#OPERAHARMONY CREATING OPERAS IN ISOLATION 1 3 WELCOME TO #OPERA HARMONY FROM FOUNDER – ELLA MARCHMENT Welcome to #OperaHarmony. #Opera Harmony is a collection of opera makers from across the world who, during this time of crisis, formed an online community to create new operas. I started this initiative when the show that I was rehearsing at Dutch National Opera was cancelled because of the lockdown. Using social media and online platforms I invited colleagues worldwide to join me in the immense technical and logistical challenge of creating new works online. I set the themes of ‘distance’ and ‘community’, organised artist teams, and since March have been overseeing the creation of twenty new operas. All the artists involved in #OperaHarmony are highly skilled professionals who typically apply their talents in creating live theatre performances. Through this 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. Over 100 artists from all the opera disciplines have collaborated to write, stage, record, and produce the new operas. The pieces encapsulate an incredibly dark period for the arts, and they are a symbol of the unstoppable determination, and community that exists to perform and continue to create operatic works. This has been my saving grace throughout lockdown, and it has given all involved a sense of purpose. When we started building these works we had no idea how they would eventually be realised, and it is with great thanks that we acknowledge the support of Opera Vision in helping to both distribute and disseminate these pieces, and also for establishing a means in which audiences can be invited into the heart of the process too . Thank you to everyone who has given their time and talents, and explored how to make the impossible possible. We all hope to see you again in real life soon. Ella Marchment 4 ELLA MARCHMENT FOUNDER – UK Ella Marchment is an opera director, the stage director of The International Opera Awards, and the artistic director of Opera Festival of Chicago, as well as being a cultural leader, public speaker, and lecturer. She is currently under commission for Nick Hern Books and is producing a series of twenty new operas for Opera Vision as a reaction to Covid-19. At this time she should have been directing the Royal College of Music’s production of Jonathan Dove’s The Enchanted Pig and the 2020 International Opera Awards. Ella was the first opera director to receive an International Opera Awards bursary. In 2018 she was a finalist in the Women of the Future Awards – in recognition of her exceptional achievements in the arts – and a semi-finalist in the European Opera- Directing Prize. Ella has worked throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, and America with companies including Wexford Festival Opera, The Mariinsky, Bury Court Opera, Dutch National Opera, The Royal Opera House, and Copenhagen Opera Festival. Ella was associate director of Mary Birnbaum’s production of Dido & Aeneas at Juilliard Opera and led the tour to Opera Holland Park in London and The Royal Opera of Versailles in France. In 2020 Ella was part of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama vocal-studies faculty, teaching drama and directing opera scenes. She also directed at the Royal College of Music. Ella is a committed campaigner for equality in the arts. As well as co-founding the UK-based charity SWAP’ra (Supporting Women and Parents in Opera), she has been a principal speaker at events held at the Royal Opera House, Welsh National Opera, the Wiener Institute, Opera Europa (the Netherlands), Arts Council England, and the Southbank Centre. Ella was an associate artist of Artistic Directors of the Future in 2019, an organisation dedicated to promoting ethnic diversity in British theatres. Ella is represented by Day Macaskill of Cruickshank Cazenove in London. www.ellamarchment.org 5 JONAS ROSE HØEG PROJECT SOUND ENGINEER – DENMARK Jonas Rose Høeg is a Copenhagen based sound designer and sound engineer working with live music, theatre, musical theatre and live streaming. Jonas runs the company SOUNDSRIGHT in Denmark, that has quickly transformed to facilitate online or social distancing art experiences during the current global situation. Jonas also writes and plays pop folk music under the name Jonas Rose, primarily using vocals and stringed instruments such as acoustic and electric guitar, electric bass and double bass, but also occasionally trumpet and piano. 6 MEDIA PARTNER CHLOE NELKIN CONSULTING Chloé Nelkin Consulting was founded in 2010 and specialises in PR, events, marketing and consultancy with a dedicated focus on bespoke campaigns for visual and performing arts. With a passion for the arts and creativity, CNC is a dynamic company that believes in the importance of culture that always delivers campaigns with style and sophistication. The company handles multiple sell-out productions of all sizes across all genres. Some recent theatre work includes: Love, Loss and Chianti (Riverside Studios), What Girls Are Made of (Soho Theatre), Bobby and Amy (Edinburgh), Dust (Trafalgar Studios, Soho Theatre and Edinburgh), This is Black (The Bunker), Nevill Holt Opera, Little Death Club (Edinburgh, Underbelly Southbank Festival), Mouthpiece (Soho Theatre), CircusFest 2018 (Roundhouse), Rotterdam (Trafalgar Studios, Arts Theatre) and Brodsky/Baryshnikov (Apollo Theatre). Further information can be seen at www.chloenelkinconsulting.com. 7 STREAMING PARTNER OPERA VISION OperaVision is opera for the connected world. Watch live streams as the operas themselves unfold in the opera house. View your favourite performances, subtitled, on demand. Learn about the art form and specific productions by browsing our richly populated digital library, stories, and articles. Discover resources for young audiences and for artistic career development. In English, French, and German, thoughtfully curated, and free to browse and explore. Supported by the European Union's Creative Europe programme, OperaVision builds on the success of The Opera Platform, with more contributing opera companies from more countries, under the editorial supervision of Opera Europa, the European association of opera companies and festivals. OperaVision brings together 29 partners from 17 countries and invites you to travel and discover the diversity of opera from wherever you want, whenever you want. 8 SOME OF OUR STATS 9 The Participants involved in #OperaHarmony have been – Ireland creating remotely from: – Italy – Netherlands – Australia – New Zealand – Belgium – Peru – Brazil – Canada – Scotland – Denmark – Spain – England – Sweden – France – Turkey – Germany – USA – Hong Kong – Wales 10 THE OPERAS WEEK 1 – AUGUST 4 WEEK 2 – AUGUST 11 WEEK 3 – AUGUST 18 WEEK 4 – AUGUST 25 – A MAN DRAGS THE CARCASS OF A DEER – WISDOM OF STONE (Hall/Evans) – A FISH OUT OF WATER (Jenkins/du Tilleul – MY NEIGHBOUR FIGARO (Glickman/ (Rust/Troupes) McNicol) Gallagher) – ESSENTIAL BUSINESS (Stillman/Pool) – AUSCHWITZ LOVERS (Holacky) – THRESHOLD (Shouten/Vail) – LA SOLITUDINE (Sever/Lemieux) – SLEEPING & WAKING ARE THEIR NAMES – DIVAS FURLOUGHED (Mikyska/Buck) (Purdue/Banks) – BEHIND THE LINES (Blair/Ramster) – WALK OUT OF YOURSELF (Voicings Collective) – HOW DOES A BUILDING SING? (Alram/Bosy) – HAROLD & KEITH ATTEMPT TO USE ZOOM TO –A LIFE RESET (Scarlato/Foley) – GRIEF (Holger Petersen/Holden) DISCUSS THE POTENTIAL TAKEOVER OF BELOVED FOOTBALL CLUB NEWCASTLE UNITED: THE OPERA (Morris/Eastlake) – THE DEN (Schlechte-Bond/Williams) – EDGE OF TIME (Boulton/Stanley) – APART/MENTAL (Steen/Birnbaum) – NO ROOM. NO ROOM. NO ROOM. (Phizmiz/ Mattey) 11 WEEK 1 – AUGUST 4 – A MAN DRAGS THE CARCASS OF A DEER (Rust/Troupes) – AUSCHWITZ LOVERS (Holacky) – DIVAS FURLOUGHED (Mikyska/Buck) – HOW DOES A BUILDING SING? (Alram/Bosy) – THE DEN (Schlechte-Bond/Williams) 12 A MAN DRAGS THE CARCASS OF A DEER Composer – Joel Rust Librettist – David Troupes Director – Eloise Lally Soprano – Rebecca Bottone Baritone – Luke Sutliff Video Editor – Nick Light Animation – Benjamin Fox Further Information 13 SYNOPSIS – A MAN DRAGS THE CARCASS OF A DEER A Man Drags the Carcass of a Deer presents a winter forest at dusk, where the eponymous man drags the eponymous carcass back to his town and family. Written for two singers, the Man and an unseen Voice, this piece is a meditation on the tension between isolation and community, between the burden of involvement and the urge toward release. 14 JOEL RUST COMPOSER – USA/UK Joel Rust is a composer, sound artist, and PhD student at New York University. Recently, he’s been working on CITIZEN, an interactive installation focusing on our experiences of urban soundscapes, his dissertation on Varèse’s unfinished multimedia works of the 1930s and 40s, and The Conifers, an opera, in collaboration with David Troupes. 15 DAVID TROUPES LIBRETTIST – USA/UK David Troupes has published two collections of poetry, and his creative work, including prose and sequential/comic art, appears widely in journals and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic. Ted Hughes and Christianity, a book grown from his doctoral research, was published by Cambridge University Press in July 2019. In 2016 he was awarded a Jerwood Opera Writing Fellowship from Aldeburgh Music, collaborating with Joel Rust on a science fiction opera. 16 ELOISE LALLY DIRECTOR – GERMANY/UK Eloise Lally is an opera and