinating operations across a range of disciplines including stage management, costumes, props, and make-up, and liaising with team members regarding surtitles, programmes, venues, health and safety, and compliance.

Helen is a talented lyric soprano and regularly leads the cast of Ensemble OrQuesta productions.

2023 Opera Season:
Production Manager / Céphale et Procris / Jacquet de la Guerre
Production/Academy Manager / L'Incoronazione di Poppea / Monteverdi*
Production/Academy Manager / Alcina / Handel*

2023 Concert Season:
Concert Manager / Madrigals / Monteverdi
Un natale Veneziano / Vivaldi, Corelli, Valentini, Torelli, Schiassi, Cavalli
Concert Manager / 12 / Monteverdi, Cavalli, Carissimi
Project Manager / Musiche Sacre / Cavalli

Previous seasons:
Don GIovanni / Mozart / 2022*
Le Nozze di Figaro / Mozart / 2021*
Alcina / Handel / 2021, 2019*
​Xerse / Cavalli / 2021, 2018
Euridice / Caccini / 2020*
Jephte / Carissimi / 2020*
Jonas / Carissimi / 2020*
La Calisto / Cavalli /2017*, 2020
Hippolyte et Aricie / Rameau / 2017*, 2019
Magic Flute / Mozart / 2019*
Les Indes Galantes / Rameau / 2019*, 2022
L'Incoronazione di Poppea / Monteverdi / 2017*, 2019, 2022
Cosi fan Tutte / Mozart / 2018
Acis & Galatea / Handel / 2018*
Dido & Aeneas / Purcell / 2018*, 2021*

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Madeline Claire de Berrié studied Music at Magdalene College, Cambridge whilst a choral scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, and subsequently studied at Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag, Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and BAROCK VOKAL, at the Kolleg für alte Musik (HfM Mainz).

With a strong love of opera and the drama in music, Madeline has directed Pelléas et Mélisande, (Debussy), Orpheus et Euridice (Gluck), Les Plaisirs de Versailles (Charpentier), the Prologue of Céphale et Procris (de La Guerre) and Les Arts Florissants (Charpentier), as choreographer Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Ballo Delle Ingrate and as assistant director, Don Giovanni, (Mozart), Xerxes (Handel), Les Mamelles de Tiresias (Poulenc) Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), Alcina (Handel), Jepthe (Carissimi), Jonas (Carissimi) and Euridice (Caccini), L’Egisto (Cavalli).

As an instrumentalist Madeline has also performed with Capella Sancta Maria, La Caravaggia, Laurens Collegium Rotterdam, The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Venice Baroque Orchestra, The Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment, Neumayer Consort, Juliard 415 and Chamber Music New Zeland, Capella Cracoviensis, Collegium Musicum Riga and the Academy of Ancient Music and is a founding member of Grand Siècle.

As a singer Madeline has performed the following opera roles: Euridice (Euridice, Giulio Caccini), La Musique (Les Plaisirs de Versailles, M. A. Charpentier), Un Ingrate, (Ballo Delle Ingrate, Monteverdi), Chorus (Juditha Triumphans, Vivaldi), Little Cupid, (Venus and Adonis, John Blow), Euridice and La Speranza (Orfeo, Monteverdi), Female Plant/Formerly Enchanted Lady (La Liberation di Ruggiero, Francesca Caccini), 2nd Witch, (Dido and Aeneas, Purcell), Emmie (Albert Herring, Benjamin Britten), Amore, (L’incoronazione di Poppea, Monteverdi), Dido (Dido and Aeneas, Purcell), Une Prestresse, Une Matelotte (Hippolyte et Aricie, Rameau), Hébé (Les Indes Galantes, Rameau).

Previous seasons:
Euridice / Caccini / 2020*
Jephte / Carissimi / 2020*
Jonas / Carissimi / 2020*
La Calisto / Cavalli / 2020
Magic Flute / Mozart / 2019*
Alcina / Handel / 2019*

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Laura Hensley is an emerging theatre director who graduated from Bristol Old Vic’s MA in Drama Directing in 2020. Since graduating, Laura has directed Martin Crimp’s Fewer Emergencies for Rose Bruford College, where she also completed her undergraduate degree in European Theatre Arts, and is currently working on developing scripts with new writers for fringe theatre.

Laura has experience as an actor, dramaturg and workshop facilitator as well as directing, and she is particularly interested in working with young people, family and community audiences. Her first production with Ensemble OrQuesta was Don Giovanni in 2017, and she has worked regularly with the company ever since.

Previous seasons:
Les Indes Galantes / Rameau / 2022
​Alcina / Handel / 2021
L'Incoronazione di Poppea / Monteverdi / 2019
Acis and Galatea / Handel / 2018*
Dido and Aeneas / Purcell / 2018*
Cosi fan Tutte / Mozart / 2018
Don Giovanni / Mozart / 2017*, 2022*

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Ben Riedel is a graduate of Rose Bruford College. Ben has worked as Assistant Stage Director for Ensemble OrQuesta for Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie, 2019, Cavalli’s Xerse, 2018 and Lully’s Armide, 2017.

Benjamin also works as a deviser and performer including for shows entitled ‘Today is my One Hundredth Birthday’ and ‘One Man and his Dog’. These have been toured to a number of fringe venues.​​

Previous seasons:
Alcina / Handel / 2021
Hippolyte et Aricie / Rameau 2019
Assistant Stage Director / Xerse / Cavalli / 2018
Assistant Stage Director / Armide / Lully / 2017

TECHNICIAN

Orlando is our multi-skilled man behind the scenes. He has experience in a broad range of disciplines including sound, lighting, stage management, set construction, props, front of house, and general production support.

After over a decade of working in Paris, sustaining a hectic schedule working in a number of theatres, Orlando opted to return to the UK and a gentler pace of life in Hastings. He worked for several years at the multi-event venue St Mary in the Castle, which is where he met Marcio. They developed a very positive working relationship and Orlando has worked for Hastings Philharmonic Orchestra and Ensemble OrQuesta in a number of capacities ever since.

Although Marcio undertakes lighting design himself, Orlando is an invaluable source of advice on all matters technical, and his wonderfully amicable and calm temperament and 'can do' approach when it comes to the many diverse and demanding aspects of stage management is a life saver in a company such as ours.

Orlando's other awesome skill lies in the world of puppetry. He works alongside Julia McLean in the Hastings-based puppet theatre company TheatreRotto. Their wonderful work has been described as 'knockout' and has been applauded for 'immersing the children in creativity'.