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Cosi Fan Tutte performances in full swing!

Raynes Park Tavern, Raynes Park

Our Cosi Fan Tutte performances are now well underway and we’re getting fantastic reactions both from audiences who’ve come along especially to see us and people who we’ve surprised while they’ve been doing the shopping or having a pint in the pub! So far we’ve had scenes popping up in Tooting, Pollards Hill, Raynes Park and Colliers Wood.

Tooting High Street

Who’d have thought you’d hear the Cosi opening trio of the boys making the bet to test their girlfriends whilst playing pool in the Raynes Park Tavern, or the girls deciding which disguised boy to flirt with in the jewellery section in Colliers Wood M&S? I think my personal favourite though was the boys singing their conversation about whether their girlfriends have cheated whilst coming down the escalator in the Qube shopping centre!

The hugest thanks to all the amazing businesses who’ve given us permission for performing in their stores – we really appreciate your help in bringing opera to everyone in Merton!  Read more

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Excited about singing in the supermarket? We ask our Cosi cast….

Cosi Fan Tutte Rehearsal

James, our Stage Manager, interviewed our singers and instrumentalists of the Cosi Fan Tutte Street opera in rehearsals this week…

What is your favourite opera or composer?

Tom Stoddart (Guglielmo):  “Favourite composer, Mahler, who never wrote any operas or Tchaikovsky. And my favourite opera is Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky.”

Simon Gfeller (Ferrando): “Favourite composer I think Mozart. But it’s generally the opera I’m doing at the moment as I fall in love really quickly with what I’m doing.”

Philip Smith (Don Alfonso): “La Bohème by Puccini would be my favourite opera quickly followed by quite a lot of Britten”

Claire Wild (Fiordiligi): “One of my favourite operas is Don Giovanni actually, Mozart. But I love La Bohème as well.” Read more

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Merton Opera R&D is well underway!

Well, we’ve had a pretty fantastic couple of weeks meeting lots of different people, hearing their amazing real life stories and getting their ideas for what our opera about friendship should be about. We’re feeling totally inspired by everyone and feel very lucky to have met both older people who’ve led such fascinating lives and young people who’ve got so many great ideas!

Raynes Park High School Workshop

Raynes Park High School Workshop

For our young people’s workshops we had great fun leading workshops for Wimbledon Park Primary School, Raynes Park High School, the Merton Youth Concert Band and the 4th Morden Girls’ Brigade to teach them about the process of creating stories and song writing. Thanks so much everyone who was involved for all your fantastic ideas. I didn’t realise digging to China with spoons was such a common childhood activity!

Greg and I now have a strong idea of what the story of our piece is – the overall idea is inspired by various conversations with everyone, specific storyline ideas that have come up in our workshops with young people or via our online questionnaire, and little bits of personal stories or short lines people have said are making their way into the libretto. Greg is now hard at work writing the music for these first few songs (or arias and duets) and I’m busy casting our singers to help us bring the piece to life in rehearsal. We’ll be holding a sharing to invite everyone to give feedback on what we’ve done so far so stay tuned…!

P.S. If you haven’t yet filled in our online questionnaire and would like to be involved please do so here

Take the Friendship Quiz