Opera Harmony – Week 1

#OperaHarmony unites over 100 opera makers from across the world who, during confinement, formed an online community to create new digital operas. The initiative was started by opera director Ella Marchment. When the show she was rehearsing in Amsterdam was cancelled because of the lockdown, she invited colleagues worldwide to join her in the immense technical and logistical challenge of creating new works online. Ella set the themes of ‘distance’ and ‘community’, organised artist teams, and oversaw the creation of twenty new operas.

All the artists involved in #OperaHarmony are usually involved in creating live theatre performances. Through the project, they have had to adapt to working in a new medium, as well as embracing new technologies and novel ways of creating, producing, and sharing work. #OperaHarmony’s goal was to bring people together in ways that were unimaginable prior to Covid-19.

Each Tuesday in August, we will stream 5 of these short operas. After the stream, you will have one week to vote for the creation you appreciated the most.

WEEK 1
1. A Man Drags the Carcass of a Deer
This piece presents a winter forest at dusk, where the eponymous man drags the eponymous carcass back to his town and family. A meditation on the tension between isolation and community, and between the burden of involvement and the urge toward release.

Composer: Joel Rust | Librettist: David Troupes | Director: Eloise Lally | Man: Luke Sutliff | Voice: Rebecca Bottone | Animation: Benjamin Fox | Editor: Nick Light

2. Auschwitz Lovers
An old man arranges to see a woman for the first time since they met 67 years before in Auschwitz. However, fate has one more trick up its sleeve.

Composer & Librettist: Filip Holacky | Director: Robert Hersey | Editor: John Paul Hersey |Soprano: Susie Buckle | Mezzo-Soprano: Carolyn Dobbin | Tenor: Roger Paterson | Baritone: Franco Pomponi | Piano: Duncan Honeybourne

3. Divas Furloughed
With opera houses closed all over the world, Violetta, Butterfly, Lucia, and Salome find themselves alone, off-stage for the first time since their debuts.

Composer: Ian Mikyska | Librettist & Director: Anthony Buck | Violetta: Keely Futterer | Butterfly: Lizzie Holmes| Lucia: Elise Caluwaerts | Salome: Justine Viani

4. How does a building sing?
A study into the ways in which the spaces we inhabit become ‘characters’ in our lives especially in times like this.

Composer: Felipe Alram | Video Direction & Animation: Ted Bosy | Flat at Maskelyne Close, Battersea Park, Local Co-op: Lotte Betts-Dean

5. The Den
Aimee & Joe are hiding in their den, escaping from their over-zealously cleaning mum. Outside, the world is bewildering and a little bit weird. But in their Isolation Igloo, Aimee and Joe are superheroes cooking up a plan to defeat King Corona & his evil super spreaders.

Director: Jen McGregor | Librettist: Fiona Williams | Composer & Editor: Christopher Schlechte-Bond | Aimee: Jennifer Clark | Joe: Brittany Hewitt