Blog

Welcoming our Elixir of Love R&D team!!

We are so excited to be working with this brilliant group of people this autumn on the Research & Development period of our brand new adaptation of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love. Director/librettist Joanna Turner has been hard at work cutting, pasting, rewriting the story and updating the libretto (words) of the opera for London life today while composer Leo Geyer has been busy rewriting the music from full orchestra to 3 instruments suitable for promenade performance – our classic combo of violin, accordion & bassoon! And designer Marina Hadjilouca and Joanna have started discussing what these characters and the world they live in will look like. Now the cast have the new score and we’re excited to be exploring it with them in rehearsal this autumn and sharing some of our work with some of our friends and community partners. We’re delighted to be working some new people as well as welcoming back some friendly faces!

Welcome to our brilliant team!

 

Abigail Kelly – Adina

Born and raised in Birmingham, Abigail studied at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire graduating with a first class honours degree and continued her studies at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire of Scotland.

Abigail’s operatic roles include Susanna and Barbarina (The Marriage of Figaro – Mozart) English Touring Opera (ETO), Pamina (The Magic Flute – Mozart) Opera Up Close, Ninetta (La Gazza Ladra – Rossini) Midland Opera, Fido (Paul Bunyan – Britten) ETO, Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro – Mozart) Opéra de Baugé, First Boy (The Magic Flute – Mozart) ETO, First Lady (The Magic Flute – Mozart) Opera Minima, Despina (Così fan tutte – Mozart) ETO, Naiad (Rusalka – Dvořák) ETO, Cobweb (A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Britten) ETO and Adele (Die Fledermaus – Strauss)Baseless Fabric Theatre.

Digital performances since 2020 have included an operatic recital aimed for younger audiences for the Royal Albert Hall as part of their Royal Albert Home series; Shh! we have a plan, an operatic version of the children’s book by Chris Haughton with music by composer Noah Moseley (ETO); For OperaUpClose Abigail performed the title role of Sammy in Sammy and the Beanstalk, written by Robin Norton-Hale and composed by Rosabella Gregory; UNSEEN a performance project commissioned by Streetwise Opera with music by John Barber in collaboration with Streetwise Opera performers from across the UK.

Abigail directed the children’s show How to Find Your Name for ETO which toured the UK in the Spring 2022 season tour. She has subsequently directed devised performances for Turtle Key Arts and the YAM Award winning children’s opera The Wish Gatherer for ETO. This year Abigail directed part of a song cycle by Cassie Kinoshi and lydia luke for Birmingham Opera Company as part of their ‘Brum Commissions’ project and was festival Director for Streetwise Opera’s Re:Discover season.

 

Jonathan Cooke – Nemorino

Born and raised in Cheshire, versatile tenor Jonathan Cooke enjoys a varied singing career both in England and abroad. He studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has worked with some of the country’s biggest opera companies including Garsington, Scottish Opera, Grange Park Opera, Longborough Festival Opera and West Green House Opera.

Jonathan’s operatic rôles include divers characters such as Ruggero La Rondine (RCS), Le Mari Les Mamelles de Tiresias (RCS), Eisenstein die Fledermaus (Fulham Opera, Baseless Fabric), Squeak Billy Budd (St Endellion Summer Music Festival), Turridu, Cavalleria Rusticana (Hampstead Garden Opera, North Wales Opera Studio) Cavaradossi Tosca (Bridgetower Ensemble Opera, North Wales Opera Studio) and Lensky Eugene Onegin (Opera South East).

Outside of opera, and amongst other things, Jonathan is privileged to sing for Songhaven, a dementia-friendly concert series.

Pre-lockdown in 2020, Jonathan sang the rôle of Pinkerton in Opera Up Close’s tour of Madam Butterfly. During the pandemic, with performing opportunities sparse, he still managed to perform in socially-distanced performances of Tristan und Isolde, Tosca, and Carmen. Most recently, Jonathan returned to Kentish Opera to sing the title rôle in The Tales of Hoffmann.

 

Jack Holton – Belcore

Actor and baritone actor Jack Holton trained at GSMD and National Opera Studio, and is a Young Artist with Opera Prelude and the Musicians Company.

Jack is currently playing Julian (alternate) The Fabulist at Charing Cross Theatre.

Recent roles include Fiorello The Barber of Seville and Captor Tosca at Opera Holland Park, Henri The Runaway Royal and Guglielmo (cover) Così fan tutte at Opera North, Guglielmo Così fan tutte for Baseless Fabric, and Count Ribbing Un Ballo in Maschera for Chelsea Opera Group. Other roles include Renato Un Ballo in Maschera, Eugene Onegin, Silvio I Pagliacci, Don Giovanni and Sky Masterson Guys & Dolls.

In Spring 2025 will cover the roles of Ned Keane Peter Grimes and Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro at Opera North.

Jack is represented by Musichall Ltd

 

Alistair Sutherland – Dulcamara

A graduate from The Royal Academy of Music, Alistair was selected as a 2012 young artist with Opera Holland Park. He continues to work with OHP as a chorister and comprimario performing roles such as Second Yeoman (The Yeoman of the Guard) or Pinellino (Gianni Schicchi).

He has worked with a number of smaller touring companies, creating roles for OperaUpClose such as Schaunard (La bohème), Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and Dulcamara (L’elisir d’amore). Other roles include Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress), Smirnov (The Bear), Michele (Il Tabarro), Des Grieux (The Portrait of Manon), Sam (Trouble in Tahiti) and Bluebeard (Bluebeard’s Castle).

Alistair works regularly with organisations such as OHP Inspire, The Music Mind Spirit Trust, and Songbird incorporating music into therapeutic settings for a variety of needs. He leads regular sessions at King’s College Hospital, as well as performing for a number of care-home groups leading dementia aware song-groups, and he runs folk- music ensemble in South London.

www.alistairsutherland.com

 

Louisa Till – Violin

Louisa is an active violinist and teacher based in London. She studied at the Royal Northern College of Music with Cecily Ward, James Clark and Pavel Fischer, gaining both BMus and MMus degrees. 

At the RNCM, Louisa participated in projects with the BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, as well as touring internationally to Paris and Montepulciano in Italy. 

Since moving to London, Louisa has enjoyed performing with the London Mozart Players and with Baseless Fabric Theatre, for a re-imagined production of Bizet’s Carmen. She also has a keen interest in musical theatre and has performed at the London Palladium for concert performances of Camelot and Dr Zhivago. 

Louisa is passionate about her work as an educator and for the past two years has worked for Music Masters, a charity which provides access to music education for primary school children in London.

 

Ilona Suomalainen – Accordion

Originally from Helsinki, Finland, Ilona Suomalainen graduated with a Masters degree from the Royal Academy of Music in 2017, studying under professor Owen Murray. Since then, she has gone on to establish a varied and diverse career as a freelance accordionist in the UK, with recent projects including work with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, Opera Holland Park and Birmingham Opera Company. Outside of classical music, she regularly performs with the Israeli pop-jazz singer Irit Dekel, most recently supporting Caro Emerald and Lisa Stansfield on their respective UK nationwide tours.

Before moving to London, Ilona graduated from the Sibelius-Academy in Helsinki with a MMus degree studying with professors Matti Rantanen, Veli Kujala and Mika Väyrynen. In 2006, she won first-prize in the Finnish National Youth Accordion Competition and with her accordion trio, BCH, won the Chamber Music, Accordion Orchestra and Overall categories at the 2011 International Accordion Competition in Pula, Croatia. The trio also received the prize for the highest points ever awarded in the competition’s history.

A passionate teacher and educator, Ilona currently teaches accordion at the International School of London and privately across London. As part of her studies at the Sibelius-Academy, she also undertook an intensive course in specialised pedagogical training, which qualifies her to teach in educational institutions from pre-school to university.

 

Leo Geyer – Arranger/MD/Bassoon

Born in London of Anglo-Indian descent, Leo Geyer is a young composer, conductor, and presenter. He enjoys a busy and diverse career composing and conducting opera, dance, film, and concert music. He has established a reputation for his reimaginings, which creatively engage with music of the past, and is currently studying for a doctorate in opera-ballet composition as the Senior Music Scholar at St Catherine’s College, Oxford.

Leo’s music has been described by The Times as “imaginative and beautifully shaped”, and has received performances by ensembles including the English Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Rambert Dance Company and Opera North.

Leo began his conducting career at the Royal Opera House as a Cover Conductor for The Royal Ballet. Described by James Murphy, CEO of the Royal Philharmonic Society as “one of the great young British conductors to watch,” Leo has worked as a guest conductor with the BBC Concert Orchestra, English National Opera, Birmingham Contemporary Music Ensemble, the National Theatre, Ensemble 212 (USA), AUT (Denmark), and other ensembles.

​When he was 19, Leo founded an orchestra which has now grown to become Constella Music. He has brought together internationally renowned artists in numerous critically acclaimed performances across the UK. Last year, Leo began his training as a presenter on the BBC Open Music Programme with Katie Derham as his mentor. He made his debut at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Concert Orchestra, for a BBC Proms performance broadcast live on Radio 3.

 

Joanna Turner – Director/Librettist

Joanna is Artistic Director of Baseless Fabric. She 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. Experienced working on big stages as well as in site-specific, immersive and promenade environments, Joanna places clear detailed storytelling and a focus on the relationships between characters at the heart of her work.

Recent credits include: 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.

Associate/Revival Director credits include work at Vlaamse Opera Belgium, New York City Opera and Opera North and as Assistant Director at Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, Toronto Luminato Festival, Shakespeare’s Globe and Young Vic. Directors assisted include Katie Mitchell, Tim Albery and Daniel Kramer. Joanna also worked as a script reader for Liverpool Everyman and Manchester Royal Exchange including for the Bruntwood Prize, and as a youth theatre leader at the Orange Tree Theatre and Hackney Music Development Trust.

 

Marina Hadjilouca – Designer

Marina Hadjilouca - DesignerMarina Hadjilouca is an award winning Performance Designer and an Academic currently based at Rose Bruford College. As a practitioner, Marina creates Scenographic Interventions in contested public spaces and designs sets and costumes for theatrical performances and the opera. She has collaborated with major theatre organisations in the UK, Cyprus and Greece, including Arcola’s Grimeborn Festival, the National Theatre of Cyprus, and the International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama.

As a researcher Marina focuses on the use of performance design as a methodology for politicised practices. Marina’s research interests lie in the synergies between social art practice and performance design. She has presented her research in conferences and symposiums in Europe and the UK and has published papers in conference proceedings. Marina is one of the curators of Performance Design Futures organised by CYCSTAT, in Cyprus.

 

Blog

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! 

Blog

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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Our next street opera!

We are super excited to announce that we have received funding from several amazing funders including Arts Council England and Wandsworth Council towards the Research & Development of our next street opera adaptation and a whole heap of associated activities – school workshops, elderly concerts & artist development. And this time it’s Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love so think love triangles, love potions & silliness all happening on South London high streets today. The adaptation will be written by the team behind our previous street opera adaptations – composer Leo Geyer and librettist Joanna Turner – so they will get cracking over the next few months and we’ll be sure to invite you to a taster sharing later in the year…. Exciting times!!

 

 

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Cosi Fan Tutte Collaboration with Opera Holland Park!

We are thrilled to announce that we have a pop up performance coming up this November in collaboration with Opera Holland Park! We are partnering with the lovely team at OHP to present a 25min section of our adaptation of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte in the foyer of Chelsea & Westminster Hospital on Wednesday 15th November at 1.30pm. Usually OHP present a simple monthly concert of opera & classical songs here but we convinced them to try something a bit different!

Our Cosi Fan Tutte, first seen back in 2017, was the OffWestEnd Award Finalist for Best Opera Production and gained 5 star reviews from Operissima. With a modern English libretto by Joanna Turner (with new 2023 updates – because social media has changed since then don’t ya know!!) and a new piano arrangement by Leo Geyer, Constella Music as this won’t be a promenade performance but Chelsea & Westminster Hospital have a piano in their foyer!

So come join us on 15th November to see a revival of our Baseless Fabric adaptation in an exciting new space! We can’t wait to see you there!

What amazed me about the Baseless Fabric experience is how naturally this production fits into its locations, a testament to the scrupulous research work which must have gone on beforehand, as well as the quality of everyone’s performances.- , Operissima
This production is tremendous fun- , LondonTheatre1.com

 

Blog

Announcing the Cast of Carmen!

We are delighted to announce the cast of Carmen:

Felicity Buckland – Carmen (Arcola Theatre)

Felicity Buckland

Felicity trained at the RNCM and on English National Opera’s Opera Works programme.

Recent solo appearances include Kasturbai, Glass Satyagraha for ENO, Wellgunde Wagner The Rhinegold for Birmingham Opera and Nicklausse, Offenbach The Tales of Hoffmann for Kentish Opera. Previous ENO highlights include cover roles in The Valkyrie, The Mask of Orpheus (Birtwistle), Orpheus in the Underworld, Carmen, and Olivier-Award winning Porgy and Bess. Elsewhere she has sung the title roles in Carmen (Kentish Opera) and La Cenerentola (High Time Opera); Rosina The Barber of Seville (Opera South) Rossweisse Die Walküre (Grange Park Opera); Olga Eugene Onegin (Opera Up Close, Opera South East, Mid Wales Opera (cover)); Dorabella Così Fan Tutte (Baseless Fabric Theatre); Cherubino The Marriage of Figaro, and 3rd Lady The Magic Flute (both Opera Up Close). She is a regular extra chorister for The Royal Opera House, ENO and Opera North.

Felicity is in demand for solo oratorio, music education projects and consort/session work, and is delighted to be a regular part of Baseless Fabric’s Learning and Participation Projects. Read more

Blog

Cast Announced for our Carmen R&D!

Tomorrow marks the start of our research and development workshop for our latest re-imagining, Carmen. This follows on from our acclaimed Die Fledermaus (4 stars The Guardian & The Stage) and Cosi Fan Tutte (Best Opera Production Finalist, OffWestEnd Awards). Over the course of 3 days we will be exploring our version of the piece, with a new modern English libretto by Joanna Turner, and score for violin, accordion and bassoon arranged by Leo Geyer.

Our work will culminate in a free sharing at 4.30pm at Lantern Arts Centre. If you’d like to attend you can sign up for tickets here. Read more

Blog

Carehomes Carpark Die Fledermaus!

Die Fledermaus Arcola Theatre

David Horton as Eisenstein & James McOran-Campbell as Falke

Despite the grey January days this particularly bleak January we have something very exciting to look forward to this summer! With the hugest thanks to the Postcode Community Trust, we are thrilled that later this year when the weather warms up, Covid restrictions are lifted a little and hopefully many carehome residents will have received their vaccine, we are able to offer South West London carehomes a FULL PERFORMANCE of our acclaimed re-imagined Die Fledermaus (4 stars – The Guardian)!

As with our recent carehome concerts, these performances will again take place in the carpark or garden of the care homes to keep residents, staff and artists safe in these changing challenging times. And we are thrilled that this time rather than just concerts we can offer a full performance of Die Fledermaus giving residents and staff an opportunity to enjoy the full story of Strauss’ operetta. Read more

Blog

What is Grimeborn?

The Arcola (Dalston)

Grimeborn is the annual opera festival at one of London’s coolest theatres, The Arcola. Over the last ten years, the festival has become the home for adventurous takes on familiar classics, resurrections of forgotten gems, and premieres of brand new works. This year there are no less than 16 productions. There are £12 tickets available for each one. It’s cheap, it’s accessible – and it’s mindblowing when you realise how much there is to the opera world. 

Don’t take our word for it. Here are some examples that we can’t wait for:

Bringing back unknown operas to life – like Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha

Somehow Scott Joplin, the ‘King of Ragtime’, is only known for his famous piano tune The Entertainer. But then you hear about an American opera-musical like this, entirely ahead of its time, entirely relevant still – and with a title like Treemonisha… well, you just kinda have to go!

See also Aaron Copland’s Twelve Poems by Emily Dickinson.

Radical takes on opera classics – like Die Fledermaus

Our very own artistic director Jo Turner and composer Leo Geyer return with a new take of Strauss’ classic. Working with designer Marina Hadjilouca and lighting designer Jack Weir, Baseless Fabric will bring our street opera indoors for two performances only, for an entirely new take on our style of relevant, irreverent opera re-imagining. Find out more here. Read more

Blog

2018, what a year…

What a year 2018 was for Baseless Fabric! We began the year with the thrilling news that we were the first recipient of the Wimbledon Foundation’s prestigious new Arts and Community Engagement Fund for our new street opera project Die Fledermaus!

This project, with the additional support of Arts Council England, Merton Council and the Samuel Gardner Memorial Trust, encompasses the creative adaptation of an opera for the high street, the free professional performances, workshops for both schools and elderly lunch clubs and two school parallel productions! So while the project has similarities to our previous street operas Drifting Dragons and Cosi Fan Tutte, it is also bigger and better than ever! Read more