Opera - Digital

#OperaPassion
BBC Arts Digital presents #OperaPassion, a digital opera festival which will see major cultural institutions and leading opera companies come together to showcase the very best of UK opera and establish a nationwide creative opera network to encourage further partnerships, new collaborations and future audiences.

Peter Maniura, Head of Digital Development for BBC Arts, says: "BBC Arts Digital has brought together a dozen different partners from across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, utilising the latest technology in a nationwide celebration of the best of opera being made in the UK today. I am hugely excited by the creativity and innovation which can be seen in opera houses across the country and the ambition and scale of this collaboration will shine a light on this most dramatic of art forms."

#OperaPassion Day | 19 October
BBC Arts Digital has brought together eight leading UK opera companies and major cultural institutions to work together on an unprecedented day of live streaming. Partners include the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Opera North, Glyndebourne, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and Northern Ireland Opera working with the V&A, BBC Radio 3, Tomorrow’s World and Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry, supported by the British Council.

The online live streams will transport audiences to every corner of the UK with insights from inside the company’s theatres and tour. Through interview, archive, innovative technology and exclusive performances, the companies will take you behind the scenes to explore and demystify opera in a celebration of its raw emotive power and engaging an ever-wider audience for opera.

#OperaPassion day will conclude on BBC Radio 3, where there will be the chance for listeners to vote for the opera of their choice to be broadcast in full that evening from four Royal Opera House production recordings.

The curated content from each of the participating companies is as follows:
V&A Museum
BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook Live

#OperaPassion day begins at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with a look inside major exhibition Opera: Passion, Power and Politics. A collaboration between the V&A and the Royal Opera House, the exhibition is a vivid and immersive journey through nearly 400 years of opera, exploring its passion, power and politics. BBC presenter Katie Derham will join V&A exhibition curator Kate Bailey to introduce the themes of the day and give a whirlwind tour of the exhibition, beginning at Mozart’s piano in Vienna, and ending with the Verdi Nabucco installation in Milan.

BBC Arts and Tomorrow’s World
BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook Live
As part of #OperaPassion Day, BBC Arts and Tomorrow’s World are joining together to stage a series of experiments, live at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester on the opening day of the city’s Science Festival. Each will delve into the science behind Opera, with Professor of Acoustic Engineering Trevor Cox from the University of Salford.

The broadcast will include trying to break glass with the power of the human voice, exploring how loud an opera singer really is, and the biological secrets behind their tremendous vocal power. It will also reveal the human body’s physical reaction provoked by the emotion of hearing an arresting aria.

Opera on 3 and Afternoon Concert: 30 September - 23 December 2017

Royal Opera House

BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook Live

The Royal Opera House will showcase the extraordinary depth and breadth of opera, during a jam-packed hour of activity. The ROH will present unmissable live performances from talented Royal Opera artists, exclusive footage from the acclaimed ROH Live Cinema Season (never before seen on Facebook Live), engaging live demonstrations of the craft of opera and a few surprises along the way.

Glyndebourne

BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook Live

Glyndebourne will be exploring how opera can convey the emotion of a story in a completely different way from theatre. Game Of Thrones actor Isaac Hempstead Wright (who plays Bran Stark) will present a look at Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy, comparing the play's version to the one in Brett Dean’s new opera. Actor Samuel West, who has played Hamlet for the RSC, will perform the iconic speech.

This will be followed by a performance of the comparable passage from the opera by David Butt Philip and Jennifer France, who are playing Hamlet and Ophelia in Glyndebourne’s Autumn Tour 2017. All the performers will then discuss the similarities and contrasts between the two versions.

BBC Two: Lucy Worsley’s Nights At The Opera

Opera North

BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook Live

Opera North will take opera out into the city to entertain people with a ‘pop-up’ Whistle Stop Opera performance during their lunchbreak.

A fun, accessible introduction to opera, Whistle Stop will take place at a venue in Leeds city centre and will provide the perfect opportunity for people who have never tried opera before to discover its power and passion in just over half an hour. Packed with comedy, deceit, love and tragedy, Whistle Stop will take people on an emotional rollercoaster as they enjoy a crash course in opera with scenes and songs from a host of popular works including Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Bizet’s Carmen and Verdi’s La traviata.

There will also be excerpts from Opera North’s festival of The Little Greats, including pieces from Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury, Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and the amazing cat duet from Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges.

Whistle Stop has been written by opera singer and director John Savournin who is also the narrator of the piece. He will be joined by soprano Elin Pritchard, who is singing the part of Nedda in Opera North’s forthcoming production of Pagliacci, baritone Milo Harries and accordionist Miloš Milivojević who provides the musical accompaniment.

Further Radio 3 programming

Scottish Opera

BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook Live

Scottish Opera will be at the opening night of Sir David McVicar’s acclaimed production of La traviata in Glasgow - also the opening night of the Company’s 2017/18 season - and taking a look at the work the backstage crew do to get such a stunning, detailed and impressive production onto the stage.

Also as part of Scottish Opera’s #OperaPassion offering, the four singers and pianist on tour with Scottish Opera’s popular touring Opera Highlights show will perform from Bowmore on Islay. They will be singing live and giving viewer’s insight into life on the road.

Scottish Opera will also be sharing some collaboration with a few unexpected partners including Steven Camley, The Herald’s political cartoonist, who will be creating four new cartoons based on the plots of different operas. Three operatic poems, commissioned by celebrated Scottish authors Liz Lochhead, Alexander McCall Smith and Janice Galloway will be read aloud by their authors.

Welsh National Opera

BBC Arts Digital and via 360° Facebook Live

Welsh National Opera shines the spotlight on the opera chorus, presenting a 360o Facebook live broadcast with spatial sound. Following a Die Fledermaus rehearsal, the chorus provides insight on how they prepare for the evening performance.

A second broadcast during the day will guide viewers through a Facebook 360o live Touch Tour of the Die Fledermaus set, a tool used to allow visually impaired patrons to feel and examine some of the elements of the set, props and costumes.

Welsh National Opera broadcasts will be complemented by a further glimpse behind the scenes on Instagram with rehearsal images from Leoš Janáček’s opera From the House Of The Dead.

English Touring Opera

BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook and Facebook Live

English Touring Opera present an intimate behind the scenes view into a large-scale touring opera company. From London, James Conway, ETO's General Director, will introduce the company and explain what it takes to tour opera around the country.

ETO will provide insight into the roles of many of the company’s backstage staff, including the Technical Manager, Company Stage Manager and Wardrobe Mistress as they prepare for the opening night of Rameau's Dardanus. The spotlight will also be shone on the ETO Company, a soloist and a member of ETO's Old Street Band - the company’s period touring orchestra. All participants will be using a GoPro to give the audience a truly unique point of view.

Viewers will also be treated to a pre-recorded 360 degree video of the overture to Rameau’s Dardanus, performed by the Old Street Band with performance from the cast onstage. ETO will also be releasing exclusive social media content throughout the day.

Northern Ireland Opera

BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook Live

Northern Ireland Opera, based in Belfast’s Grand Opera House (the site of Luciano Pavarotti’s UK debut), will present a behind the scenes live stream of rehearsals from their upcoming production of Così fan tutte, Mozart’s great comedy of love, temptation and partner-swapping.

Audiences will be invited to join Conductor Nicholas Chalmers, Director Adele Thomas and the cast during the opening week of rehearsals in Belfast for a glimpse into this funny, sexy and charming new production updated to the roaring 1920’s.

English National Opera

BBC Arts Digital and via Facebook Live

Presented by young opera singers Eleanor Dennis and David Webb, English National Opera will offer a backstage view in the run up to the evening performance of Verdi’s grandest of operas, Aida.

Eleanor and David will guide audiences around London’s largest theatre and the ENO’s home, the London Coliseum. The broadcast will include interviews and discussions with Aida’s cast and creative team as well as members of ENO’s own backstage and technical departments, who will reveal how they work together to put operas on the stage.

Further #OperaPassion Festival Programming

#OperaPassion will also include exciting content hosted on BBC Arts Digital, including a collaboration with Garsington Opera. Using new technology to create an immersive 360° experience, audiences will be able to simulate the experience of being on stage in a performance of Garsington’s People’s Opera, Silver Birch. Audiences will also be able to enjoy the company’s celebrated production of Semele, which premiered over the summer.

Semele | 2 October
Available on BBC Arts Digital

Composed in 1744, Handel’s Semele is a love story with a twist. Annilese Miskimmon, Artistic Director of Norwegian National Opera, directs this new production for Garsington Opera, with Jonathan Cohen making his company conducting debut. Soprano Heidi Stober and tenor Robert Murray make their role debuts as Semele and Jupiter with the renowned Christine Rice returning to Garsington in the role of Juno.

Person 181
Available on BBC Arts Digital

In an innovative 360-degree experience, Person 181, Garsington Opera and BBC Arts Digital will utilise the latest technology to bring the opera house to audiences across the UK making them part of the performance process. The experience will give audiences unique access behind the scenes at Garsington Opera in the preparation for their new People’s Opera, Silver Birch, as well as the experience of being on stage standing alongside the cast during a performance.

Silver Birch is an exciting new commission from leading UK composer Roxanna Panufnik, with a libretto by writer Jessica Duchen. The work is inspired jointly by Siegfried Sassoon’s poems, and the testimony of a British soldier who recently served in Iraq, and illustrates the human tragedies of conflicts past and present.

It is a celebration of music, drama, poetry and dance and brings together professional singers with 180 members of the local community. Designed to appeal to everyone from age 8 upwards, Karen Gillingham, Creative Director of Garsington Opera’s Learning & Participation programme, directs and Douglas Boyd conducts.

Pictured: Garsington Opera s Silver Birch. Image credit: John Snelling

Related Media Centre Links

• BBC announces major focus on Opera for 2017