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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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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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What do LEGO, Peter Brook and Beyoncé have in common?

They’ve all done re-imaginings of Carmen!

Reimagining Carmen – one of the most famous operas fullstop – for our Baseless Fabric #HighStCarmen version definitely feels more weighted than our previous Cosi Fan Tutte or Die Fledermaus. There is so much history to it and so many people have so many opinions on both the character of Carmen and the story itself! However, it is also one of the most adapted stories – in fact Bizet and his librettist collaborators (Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy) adapted it themselves from Prosper Mérimée’s novella. And we are never ones to back down from a challenge of a bold re-imagining so here’s some of the good company we’re in – you might find a new favourite interpretation of this story yourself! Read more

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Announcing dates and locations for Carmen this summer

Baseless Fabric will present 10 free street performances of Carmen reimagined this summer on the high streets of South London from 4th – 21st August 2022.
The piece will also be presented at the Arcola Theatre from 9th – 13th August 2022 as part of Grimeborn Festival. Read more
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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

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Chatting to Wandsworth Radio about Street Opera

Last Saturday Artistic Director Joanna Turner headed to Wandsworth Radio to talk about our Cosi Fan Tutte Production. To listen to the broadcast just click the play button above. She also talks a little about our next production by David Mamet as part of National Libraries Week, Reunion & Dark Pony.

We still have a few remaining Cosi Fan Tutte performances in Mitcham, Wimbledon Village and Wimbledon Town Centre. Check out the Cosi Fan Tutte production page for details.

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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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Cosi Fan Tutte Cast Announced

We are delighted to announce our cast for the 2017 promenade performance of Cosi Fan Tutte:

The Cast

Claire Wild

Claire Wild – Fiordiligi

Claire Wild attended the Royal Northern College of Music‚ sponsored by the Peter Moores Foundation and the Musicians Benevolent Fund. She won the Webster Booth Award‚ the James Oncken Song Prize and the Frost Brownson Award.      

Highlights in recent seasons include Lilli Vanessi / Katharine in Kiss Me, Kate and Elle La voix humaine for Welsh National Opera, Susanna Le nozze di Figaro for Regents Opera and Petra in A Little Night Music for Opera Project at West Green House. Read more