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Magic potions and bus songs!

What a brilliant summer we had delivering workshops for young people at schools and for local children’s charity Jigsaw4u!

In July we provided 10 primary schools across South London with 20 workshops reaching 486 young people overall. Schools were chosen in collaboration with the local Education Hubs in Merton, Wandsworth and Croydon who know the schools well and their existing music provision to ensure we reach young people who would most benefit from the activity. 

The workshops are a fun, modern introduction to opera and Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love in particular with drama games, learning about what opera is and who is involved in making it, hearing a professional opera singer sing live in front of them, acting out the story of our modern adaptation of The Elixir of Love, learning to sing some of this classic opera both as a whole group and performing solos developing their singing and acting skills.

Meanwhile, our school holidays full day workshop at Jigsaw4u followed the format of our Opera Taster Workshops in the morning, while in the afternoon (after pizza of course!) the children wrote their own new song for one of the characters. They chose words that Nemorino might say, decided on the tune by choosing one they’d learnt earlier for a warm up game and changing the words to those they’d written as well as coming up with their own actions for the song. We finished the day with a short performance for parents and other Jigsaw4u staff. We performed the section of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love they’d learnt in the morning, warm up songs as well as the new song they’d written. You can see a short video Jigsaw4u made of the day on X at https://x.com/Jigsaw4u/status/1821872934526267511

Feedback included:

“The instructors were so energetic, enthusiastic and encouraged us amazingly! We had the best time and it has definitely turned a lot of heads towards the genre of opera.”

“Amazing! Making opera accessible and engaging for all the pupils!”

“Really changed many attitudes towards performing in front of others.”

“… it brought out the side of some children that I’ve not seen before. Some at the beginning were apprehensive and not overly excited yet at the end were singing solos!”

 

 

 

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Workshop with Jigsaw4u

We’re excited to be running a workshop over the summer holidays for the brilliant local childrens’ charity Jigsaw4u, who we’ve partnered with on a variety of projects since 2016. This summer we will be running a workshop based on our new adaptation of The Elixir of Love including teaching the group to sing a section of The Elixir of Love opera with our new modern English libretto as well writing their own new songs for the characters Nemorino and Dulcamara! We can’t wait to see what they come up with!

The team leading this workshop will be:

Naomi Kilby

Naomi Kilby trained at Birmingham Conservatoire and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Opera work includes regular chorus and Comprimario roles for Opera Holland Park, and founding Opera Alegrìa, most recently singing Aurora in The Portrait of Manon and Pamina in The Magic Flute. In 2024, Naomi sang the title role in Handel’s Semele with Richmond Opera, and Geraldine in Barber’s A Hand Of Bridge for OHP/Opera Alegrìa. In September, she will perform The WIfe in The Parting with The Music Troupe at the Tête à Tête Opera Festival. Naomi also regularly works with OHP’s award winning Inspire outreach programme, and with the Dementia Charity, Lost Chord. A keen recitalist, Naomi has performed all over the UK and in Europe.

www.naomikilby.com

 

Elspeth Wilkes

Elspeth Wilkes

Born in Leigh-on-sea, Essex, Elspeth studied at King’s College, London, Trinity College of Music and Royal Academy of Music. She has performed at venues including St John’s Smith Square; Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House; St Martin-in-the-Fields; Kings Place; Trafalgar Studios; Savoy Theatre, West End as well as performing recitals in Greece, Spain, Portugal, France and South Africa. Elspeth has performed at the Ravenna music festival, Italy, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival where she won the ‘Oscar’ award.

Elspeth has worked with BBC Wales, Royal Ballet, Royal Shakespeare Company and Southbank Sinfonia and has performed for HRH The Princess Royal. She also performs regularly for the charities Lost Chord Foundation and Music in Hospitals working with people suffering from dementia. Elspeth has worked as a repetiteur/musical director with many opera companies including Opera up Close (winning an Olivier award for La Boheme), Opera Brava, Merry Opera, Northern Ireland Opera, Kings Head Opera and Opera de Bauge. Elspeth is the conductor of Thurrock Choral Society and assistant conductor of Barnes Choir and is a member of the Bridgetower Ensemble.

 

Joanna Turner

Joanna is an opera director and theatre maker with a particular passion for re-imagining classics, working in non-traditional theatre spaces and reaching new diverse audiences. Recent credits include: Cosi Fan Tutte (recent Baseless Fabric collaboration with Opera Holland Park), Cosi Fan Tutte (Royal Danish Opera – Revival Director), Carmen (Arcola Theatre & Street Opera, 4 Stars Evening Standard), Die Fledermaus (Arcola Theatre & Street Opera – 4 Stars The Guardian & The Stage), Cosi Fan Tutte (Street Opera – OffWestEnd Award Finalist for Best Opera Production). As a librettist Joanna has adapted and re-written new contemporary English librettos of The Elixir of Love, Carmen, Die Fledermaus and Cosi Fan Tutte for re-imagined productions aimed at reaching new diverse audiences performed promenade in public spaces.

As a workshop practitioner Joanna has created a highly successful programme of Opera Taster Workshops offered to South London schools to give young people a first experience of opera in a fun, engaging way and she also created an After School Opera Club programme, a 7 month project to give a group of young people an indepth creative experience writing and creating their own production inspired by a classic opera. She has also worked as a freelance practitioner with young people at the Orange Tree Theatre, Hackney Music Development Trust, Young Vic Theatre and directed students and non-professional adults at Leeds College of Music, Morley Opera, City Academy and University of Carlisle amongst others.

 

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Introducing our Opera Taster Workshop Team!

We’re super excited that this brilliant team will be delivering our highly successful programme of Opera Taster Workshops based around our new adaptation of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love. In collaboration with our partners, the local music hubs – Merton Music Foundation, Wandsworth Music Service and Croydon Music & Arts – we have arranged workshops at primary schools across Merton, Wandsworth and Croydon. Over the next few weeks they will be reaching 100s of children across South London with the power of music and drama and hopefully having lots of fun with opera!

Amaarah Roze

Amaarah Roze is an international facilitator, performer, event producer and public speaker. Dedicated to creating work that explores identity, honesty and empowerment, Amaarah has worked with young people across the UK in arts, education, community, sports and corporate sectors. She has supported over 1000 young people across the country to develop their skills and celebrate their talents – on stage and off.

 

 

Louisa Tee

​​Louisa trained at the RWCMD, Trinity College of Music and ENO Opera Works. She has worked with Opera Holland Park, Raymond Gubbay and Opera UpClose working in the West End and touring the UK. Roles include Mimi in La Boheme, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, Fiordiligi for Cosi Fan Tutte for Baseless Fabric and Violetta in La Traviata where she was nominated for an Off West End awards for best actress. Louisa is passionate about taking opera into schools and she is very excited to be returning to Baseless Fabric.

 

Giles Kennedy

While at school Giles’ musical upbringing was a strict diet of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, and he went on to study piano, cello and chamber music. Giles read Mathematics at Oxford and for a decade or so pursued a career in Operational Analysis and website design and development. Music was never entirely absent though, be it participating in occasional masterclasses, further studies on cello, as cellist of the SW London-based chamber ensemble Gli Amici della Musica with whom he performed many concerts, or as Director of Music at the Church of the Holy Name, Esher, and of the Arundel & Brighton Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes. Happily, music eventually took over and Giles now has a varied portfolio of musical engagements from solo, chamber and orchestral performing to teaching and instrumental and choral accompanying. He also co-founded the baroque ensemble Original Blend.

Lucia Martinez

Lucia is an Italian freelance performer, facilitator and producer. Graduated from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2021, her main interest as a theatre-maker is to devise original and collaborative multidisciplinary pieces finding storytelling alternatives to the spoken word. She is passionate about connecting local creatives and utilising art as a commentary on societal and contemporary issues, spreading awareness on untold stories. Co-founder of the collective JunkJunkie, she has discovered the power of working for and within a community and making theatre accessible to all, focusing on the transformational power of the arts.

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Cosi in the Sunshine!

We had a fantastic time at Opera Holland Park’s brilliant Open Day a few weeks ago collaborating again on our adaptation of Cosi Fan Tutte. In the brilliant sunshine we gathered wonderful audiences to enjoy a bit of Mozart’s comedy in our updated BF style. Huge thanks to our fab cast, Fran Hills on piano, Leo Geyer, Constella for the arrangement with Joanna Turner‘s libretto, and the Opera Holland Park‘s team for organising.

After Cosi we also enjoyed a huge variety of other activities – concerts, craft activities, dance, stage combat and lighting workshops and the (growing up) Opera Toddlers were particularly focussed in the conducting workshop! Watch out Leo Geyer! 

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Banana songs & vegetable games…

What a brilliant week we had for our 3 Skills Sharing Workshops last week! We partnered again with Southwark Playhouse to offer drama and music practitioners a workshop on opera and our process of delivering opera workshops in primary schools and how their skills may be transferable to working in opera, while also partnering with Opera Holland Park to offer a workshop to opera singers in facilitating workshops for young people and how their opera skills can be used in this area. The workshops were intended to be a fun and useful experience in sharing skills and developing artists’ skillsets as well as enabling us to meet new practitioners to work with in the future.

A huge thank you to partners Southwark Playhouse and Opera Holland Park, funding from Arts Council England and all the brilliant practitioners who took part. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas, silly games, tips and tricks for working with young people and introducing them to opera in a fun accessible way! We had so much fun, enjoyed sharing our ideas and learning from so many of your brilliant ideas. Not to mention some excellent and very silly games…!

 

 

 

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Cosi OHP Collaboration Returns!

We’re delighted to be reuniting with our Cosi Fan Tutte team as part of Opera Holland Park’s Inspire programme for two performances as part of the Opera Holland Park Open Day on Sunday 2nd June. 

Come join us on the steps at Opera Holland Park to catch part of our acclaimed 2017 adaptation! More details of the whole Open Day and how to get to Opera Holland Park here.

Come along – it’s free!

Date/Time: Sunday 2nd June @ 12noon & 1pm
Where: Opera Holland Park Theatre, Ilchester Place, London W8 6LU
Nearest station: Holland Park (central line) or High Street Kensington (circle/district lines)
More details on how to find us here: https://operahollandpark.com/your-visit/how-to-find-us/

 
Music – Leo Geyer, Constella Music
Libretto – Joanna Turner

CAST

Fiordiligi – Lucy Anderson 

Dorabella – Shakira Tsindos

Ferrando – Philip Costovski

Guglielmo – Jack Holton

Don Alfonso – Alex Jones

Piano – Fran Hills

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Join our Skills Sharing Workshops!

Come join us!! 

We are thrilled to once again be offering our Skills Sharing Workshops to promote artists’ skills development including knowledge of opera and working with young people thanks to our recent funding from Arts Council England.

This May we are delighted to be partnering again with Southwark Playhouse following our successful collaboration on these workshops in 2021 to offer drama and music practitioners a workshop on opera and our process of delivering opera workshops in primary schools and how their skills may be transferable to working in opera. And following this success, we are also partnering with Opera Holland Park to offer a workshop to opera singers who may have limited experience in facilitating workshops for young people and how their opera skills can be used in this area. We encourage artists of all levels to apply and we hope that the workshops will be a fun and useful experience in developing artists’ skillsets as well as enabling us to meet new practitioners to work with in the future! 

We recognise that opera is traditionally a white middle class artform and the lack of diversity in the arts is one of the sector’s most important issues. We strongly believe not only that opera is for everyone but that our artists should be representative of the South London areas in which we work. As such, we warmly encourage artists of colour to apply.

“Thank you so much for such an inspiring afternoon. Thank you for making it so warm and inclusive, and making us all feel welcome wherever we had come from.”

Workshops are FREE to attend but spaces are limited so if you’re interested please sign up here for Southwark Playhouse and here for Opera Holland Park by 19th April or contact us for more details.

We look forward to meeting you!

 

 

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Singing, dancing & sharing ideas for Street Opera!

Following our session with the brilliant Roehampton Base Youth Club as part of the adaptation process of our new street opera, we also visited the Elders Group at Katherine Low Settlement to share our work and pick their brains! The lovely Elspeth Wilkes led some vocal warm ups with the group, accompanied Claire Wild singing a few numbers from opera, musical theatre and well known songs to get everyone singing along and we showed filming and discussed how we rewrite and adapt operas for high street performances. Elspeth even got the group singing an opera chorus and some of the group joined in dancing! We also discussed some of the problems of adapting Elixir of Love for London life today and the group had lots of brilliant ideas for solving them – thank you for your help! Another brilliant session as part of our adaptation and we can’t wait to be back later in the process to share some of the scenes we’ve created. Meanwhile Jo needs to get her head down in the libretto and Leo is hard at work on those dots….

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Drama games, dazzling ideas and descants…

As part of the adaptation process to re-write The Elixir of Love into a modern English street opera for London life today, the team this year are also working with two local community groups who we wanted to engage further in the process of our work.

Previously when we’ve done our street performances at and around Roehampton Base Youth Club we’ve had such fantastic responses from the brilliant young people that we thought it would be a good idea to visit them at a much earlier stage of the process. And what an amazing time we had with the group! SO much laughter and SO many brilliant ideas from all of the young people and staff. Nadege led drama games, Leo played the bassoon, Claire sang and led vocal warm ups, and we discussed The Elixir of Love and ideas for who the characters would be and how the story might work in London today. The group were just as brilliant at Eastenders Zip Zap Boing as helping us sort out some of the story’s problems! Thank you so much to everyone involved, to the brilliant Roehampton Base team for organising, to Arts Council England for funding – and we absolutely can’t wait to be back very soon!

 

 

 

 

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Welcoming Madeleine to our team!

We are very excited to have Madeleine Thorne working with us this year as our Community Engagement Producer / General Manager. Madeleine brings a wealth of experience working with people from a huge range of different backgrounds and engaging them with opera and theatre in fun accessible ways. So that you could get to know Madeleine we asked her a few questions….

What excites you most about working with Baseless Fabric?

I’ve been really interested in the company’s work for a long time – my role at Opera North was all about making opera and the performing arts more accessible to a wider range of people, and it’s such a passion of mine, so I can’t wait to be a part of Baseless Fabric and learn more about how they achieve these things!

What other projects have you been working on recently?

I have been having an amazing time developing an early years performance about tooth fairies with a musician and fellow actor. It’s great fun playing a fairy and I can’t wait until we can get the show in front of some children and see what they think!

Tell us about 3 of your favourite theatre or opera experiences ever.

It’s so difficult to narrow it down as I am lucky to have had so many incredible experiences! But I’ll go with one of my earliest memories – crying and refusing to leave after seeing Peter Pan (starring Bonnie Langford!) with my mum as I didn’t want it to be over, I’ve wanted to work in theatre ever since!

The second one is directing Noughts and Crosses when I was Youth Theatre Director at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield – the young cast were absolutely fantastic and I was so proud of the show we created together!

And then the last one would have to be an Opera North production – it’s hard to pick just one but I’ll go with The Greek Passion because producing it allowed us to do so much awareness raising around what it’s like to be someone who is seeking asylum in the UK, an issue which is very close to my heart. And it was a brilliant show!

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