English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
Conductor Oliver Zeffman has commissioned the very first opera for a socially distanced world, which is now available to watch exclusively on Apple Music. Eight Songs From Isolation has been written by eight leading composers, specifically for streaming - rather than live performance - and is the first opera written for a time when the performers were unable to meet in person.
Leading freelance musicians unite in Parliament Square to call for targeted support for colleagues in the arts and entertainment sector.
Duo Lewis Murphy (composer) and Laura Attridge (writer) have launched a charitable song project entitled Notes From Isolation. The resulting songs, featuring some of the UK's top singing talent, are being released online between August and October 2020 and can be enjoyed free of charge.
The Royal Opera House is thrilled to announce an exciting, wide-ranging new line-up for its autumn programme. For the first time, extraordinary performances will be accessible online for a global audience through livestreams and for socially distanced live audiences at our home in Covent Garden. In a global first, we present a new opera in hyper-reality, alongside repertory favourites from both artistic companies.
Some of the most famous and outstanding stars from the opera world are to take part in a very special evening from Wexford Festival Opera, including Aigul Akhmetshina, Joseph Calleja, Daniela Barcellona, Juan Diego Flórez, Igor Golovatenko, Ermonela Jaho, Sergey Romanovsky, and many more.
Following its successful launch in 2019, OperaStreaming streams nine operas on YouTube from the historic opera houses of Emilia-Romagna during the 2020-21 season, with fully-staged productions of Verdi's La traviata in October from Modena and Verdi'sOtello from Bologna in...
‘A brief history of song’ is the subtitle of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival (10th-17th October), which will present an ambitious, diverse and imaginative programme of 40 performances and events.
Bampton Classical Opera returns to the Baroque splendour of London’s St John’s Smith Square on November 6 with a concert performance of Gluck’s one-act opera The Crown, the first in the UK since 1987. The performance will also be filmed and available to watch on demand on the Bampton website from 9 November.
While many of us spent lockdown at home taking it a little easier, composer Andrew Synnott wrote an opera.
Owen Wingrave is part of the new Interim Season of 19 brand new events, all free to view online between September and December 2020.
The Arts Council has awarded innovative UK charity Music and Theatre For All (MTFA) a major new grant to develop three ambitious new projects in the wake of Covid 19.
English National Opera (ENO) will reopen the London Coliseum to socially distanced audiences on 6 and 7 November for special performances of Mozart’s Requiem. These will provide audiences with an opportunity to reflect upon and to commemorate the difficulties the nation has faced during the pandemic.
The Royal Opera House is proud to continue its curated #OurHouseToYourHouse programme into the autumn, bringing audiences the best of the ROH through a new series of Friday Premieres and cultural highlights.
After six months of closure, the Royal Opera House is thrilled to be opening its doors to the public as part of Open House London weekend, giving visitors a taste of one of the world’s most famous theatres for free.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is thrilled to announce re:connect - an eight concert series with live socially distanced audiences at its namesake church, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The autumn concerts will take place at 5pm & 7:30pm on two Saturdays per month with guest artists including baritone Roderick Williams, soprano Carolyn Sampson and composer-conductor-pianist Ryan Wigglesworth performing a wide range of repertoire.
Music and poetry unite and collide across centuries, from the Medieval to the Enlightenment to the present day. This year, the Oxford Lieder Festival will present a thrilling and innovative programme comprising more than forty events streamed over eight days.
The English Concert with artistic director Harry Bicket is delighted to announce a series of concerts from 1-15 October 2020. The concerts take place in historic London venues with star soloists and will be performed and streamed live to a paying audience at 7pm GMT on each performance date. The programmes include first-class vocal and instrumental works from the two pillars of the English Baroque, covering different aspects of the repertoire.
Glyndebourne has announced plans for a ‘staycation’ series of socially-distanced indoor performances, starting on 10 October 2020.
The Royal Opera House is delighted to announce two packed evenings of opera and ballet, live from our stage in Covent Garden and available to view wherever you are in the world online.
![Meera bai [Source: Wikipedia]](http://www.operatoday.com/Meerabai_painting.jpg)
A brand new opera — especially one that is groundbreaking— can really put an opera company on the map. British composer Barry Seaman’s stunning new work, Mirabai, which explores the story of the free thinking, mystic 16th century Hindu princess, Mira, is ambitious on many levels — artistically, technically and creatively.
The project has an existing relationship with Musion3D, the world leader in cutting edge holographic technology, which offers unparalleled creative possibilities to engage audiences.
This unusual, unique project has already attracted the interest of acclaimed and multi award winning film director Tony Palmer, who is interested in making a film of the opera, speaking of its universal appeal and potential for enormous international success. “Every element of Mirabai is fascinating — the music, the story, the holograms. This is something which has to be attempted.” He directed a short film of the Krishna dance scene (a version of which was shown at the annual Kinetica Art Festival in London) and appears in a 7 minute video trailer about Mirabai, explaining why he is passionate about the project.
“I have always been a huge admirer of Tony’s work, and he is the perfect director for Mirabai,” comments Seaman. “We are grateful for all his continued belief and support.”
Another fan of the opera is celebrated Russian operatic soprano Marina Poplavskaya, who recorded the Saraswati hologram.
The Mirabai journey began 5 years ago, during which the project has benefited from a range of supporters and advocates. So how was the idea conceived? Seaman reveals, “After a visit to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir London (known as the Neasden Temple) I began to explore the life of Mira, whose subversive love for her favourite god Krishna was expressed through her mystic songs and dancing; she sacrificed everything and paid the price. Born into the Rajput aristocracy in the early 16th century, Mira incurred disapproval by choosing Krishna above the deity worshipped by the family into which she had married; and singing and dancing in public in praise of Krishna was behaviour thought unseemly for a princess. Mira confounded societal expectations, rejecting materialism for spiritual awareness and becoming the symbol of a woman who chose her own path and found liberation in non-violent resistance. ”
With poet, dancer and singer/songwriter Mariam Al-Roubi, the composer has been creating a spectacular new opera that is a fusion of intoxicating music, dance, hallucinatory imagery, lighting and pioneering holographic projection to enhance the dreamlike scenes. Says Seaman, “It is a love story, at the same time erotic and divine, and underpinned by international cultural and historical references to emphasise its universal nature, through the Ghosts — spectral figures from other historical times and places. They shine their own light on love, and include characters from Plato’s Symposium, St Teresa of Avila and Argentine tango dancers. The audience does not need to know about Hinduism, or be familiar with these references for the opera to make sense to them, because they are used as a means to communicate the deepest and simplest of human emotions. Like its heroine, Mirabai writes its own rules, communicating in a musical and theatrical language that is rich and vibrant.”
Mirabai is the third of a trilogy. The first two pieces were large-scale choral works: The Consoling Song (words in Sanskrit from the Bhagavad Gita; commissioned by The Brighton Singers and first performed in Brighton UK 2002) and Bhajans (words by Nimisha Patel and Elizabeth Newman; commissioned by The Madrigal Choir of Binghamton and first performed in Binghamton NY USA 2007). In March 2013, The Lake, and Petals, two excerpts from Mirabai, were premiered by the Ealing Symphony Orchestra.
Act 3 of the opera, in which Mira ascends to Vrindivan, where Krishna dwells, is almost completed. Exploring opportunities for innovative and pioneering collaborations with visionary partners is an essential part of the process in order to reach and engage with the widest possible audience. What is needed now is an opera company who recognises the power and potential of Mirabai to attract both existing and new opera and music lovers — now and for future generations.
To see, hear or find out more about Mirabai, contact Jane Seaman, Project Development Manager at workingwords50@gmail.com or Tel: 01622 677214 or 07905 825650