Also in this section:
Education
For further information about
the company's reduced orchestrations go to:
www.operaorchestrations.co.uk
Music Director: Jonathan Lyness
Artistic Director: Richard Studer
View their biographies
About The Company
Opera Project is one of the UK’s leading touring opera companies, staging four to five operas per season accompanied by orchestra. The company makes regular appearances at a wide range of venues including some of the country’s finest gardens and opera festivals, presenting exceptional singers from here and abroad. Productions are noted for their quality of casting, intimacy, theatricality and brilliant English translations.
Opera Project was founded in 1993 by conductor Jonathan Lyness and director/designer Richard Studer. Initially the company performed just one production per season, touring to middle scale theatres such as the Redgrave Theatre in Bristol and The Maltings in Farnham. In 1996 Opera Project began a collaboration with Iford Arts, establishing the opera festival in the tiny Italianate cloisters of Iford Manor near Bradford-on-Avon and, over nine years, presenting fourteen productions ‘in-the-round’ to packed audiences and considerable critical acclaim.
1999 saw Opera Project invest in what has been described as ‘the best touring opera stage in the country’. It was this structure that first enabled the company to diversify, touring widely to a number of the country’s finest gardens. In 2000 Opera Project gave two performances at the West Green House in Hampshire, an event which established the annual West Green House Music Season and where, to date, the company has given thirty-three performances of nineteen different productions. 2002 saw another milestone in the company’s history when it was invited to present its production of La Traviata at Longborough Festival Opera. This marked the beginning of a close relationship with Longborough where Opera Project has continued to perform and in addition has fulfilled a number of commissions specifically for the Longborough Festival.
In 2003 Opera Project was invited to give eight performances of Così fan tutte for a small-scale repertoire theatre in Bristol, The Tobacco Factory. Such was the popularity of the performances at this ‘in-the-round’ venue that the company has returned each season. In June 2007 Opera Project made its debut at St.George’s, Bristol with Mozart’s The Magic Flute and was immediately invited to return in the summer of 2008. Three months later the company made another debut, this time at St.John’s College, Oxford. Again the performance was of The Magic Flute and, again, the company received an immediate return invitation for 2008.
All Opera Project productions are accompanied by an orchestra of ten players or more. The company never utilises a piano or electronic keyboard as a substitute for orchestral instruments; where a harp is needed, a harp is used. Neither does Opera Project use amplification for singers (apart from in certain 20th century music theatre works). Almost all performances are sung in English, many of them in translations by the company’s artistic director Richard Studer. Where productions require reduced orchestrations from the original, most of these are written by the company’s music director Jonathan Lyness. For further information about the company's reduced orchestrations go to www.operaorchestrations.co.uk.
Opera Project is managed and directed by just two people: the company’s directors Richard Studer and Jonathan Lyness. The company has no other staff. As well as the musical and artistic direction of the company, design, staging, set, costume, administration and accounting are all delivered by the company’s two directors. This is all the more remarkable given the company’s diversity in terms of scale of performances. Of the company’s 315 performances since 1993, around half have been played ‘in-the-round’ with an orchestra of between 9 and 13, a cast of between 5 and 15 and minimal staging. In contrast, however, a further 51 performances have taken place at Longborough Festival Opera with, typically, an orchestra of 30 - 40, a cast of 15 - 30 and substantial stage sets. Other venues range from theatres to village churches, from concert halls to hospitals, from gardens to… more gardens! Since 2000 Opera Project has staged some twenty-eight different operas.
Repertoire for Opera Project has ranged from Purcell to Britten. As well as the standard repertoire and the company’s core commitment to the operas of Mozart, Opera Project has performed a number of twentieth century works, despite the fact that the company receives no public funding. Such works include Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and three of Britten’s chamber operas: Albert Herring (Iford Festival, Longborough Festival Opera), The Beggar’s Opera (West Green House Music Season) and The Turn of the Screw (Tobacco Factory, Bristol). In addition the company has performed a number of one-act 20th century works including Walton’s The Bear, Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole.
Charitable Performances
Opera Project has made performances in aid of charities a central part of its summer tours. Each season has seen charitable performances raising substantial sums for the charities involved. Such charities have included the NSPCC, the Kent Association for the Blind, the Friends of Bristol Oncology, the Bristol Royal Society for the Blind and the Canterbury Cathedral Fund. In July 2000, Opera Project gave a performance of The Marriage of Figaro as part of the official celebrations surrounding the 100th birthday of HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in aid of her favourite charities.
Education
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital
As part of a five year association with the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, from 1998 to 2002, Opera Project’s artistic director Richard Studer led innovative and highly creative art workshops with children from the hospital school, children not well enough to go home but fully able to participate in and gain benefit from these sessions. Sometimes these workshops centred on themes from the company’s repertoire. In 2000, for example, Opera Project gave two fully staged performances in the hospital’s atrium of Rossini’s La Cenerentola. These were preceded by childrens’ workshops in which they created elements from the opera, in particular a range of fantastically decorated shoes which went on to form the backdrop for the performances.
Where the company’s repertoire didn’t immediately lend itself as a focus for childrens’ workshops, other ideas relating to theatre, opera and performance were devised. These included a week-long course in puppetry and a series of sessions in mini-theatre making. Aside from children’s workshops, Opera Project also presented musical ‘mini tours’ around the hospital’s wards with singers from the company’s hospital performances.
The Tobacco Factory, Bristol
As part of Opera Project’s association with The Tobacco Factory in Bristol, Opera Project has developed presentations that bring the world of opera to life for children aged around 9 - 11. These began in 2003 when some 100 young children from some of Bristol’s more under-privileged schools were brought into The Tobacco Factory Theatre to be ‘entertained’ in a very immediate and direct way by members of Opera Project.
Longborough Festival Opera
In 2008 Opera Project was commissioned to present Janácek’s masterpiece The Cunning Little Vixen for Longborough Festival Opera. The cast for this production included ten children from local schools. During the run up to performances Richard Studer, Opera Project’s artistic director, led workshops in local secondary schools for children from years 7 and 8 (Key Stage 3). For most of these children, opera was a totally new concept. With musical support from Maria Jagusz, and with reference to animals (following in the footsteps of Janácek), Richard introduced the concept of character and plot development, and by the end of just one day the children had scripted, written, costumed, staged and performed a complete performance of a new ‘mini’ opera. Richard led further such workshops in 2009 and plans are in place for more workshops in collaboration with LFO in 2010.