During the lockdown, we’ve been busy creating projects and activities for you to take part in at home.
Opera Club:
We provide weekly suggestions of a ‘classic’ and a ‘discovery’ opera or classical performance you can watch online: we recommend a production and provide some context and background so that whether you are an opera novice or committed fan, you will be able to get the most out of watching the production.
Chosen by our Dramaturg, Judith Wiemers, to date Opera Club has featured international productions of Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’, a Lieder concert in NY, Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ and Weinberger’s ‘Spring Storms’, Puccini’s ‘Tosca’ and Handel’s ‘Rodrigo’, Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’ and Halévy’s ‘La Juive’, Beethoven’s ‘Leonore’ and ‘Fidelio’, Handel’s ‘Xerxes’, Moniuszko’s ‘Halka’, some Bach and Mahler for Easter and Puccini’s ‘La Bohème’, Monteverdi’s ‘Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria’ , Dvorák, Wolf, Schubert at Bayerische Staatsopern Astor Piazzola’s ‘María de Buenos Aires, Shostakovich’s ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’ Handel’s ‘Agrippina’and Przybylski’s ‘Anhelli’ Please note, some of the streaming options in these links will now have expired but some will still be available. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to stay informed about the latest suggestions, or visit our news page.
NI Opera At Home: musical activities for children:
We are creating musical activities or projects for children, which we release on social media and via our news page and YouTube channel every Monday. The first ten are ‘Kitchen Percussion with Cathryn Lynch’, ‘A Singing Session with Sarah Richmond’ , ‘Dance with Jennifer Rooney: Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ Stage Make-Up with Connie McGrath, Learn To Conduct with Sinead Hayes, Science of the Voice with Dr Trevor Agus., Making Props with Noleen and George Stevenson, Superhero Costume with Carla Barrow Make a Viking Helmet with Enda Kenny and Make a Shadow Puppet Theatre with Kevin and Isabelle Smith. Pitched for primary school children, these are fun, interactive videos which you might want to join in on too!
There’s also a singing lesson for older children with Sarah Richmond. Future projects in the pipeline include set design so watch this space.
This year we also took our annual singing summer school, The Glens of Antrim Singing Explorers online, with a theme of Myths and Legends and participants drawn from the Glenarm area where we hold our annual Festival of Voice.
NI Opera Studio: ‘Soave sia il vento’ – a tribute to the NHS and frontline workers.
The NI Opera Studio, our development programme for emerging opera singers, performed Mozart’s ‘Soave sia il vento’ from their homes in gratitude and admiration for the work of the NHS and frontline workers in Belfast and across Northern Ireland. You can watch their performance here.
At Home for Heroes: A Classical Northern Ireland Thank You to the NHS and Frontline Workers.
Northern Ireland Opera worked with some of Northern Ireland’s most distinguished classical musicians to create an online concert, filmed from their homes, as a tribute to the work of the NHS and frontline workers keeping us safe and well in the current crisis. Click here for full details and to watch the concert.
If you’d like any information about our projects, or if you are an educator, school or community group who’d like to get involved in our outreach projects, please contact us at info@niopera.com.