Community

Our outreach work with communities across Northern Ireland since our foundation in 2010 has been extensive and we have worked with a huge range of charities, youth and community groups to bring opera and singing across the country as well as bringing people in to events, workshops and open dress rehearsals to experience opera often for the first time.

Find out more about some of our recent projects below – and get in touch with Bobbi Rai-Purdy our Community Outreach Coordinator via community@niopera.com if you’d like to find out how to work with us to take part in one of our projects!

Music and Theatre Skills Halloween Week 2024

A free week of workshops for 9-11 year olds at St Finnian’s Parish Church, where children can come and find out about all the different theatre and music skills used by theatre professionals to bring a show to the stage, themed around Halloween. Our professional facilitators will take participants through all the elements needed to put together a show, from set design to storytelling, hair and make-up to choreography, prop-making, character and costume and music-making.

Have a look at their Halloween stage make-up looks by clicking here.

See some of the highlights of the week in the gallery below…

Community Dress Rehearsal for Eugene Onégin at the Grand Opera House

Find out what our community audience of 600 people from more than 30 different community groups thought of their experience as our first audience to see ‘Eugene Onégin’

Groups who attended this year’s Community Dress Rehearsal included: ACSONI, Radius Housing, Refuge Language, Heel and Ankle Community Theatre, Rogue Encounters, Positive Life, Fairholme Supported Living, Belfast Chorale, Eglinton Community Group, Here NI, Diverse Youth NI, Wave Trauma, Chinese Welfare Association, Scoil An Drochid, Migrant Centre NI, Bruce House Residential Home, Hemsworth Court, Knocknagoney CC, Ballynafeigh Community Development Organisation, Decorum, Donavan Fold, St Finnian’s, North Belfast Men’s Shed, Forthspring InterCommunity Project, Rainbow Factory, Corrymeela, Mencap, Ulster Youth Orchestra, Youth Action, Mary Magdalene Church, Stormont Presbyterian Church.

Come And Sing Eugene Onégin at the Grand Opera House

Our much-loved fun and free annual event returned to the Grand Opera House in September 2024, where singers of all abilities came to try out their ‘opera voices’ in the auditorium of the Grand Opera House in Belfast. Working with Northern Ireland Opera’s artists, the audience drawn from NI Opera’s community partners and the general public tried out singing an opera chorus from Eugene Onégin, La Traviata and Nabucco from scratch and then performed it together with NI Opera soloists in the historic Grand Opera House auditorium. https://niopera.com/performances/come-and-sing-eugene-onegin/

‘CHORUS!’ Concert at the Ulster Hall, Belfast and The Juniper Tree in The Grand Opera House Studio

Northern Ireland Opera’s chorus are selected from open auditions in Belfast each year and performed a concert of some of opera’s best-loved choruses and some lesser known gems in the iconic Ulster Hall in May 2024. Three hundred tickets were distributed to community, youth and charity groups and arts sector workers to come and experience some incredible choruses performed by locally based opera singers.

In February, members of the NI Opera Chorus performed a fully-staged opera in the Studio theatre of the Grand Opera House, ‘The Juniper Tree’ and 50 members of local community groups joined us to watch the dress rehearsal.

NI Opera Outreach Week at the Grand Opera House 2023

Watch some highlights from NI Opera’s Outreach Week for ‘Tosca’ at the Grand Opera House in September 2023, with events including school workshops, community ‘Come and Sing’ events, Opera Tots, Hip HOPera and our open dress rehearsal for members of over 30 school, youth and community groups.

Music and Theatre Skills Summer Scheme July to August 2023

NI Opera will be running a summer scheme for 12-18 year old children in the Duncairn Arts Centre during July and August 2023. Theatre and opera creatives will be running workshops every Monday exploring and trying out the different skills needed to bring a show to the stage.

Find out more here.

‘Nobody/Somebody’ March 2023 – a new teen/young adult opera

This new opera was commissioned by NI Opera to tell the story of young activists campaigning for better social housing in Belfast. The librettist, Fionnuala Kennedy, worked closely with the young people of the PPR Organisation in writing the opera and it was composed by Belfast composer Neil Martin. NI Opera worked with Springboard Opportunities to engage 5 young people as Youth Counterparts on the creative and technical team for the opera, giving them paid roles and on-the-job experience of working on a live opera production. The opera was performed by NI Opera artists with the Ulster Youth Orchestra, most of whose young musicians had never performed in an opera production before. This opera is perfect for touring and we are currently seeking funding to take it to locations around Northern Ireland and beyond.

Find out more by clicking here.

‘Creative Carlisle’ Skills Expo November 2022

NI Opera and the Belfast Buildings Trust are holding two events in North Belfast at the Crumlin Road Gaol, showcasing theatre and opera making skills as part of a wider programme exploring potential future uses which include the local community for the partly-restored Carlisle Memorial Church in which NI Opera have performed The Belfast Opera, La Boheme and created our award-winning film, Old Friends and Other Days’. Find out more by clicking here.

Glenarm Festival of Voice Outreach 2022

This year we’ve a full day of children’s musical and creative activities planned for our annual festival of singing in the coastal village of Glenarm. From singing workshops and taster sessions to storytelling and arts and crafts there’s something available for children of all ages and it’s free! Find out more by clicking here.

‘La Traviata’ Outreach Week 2022

Our Outreach Week in the Grand Opera House is back in 2022, following highly successful events in 2018 and 2019. From 5-9 September, we’ll be holding creative workshops, pop-up performances, ‘Come and Sing’ events, Ulster Scots and Irish Song recitals and workshops and our much loved Open Dress Rehearsal for community, youth and school groups from Belfast and beyond.

Sundays at the Maritime Mile

Throughout the spring and early summer, we’ve been taking part in weekly pop-up performances along Belfast’s historic Maritime Mile, bringing free recitals of opera and musical theatre to new audiences. From the Drawing Room where Titanic was designed to the SoundYard sculpture, from the deck of SS Nomadic to a pop up at St Joseph’s Church in Sailortown, find out more by clicking here.

The Associate Artists Programme

During the pandemic in 2020 we created a new development programme, The Associate Artists, with the vision that they would be able to create and deliver opera and musical events across Northern Ireland. This programme was so successful that it is now a permanent part of Northern Ireland Opera and you can find out more about the Associate Artists by clicking here.

‘Nobody/Somebody’Teen/Young Adult Opera Commission

In 2021 we received funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to commission an exciting new work designed for a teen/young adult audience. We are working with writer Finn Kennedy and composer Neil Martin and a group of young activists to create a brand new opera which will highlight the issues facing these young people who are all experiencing housing stress or homelessness. The opera will be workshopped as part of the Belfast Children’s Festival organised by Young at Art in February 2022 and will be performed by the Ulster Youth Orchestra. Find out more by clicking here.