The Opera Anywhere blog . .

The Season of Summer Opera, Picnics and Singing Gardeners!

2015-06-16T06:39:00.003+01:00

We've been having another incredibly busy time these last few months and so much more to come in June and July, our G&S Mikado and Pirates continue to tour with performances coming up in
Eynsham and Witney at the end of July and August, we've even recently performed our Mikado abroad (well, Wales anyway!). Our next Pirates include a performance with the Cumnor Choral Society and we've also taken the bold step to invite singes on the day to Come and Sing with the Chorus!
More immediately though is our new productions of 'The Bear' by Sir William Walton and 'The Old Maid & The Thief' by Menotti - with 2 performances planned on the 10th and 11th July in the amazing amphitheatre at Waterperry Gardens, Near Thame, Oxfordshire . . both operas are really accessible and there's an opportunity to bring picnics to enjoy in the 60 minute interval. We're also taking this double bill to The Players Theatre in Thame and The Cotswold Playhouse in Stroud in the Autumn.. so don't miss out, we've a fabulous young cast.
Our Singing Waiters concept has really taken off recently, we've developed the 'pop up' and surprise nature of our performances so we now use a variety of 'disguises' and costumes to add to the entertainment. At a recent garden party where we were invited to attend we morphed from Singing Waiters to Singing Gardeners and then went glam! Our audiences seem to love the variety of surprises though it does stretch our singers somewhat!

Fortunately we do have some petite sopranos working with us at the moment that can quite easily pop out of a composter and perform 'O Mio Babbino'!
We've quite a collection of images from our recent Singing Waiters performances on our Singing Waiters Facebook page, do take a look!

We're delighted to be invited back to perform at the Cambridge Summer Music Festival again this year, popping up all over the place and making an impact in public spaces!

Later on in August we have an exciting Opera On Punts performance for the FSB, we're expecting to punt 40 guests down the River Cherwell in Oxford - we're intending to use 9 punts tying some together and performing from 4 of them, a massive challenge but will be great fun and a brilliant experience for our guests, I'm sure!

Do check out our website, facebook and twitter pages or contact us via email or phone 01865 735910 for further information..

Tis the season to be jolly

2014-12-03T11:55:00.000+00:00

Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la. Don we now our gay apparel, Fa la la, la la la, la la la. Troll the ancient Yule tide carol, Fa la la la la, la la la la.
So many exciting things happening in the Opera Anywhere camp this Christmas, we can't help ourselves but revive our Amahl & The Night Visitors - 4 performances during the last 2 weeks in December, a very strong line up which will include our new recruits to the cast: Catrin Lewis, Suzi Saperia, Miles Horner and Ed Mansfield.
This Christmas we've decided to present 2 other short comic opera's in addition to our Amahl production. We stumbled across an hilarious 9 minute opera by Barber with words by Menotti, 'A Hand Of Cards', we've produced a new production of Menotti's 'The Telephone', set in the 1950/1960's which features a 1940's telephone and a 1960's Vacuum cleaner! .. so in under 2 hours our audiences will be able to enjoy 3 great opera's, 2 funny hilarious and 1 funny but very moving and great for kids!
See more on our website for more information about the operas and for a list of dates and venues click here!

Just after Christmas, our jolly Mikado AND our Pirates productions don their gay apparel at the intimate gorgeous Players Theatre in Thame.. tickets are going to be scarce for this so don't delay, book in for a great post-Christmas treat!
In February, we have been commissioned by the composer John Whittaker to produce his new opera based on a Thomas Hardy story 'The 3 Wayfarers' - we'll be performing a workshop performance on the 21st February at the suitably atmospheric Unicorn Theatre in Abingdon, we've only got 20 or so tickets left and these must go to our sponsors, so if you can spare £40 to help us make this happen, book a ticket here, now!
You may have noticed our shiny new website, if not, do have a browse and let us know what you think.. our wonderful trustee and director Alissa Robinson designed it for us..
we're also on Facebook and Twitter as Opera Anywhere and now also as SingingWaiterUK .. if you'd like to talk to us you can even find us on the end of a telephone! 01865 735910 . .

The most ambitious of opera private parties..

2014-10-25T21:42:00.003+01:00

When one of our clients called us up, out of the blue in May and described his vision for a private party to end all private parties we thought he was mad! He had come up with an Egyptian theme and wanted to tell the story of Moses combined with some of the most moving, dynamic opera with luscious orchestral sounds ever written and composed!

After a face to face meeting with him, his wife and his event manager at his country house in the Cotswolds we became convinced that this man was not only sane, but serious and determined.

He subsequently described his plan which included an evening of opera whilst entertaining 140 guests for dinner, he was to devise a narrative whilst our job was to provide the music, the orchestra, singers, dancers and costumes. His plan insisted on using 'Ronan' a fantastic horse that moved amongst the guests in time with the music, ridden by a Roman centurion! Our host had already employed three camels at the entrance to the party to welcome his guests, he simply did not compromise on any of his ambitions!

There was no doubt that this would be one of our most challenging engagements, and so it turned out be.. but we were so blessed with having access to some amazing talent; our music director spent weeks on re-scoring orchestral music, reducing a 60 piece orchestral score to enable a 22 piece, orchestra to play. Our costume designer spent months sourcing and making Hebrew slaves, Egyptian and Roman soldiers costumes, our amazing stage director translated our hosts vision and choreographed our massive team of excellent singers, dancers and even the horse moves. What a night and what a spectacle! The images shown here are our unofficial pictures but we're promised a whole load of official pictures soon, can't wait!

As our year continues we find ourselves being invited to perform at a wide range of private parties but we also have a really busy programme of staged performances including a Menotti triple bill over Christmas and then returning to more Gilbert and Sullivan in January and February. For all the latest information please do see our website: OperaAnywhere.com Facebook and Twitter pages.

The Summer season has been extraordinary!

2014-07-31T14:15:00.002+01:00

When we planned to tour our Mikado and Pirates Of Penzance performances throughout the summer months we knew we were going be busy busy! But we didn't account for the number of bookings for private parties we'd be getting, and that is my excuse for not 'keeping up with appearances' with this blog!
In fact the only reason I'm doing this now is that I had an awful night and haven't been able to keep even a cup of tea down, so I'm stuck at home with my laptop!

I feel a bit like 'Ko Ko' expecting to have my throat cut at any moment!
Our 'experiment' at the lovely amphitheatre at Waterperry Gardens really paid off, great audiences for both nights, we shall surely return with a new production in the not too distant future. Our G&S shows over the summer have worked really well alongside our partners 'WOAPA' and Cumnor Choral Society, they have thrown themselves into the project big time and produced great sounds as our chorus.

Our unique brand of opera entertainment for parties has been widely taken up this year, we have bookings for a large scale production in the Cotswolds in September which will include 50 Hebrew Slaves and a 20 piece orchestra! And then we've been performing as just 3 or 5 of us as singing waiters with backing tracks or keyboard.. it has been an immense experience and certainly has been stretching but SO exciting and again we don't seem to be able to put a thing wrong with the audiences.. loads of great feedback throughout.. it's great to know what we do is so appreciated. We managed to pull off some really fun stunts at the Frilford Heath Golf Club last week, for their annual dinner, an Italian themed evening. We had a lovely email from a couple who attended:

"What a lovely evening you gave us last night .Singing sublime, antics hilarious and Vanessa looked stunning".

We did the usual 'singing waiter' stuff for the first 20 minutes or so but then introduced into the act a Domino's Pizza delivery man and a stroppy Pizza Express chef.. best of all the 'suit of armour' positioned in the corner of the room for the first 40 minutes of the evening and then coming to life whilst 3 singing cleaning ladies dusted it whilst performing the 'cat trio' . . what a hoot!
We have also had the opportunity to develop a new production during all the busy-ness, amazingly we were able to pull off a performance of Menotti's 'The Telephone' for 'Art In Action combined with some terrific stuff from our new singers 'The Leading Ladies'. The intention now is to tour 'The Telephone' with 'A Hand Of Bridge' and our old friend 'Amahl & The Night Visitors', dates will be published soon on our website: OperaAnywhere.com
Finally, to cap it all we've had some really fun 'Opera On Punts' events and with this amazing weather no doubt lots of more bookings to come!
Before I sign off this time a note of immense appreciation to all our wonderful performers who consistently pull off fantastic performances in often what seems impossibly difficult circumstances... thank you to you all!

Do check us out online OperaAnywhere.com Facebook & Twitter!

LATEST NEWS JUST IN: OUR PERFORMANCE AT WATERPERRY GARDENS OF THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE FILM JUST BEEN PUBLISHED check it out here:
Act One: https://vimeo.com/101161872
Act Two: https://vimeo.com/101161873

More Menotti in the Making!

2014-04-11T06:40:00.002+01:00

We love performing Amahl and The Night Visitors, The Telephone and The Medium - all composed by Menotti who also wrote the words but we've now come across another super one act comedy opera.. 'The Old Maid and The Thief', originally written for radio in 1939!

Amongst everything else we're planning over the next couple of years this, combined with The Telephone and another great find 'A Hand Of Bridge' by Barber (words by Menotti!), has edged their way into our thinking for touring in 2015.

There are so many projects going on this year including many more Pirates and Mikado's, combining with choral societies and choirs, to provide our chorus. . .do check out our latest dates on our diary page. We're really excited also to be invited back to so many festivals and have a growing number of private parties and corporate functions to perform at, one in particular is taking most of our time to plan for.. it involves a 20 + strong orchestra, 20 + chorus and superb soloists performing some of the best Puccini music written, and there's the cast of 25 walk on parts of roman soldiers, 25 Egyptians and even real camels!!

We're in the process of strengthening our organisation as well at the moment, things in the office have already started to resemble some order at last!

Now hopefully, we'll still be able to get out the opera punt for at least a weekend or two in the summer... that would be nice!

The Team is growing and Opera Anywhere is expanding . .

2014-02-24T21:00:00.000+00:00

New team members

We've been busy recruiting new team members over recent weeks, talented people who are prepared to donate their time to help the Opera Anywhere cause, in order to help us grow and develop our work. We'll be making some official announcements soon, once we have finally confirmed their positions within the 'management team'. We're still on the look out for someone who can manage our Friends Scheme a Stage Manager / Production Manager and maybe an intern who could assist our make up and wardrobe department.

Singing Waiters, Singing Valentines!

The start of our 2014 included a singing waiters gig for an 80th birthday party in Oxford and being employed as singing valentines by Fabulous Flowers we had some great media and press coverage. One of our favourite tenors, Lawrence Olsworth-Peter performed to numerous lucky ladies throughout the day 'You Are My Hearts Desire' (Lehar).

New venues, new dates . .

We're delighted to announce a number of new collaborations with choirs, orchestras and venues for 2014 and 2015 and will be adding new dates as and when they are confirmed, we'll be performing our Pirates with the Cumnor Choral Society, our Mikado with the Eynsham Choral Society, we're visiting the fantastic Waterperry Gardens amphitheatre in June, performing our Mikado and our Pirates and we're delighted to announce a return to Henley in October. We're also returning to Shrivenham and Stroud with our Pirates production, for a complete list of our diary dates do check out our diary pages here dates - you can also find details on how you can purchase tickets from our diary page.

Pop Up Opera & Flashmob!

Our Pop Up opera and Flashmob team have been invited back to perform at the Cambridge Summer Music Festival in July, following the extraordinary goings on at the railway station, shopping centre, art gallery and waterways last year and of course our ever popular opera on punts programme will be running throughout the summer.

The Three Wayfarers

We're soon to be launching a major fund-raising campaign to help us finance an amazing new opera, composed by John Whittaker, hopefully we'll be able to perform this in the spring of 2015. Based on a wonderful story by Thomas Hardy the music has a 'folky' feel and should appeal to a wide audience, we're extremely excited at having the opportunity to be able to get involved with this project, watch this space for more information soon and do get in touch if you can point us in the right direction to help our fund-raising!

Send A Cow

Many of our public performances this year will be to help raise some funds and further exposure for the marvellous charity 'Send A Cow'. Their approach to ending poverty is unique. A powerful mix of practical farming, emotional support and a culture of sharing that is changing the future for millions of African families. We're really excited at the opportunity to help them make a difference this year.

If you would like to add your name to our newsletter mailing list (email) or would like to get in touch with Opera Anywhere on any matter do contact us, follow us or call us via any of the following links:

Facebook ; Twitter ; the Opera Anywhere website ; email or telephone 01865 735910

2014 here we come!

2014-01-04T22:17:00.001+00:00

2014 for Opera Anywhere will definitely be a case of working smarter not harder, we're getting to a level of activity now where we have to make decisions about growing our resources in order to manage our growth, if you see what I mean! We're not really in a position to recruit paid employees at the moment but we are on the look out for talented individuals who might be able to volunteer a few hours per week to help us get to where we want to be. We need people to help us market ourselves better, communicate more effectively, we need help in administration, someone to manage our friends scheme, a fund raiser or two... we could really do with support in our production department, like a props and costume manager, we need a stage manager.. the list goes on - we have never been short of ambition!

We have had a really good run of our Christmas show which included Amahl & The Night Visitors, in addition to public performances at numerous venues we were able to run a workshop and collaborative performance at a school in Newbury, an experience we would love to expand on!

Collaboration will surely be our theme for the coming years, our Mikado & Pirates productions really lend themselves to partnerships with choirs, choral societies and orchestras.. we're lining some up as we speak and diary dates are already beginning to come in, even a 2016 return to the Colston Hall in Bristol to work with the wonderful Gurt Lush Choir again, this time a Pirates.

We will also be on the look out to perform up and down the UK in festivals, as I write we're delighted that the Cambridge Summer Music Festival have invited us back to perform our 'Pop Up Opera' again.

It's been a lovely year for us and we're really excited about 2014, do get involved as a volunteer if you can. if you have helped to fund us, booked us for an event or have been one of our audience, thank you so much and if you've performed with us, you've been a star and if you simply want to stay in touch - we're online at OperaAnywhere.com on Facebook and Twitter and do keep a look out for dates in our diary!

Happy New Year!

Mike & Vanessa

Opera Anywhere

01865 735910

Halfway through Christmas Tour

2013-12-11T23:37:00.002+00:00

Time is flying by and we're half way through our Christmas tour already, just 3 performances to go, and in new and exciting places. We have a great cast for our show, wonderful voices and actors but also great team players, so important for us at Opera Anywhere where we all have to get stuck in and take responsibility for tasks that need to be done.
The three shows have gone very well and we have managed to keep our costs low, somehow we managed to squeeze our staging rehearsal period into no more than a weekend. The team turned up all knowing their words and music and we were all set to go.. and how brilliant the show has been too; we made the decision to choose a petite professional soprano to perform the role of Amahl, rather than a 12 year old boy. Because of our intense rehearsals we felt we needed a professional rather than have to have a considerable rehearsal time. It has really paid off, we've employed not just one sop but two! The wonderful Caroline Kennedy who has given it all in the performances so far and an equally convincing Olivia Clarke who will perform Amahl for us this coming Sunday on 15th December at the Sue Ryder Hospice and at a London venue, The Forge Camden Town, on the 21st December.
In other news we had a very productive trustees meeting this week - one of the initiatives we're working on is building a team of volunteers of production and administrative staff in order that we facilitate our planned growth next year and beyond.. more news to follow on this but if any of our readers have an interest in being involved we would love to hear from you.
Next year we have many more Gilbert & Sullivan performances planned and we're in discussions with several choral societies about potential collaborative performances, keep an eye at out for our diary page for details of the latest performances. We are also planning to be able to perform a new work by the composer John Whittaker, a one act opera based on the story by Thomas Hardy 'The Three Strangers', early days.. we've a lot of money to raise but we're very excited about the potential for this project...
Check out our diary page for forthcoming performances and to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to keep up to date..
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An Opera Anywhere Christmas

2013-10-21T22:25:00.001+01:00

The last few months have been incredibly busy for Opera Anywhere, at the beginning of the year we were very quite on the private and corporate engagements side of our business so we were able to concentrate on building our Mikado and Pirates tour. Suddenly in June it's as if someone flicked a switch and lots of 'gigs' have been coming our way! We're putting it down to the fact that we have been high profile with our touring and the fact that we've been doing more and more singing waiters type events, and the word is getting around! We've had numerous bookings for private performances of our G&S repertoire - in costume.. so we've been able to build on our successful Mikado & Pirates experiences and in many cases using the same team for the private engagements as we did for the full blown staged performances. It's been a long time coming but it seems that we might be in a position to grow and develop our work in 2014 almost against the odds, with funding from grants and trust funds even harder to acquire.

Singing Waiters have really taken off!

We've had some fabulous times this year, working with choirs, orchestras and charities, one of the highlights being our collaboration with the Gurt Lush Choir and the Bristol Schools Philharmonia, we performed a Mikado together at the Colston Hall in Bristol.. clips from a film that was made can be seen here. We've been working with 'Send A Cow' organisers in Leicestershire and Devon, where we presented our Pirates and Mikado, working with local choirs and helped to raise over £7k for the charity.. we really have been blessed with some very special new friends and great times together.

Parties in Costumes has proved very popular

We're putting our G&S touring to one side for the time being as we concentrate on Christmas, bored with all the usual Christmas suspects we decided to turn the clock back to 2005 - 2009 when we did Amahl & The Night Visitors by Menotti.. it is such a wonderful opportunity to encourage all ages to enjoy opera together, this Christmas we'll be including a set of Edwardian songs by Liza Lehmann, fantastic fun songs that are really accessible. We're touring our Christmas show to some great venues too - a return to Blackwell's Bookshop in Broad Steet, Oxford., All Saints Church in Marcham and the wonderful Sue Ryder HO in Nettlebed . . we're also looking at a venue in London.

Do check out our diary pages for the latest dates, venues and ticket information> Diary.

A wonderfully hectic summer performing!

2013-09-13T22:28:00.001+01:00

We have had our busiest period ever! Things have gone mad here at Opera Anywhere, we knew we had our work cut out with our UK G&S tour; performing The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance as far afield as Leicestershire, Devon and Birmingham .. but we didn't expect a massive upturn in our bookings at festivals such as Cambridge and Painswick and so many new bookings for our singing waiters and pop up opera characters at private functions in Highgate, Woburn Abbey, Central London, and closer to home .. at a function in Boars Hill. Images shown here are when we start off as fairly well behaved waiters but then degenerate into stealing potatoes and champagne whilst running out an aria or two.. some time later Carmen appears and then some Mozart ish type characters appear with an odd Major General and a Pirate thrown in for good measure!

It has been a brilliant time and we've got a packed September too, and long may it continue.. In just two weeks our collaboration with Paula Chitty's Irrational Theatre comes to fruition with her new production which combines 2 operas and a play! Sullivan's Cox and Box; Menotti's The Telephone and Norland's Cycle - a new play, the production kicks off in just a week at The Maltings Theatre, St Albans from Sept 20th..

We're also in the final stages of agreeing dates at venues for a new production of Menotti's 'Amahl & The Night Visitors', our first performance will be at Blackwell's Bookshop on December 3rd.

Oxford will be blessed with lots of opera this autumn and I promised to put a word in for a brand new opera company, the inspirational Susanna Moody, a young and upcoming soprano who's been working with us lately and has created 'Heartstrings Opera Co', she has some amazing plans including performances of a new production of The Marriage of Figaro in the Ashmolean Museum!

In October our friends at the Welsh National Opera presents The Tudors - join WNO for one of the most highly anticipated opera events of the year. It is the first time Donizetti’s Tudor operas, Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux, will have been performed together in Britain.

Each opera is a complete experience and can be enjoyed on its own. By experiencing all three you have an opportunity to lose yourself in potent drama and beautiful music. The Tudors will be performed by WNO’s world-class Chorus and Orchestra joined by an exceptional cast on a single epic set in costumes which evoke the period with a modern twist. For more information visit wno.org.uk/thetudors.
To finish on a Britten note, after managing to get to see 2 Billy Budd's at Glyndebourne and at the Proms this year, we've just booked to go and see The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne in October . . you could say we're opera barking mad! If you'd like to keep up to date on all things Opera Anywhere and see more of these images do befriend us on Facebook and Twitter and check out our website from time to time! You can also contact us in the office on 01865 735910 or mobile 07887 653238.

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Mikado in a fruit farm, Pirates in an Aircraft hangar!

2013-08-11T08:53:00.000+01:00

We're having an amazing summer, on the road with our two fun G&S productions and appearances at numerous festivals and events .. Probably our busiest time ever! We're not done yet, we have a Mikado coming up next week end at Whetstone Pastures Farm in Leicestershire next Saturday and a Pirates in an Air Hangar at Eggesford, Devon on the 31st August.. Both these gigs working with the amazing charity Send A Cow.
Both great venues that will seat hundreds of audience members as well as accommodate our performers and the local choirs that will accompany us in these two fund raising performances. So looking forward to performing amongst aircraft in the hangar and on the tractor trailer in the fruit farm!
For more information about our G&S performances and how to buy tickets check out our website http://www.OperaAnywhere.com

Pop Up Opera - Pop Up Pirates - Pop Up Pirates On Punts!

2013-07-17T22:03:00.002+01:00

Our summer opera season has really kicked off, we've been touring our Mikado and Pirates productions over recent weeks and now our July and August really hots up with no less than 20 performances, 12 of which are public events.
Art Couture Painswick employed Opera Anywhere to pop up throughout the final day of their wonderful arts festival - in scorching heat we donned our opera gear, our pirates outfits including a very warm Major General's costume . . performing with backing tracks very popular opera arias and duets and of course some of our Pirate's repertoire. Thousands enjoyed this amazing festival over the weekend - and we had a ball... hopefully our experiences at Painswick can be replicated over the coming weeks.
We're combining our Pirates production with some 'pop up opera' at Art In Action this coming weekend and on Sunday 21st July we'll be popping up on Punts at the Cambridge Summer Music Festival and then the following weekend they have employed us to 'flashmob' around the town... causing a bit of a stir.. the festival are offering tips via twitter on where we will be popping up and even offering a £50 prize for the best clip filmed and published on YouTube! Follow the links for more information about our Pop Up Pirates in Cambridge and Pop Up Opera.
Our G&S Tour has lots more legs and we're delighted to be performing our Pirates at the Botanical Gardens, Birmingham and in Devon later in August Pirates in Eggesford for Send A Cow.. we're also looking forward to another performance of our Mikado in Leicestershire for Send A Cow
Our relationship with ROH films has enabled us to show their marvellous Tosca in Birmingham on the big screen and at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester.
To see images from our recent performances and to keep up with what's going on at Opera Anywhere do follow us on Facebook Twitter and our events page on our Web Site..

G&S Tour rolls on . . Cheltenham, Letcombe Regis and then Birmingham

2013-06-09T23:22:00.000+01:00

The 'Bookshop Opera' initiative proved a great success at Blackwell's Oxford, we had some great feedback from the audience and some terrific press reviews! Our next Mikado will be in Cheltenham on Sunday 16th June, we're delighted to be joining forces again with the Gurt Lush Choir and the Bristol Schools Philharmonia to produce another 'Mega Mikado'.

Our new Pirates of Penzance production will get another airing in Oxfordshire at the magnificent 'Theatre in the Round' at Richmond Villages in Letcombe Regis as part of the Wantage Music Festival - the cast are chomping at the bit to use the more spacious Letcombe stage and we will be joined again by the small but perfectly formed 'Letcombe Singers'.

Our summer diary is filling up and we're off to perform at the Cambridge Music Festival, Art In Action, the festival in Painswick - all in July, coupled with party and corporate event engagements we're set for a very busy summer! Do check out our events page for the latest diary dates and facebook and twitter are a great way of keeping in touch!
Here's a quick snippet recorded on a mobile phone from our Pirates at Blackwells . .

And now .. opera in a bookshop!

2013-04-27T20:29:00.000+01:00

We honestly don't go hunting down unusual venues to perform opera, they just seem to find us! Our latest venture into the unknown is the very famous and well-known Blackwell's Bookshop of Oxford
They are such cool guys they want us to perform our Mikado and our new Pirates production in their amazing world-renown 'Norrington Room', they have even suggested we can use their book cases and counter tops for our staging, they've even posed for our press photos!
The Philosophy section also provides a spacious area for a 'traditional' stage and the varying levels and stairs will enable all sorts of dramatic possibilities, it is such an exciting project for us and surely an operatic first!
From Tuesday 21st May until Saturday 1st June the Norrington Room will be transformed into an Opera House, we'll be performing The Mikado from Thursday 23rd May to Saturday 25th May at 7:30pm and then The Pirates of Penzance from Thursday 30th May until Saturday 1st June at 7:30pm. We're also planning public singers masterclasses and various flashmob appearances throughout the city, do keep an eye out on our diary page for all the latest details.
We've heard today that we've won some terrific financial support from the Mid-Counties Co-op community fund, a massive relief as our spend so far on our new Pirates production has been high and we're responsible for marketing the Blackwell's fortnight so we can breathe more easily over the coming weeks and trust we have made the right marketing decisions.
Another bit of great news for us this month is Wynne Evans agreement to be our patron, Wynne is known as 'Gio Compario' star of the 'Go Compare' adverts! Wynne has offered to write a poem for us, we'll publish it on our website as soon as we have it!
We've got a string of really exciting performances coming up and soon after the #BookShopOpera we'll be joining forces with the GurtLush Choir and the Bristol Schools Philharmonia again to perform another 'Mega Mikado', this time at the Parabola Arts Centre in Cheltenham.
Exciting times!

Pirates ahoy!

2013-03-22T22:09:00.000+00:00

We're delighted to announce that we will soon have a new Pirates of Penzance production to tour, we've been inundated with requests to follow up our Mikado performances around the UK with another Gilbert & Sullivan show.
We're very keen to tailor our Pirates production towards families and in a bid to attract young people and children to our show we've been working with Usborne books, the publisher of a complete range of Pirates books. We're hoping our designs will reflect something that is identifiable from the characters and scenes that are normally portrayed in their books.
We've started to list our dates for shows, alongside a plethora of our Mikado bookings, we are about to announce a week of the Mikado and a week of Pirates at a fantastic venue at the heart of Oxford for the last 2 weeks in May, not allowed to say just yet but do keep an eye out on our diary page.
We are adopting a pantomime approach to our Pirates, we've taken the unusual step of casting a female in the role of Frederick, a long legged blond. Rosalind O'Dowd is not a stranger to cross dressing for opera and we really believe she will be able to add something really special to the show.
Our Mikado production is continuing to run with bookings coming in left, right and centre, we're particularly looking forward to the reunion with the Gurt Lush Choir and the Bristol Schools Philharmonia for a performance at the wonderful theatre of the Parabola Arts Centre in Cheltenham for another Mega Mikado, on the 16th June.
Lots more news to break soon so check back for the latest, we're very anxiously waiting news of an Arts Council application which will make a massive difference to what we can do over the coming months.. in the meantime do consider donating to our fund raising effort through our new Charity Check Out system.

Gio Compario Wynne Evans to 'patronise' Opera Anywhere?

2013-01-23T18:51:00.002+00:00

We've been following one of our tenor heroes for sometime, we've loved what he does to help make opera more accessible .. and memorable! Through the use of his amazing tenor talents he performs the role of 'Go Compario' in the famous TV adverts. We've approached Wynne Evans recently and have asked him to be a patron of Opera Anywhere, discussions are progressing and we're optimistic he will agree, watch this space! Opera Adverts are something we've been thinking about recently as a means to help businesses make their on-line presence more memorable and could be an additional service we provide.. along with our other new initiatives we've launched in recent years.

We've just set up new websites and facebook pages for our Singing Waiters Oxfordshire and Wedding Singers Oxfordshire initiatives and will be 'populating' these pages with images, videos and recommendations in order to help anyone interested understand what we do...

We're delighted we've had so much interest in our Mikado production, it looks like we've had enough interest to tour throughout 2013 and 2014, we're currently waiting on an Arts Council grant and also we're about to add to our website an easy way to donate to Opera Anywhere. The plan is to take our team of young professional soloists, sometimes as a small team performing just with piano, flute and Timps to small intimate venues, on other occasions to work with orchestras, choirs and choral societies to jointly produce and promote Mikado performances. We need to fund raise in order to help keep ticket pricing accessible, provide free admission to under 18's and to pay our young professionals at least a minimum wage for their efforts.. do help us if you can, we'll have a link to our new service 'Charity Checkout' on our home page soon. If you feel you can help us in anyway you can email or call us on 01865 735910 You can catch our Mikado soon, at Henley on the 1st February or with the magnificent Gurt Lush Choir and the amazing Colston Hall in Bristol on 2nd February.

We've got a great 9 minute clip we published on YouTube, check it out of you have time..Hope to see you or speak to you soon! ooh, by the way you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Mike Woodward, Director and Co-Founder, Opera Anywhere

A Year of Monsoons, Mikado & Manic Activity

2012-12-28T16:54:00.000+00:00

It's been a big year for Opera Anywhere as we created and toured our Jubilee themed Mikado extensively throughout 2012, the production received some great reviews and feedback from the press and appeared in Nicola Lisle's top 12 most memorable events in her Oxford Times article.. it's nice to be mentioned in the same breath as 'The Voice' and Natalie Clein! Although we've had a brilliant time touring The Mikado this year I can't say it's been easy going, the weather has been a major problem for us, we've had very little activity on the rivers this year with our opera on punts and boats and the persistent rain and wind hampered the Sunningwell Festival so much ticket sales were badly affected and it doesn't look like we're going to get paid for our Mikado performances.. a real downer for both organisations as we were banking on a big success with it this year. We did manage one outdoor performance at the Sunningwell Festival which remained dry throughout but it was very nippy indeed! Clips from the performance can be viewed on our YouTube channel. Thankfully we have performed at numerous venues where the weather hasn't been a problem although the Cow shed at a farm in Marcham was 'alternative' to say the least, half open to the elements we shared the shed with Cows sheltering from the soggy fields, a large chorus from a local group, a grand band of instrumentalists and 200+ happy audience members.. oh and yes, a couple of sheep a tractor or two - which we managed to utilise for the performance! This was organised by a fantastic group of 'Send A Cow' supporters who raised over £4000 for the charity - an amazing, exciting and memorable occasion for us all!

Ko Ko's entrance at the cow shed!

We enjoyed numerous other Mikado's this year including an exciting on stage appearance by the famous BBC Proms presenter (now retired), Richard Baker. Traditional theatres have also hosted our Mikado including the superb Cotswold Theatre in Stroud and the Maltings Arts Centre in St Albans.. we're off soon to the Kenton Theatre in Henley and the huge Colston Hall in Bristol to work with the marvellous Gurt Lush Choir and the Bristol Schools Philharmonia Orchestra in February - really exciting opportunities for us, we're working on building our 2013/2014 season to include many more of these type of collaborative projects.
Alongside our 'live' staged performances we have been developing a relationship with the large opera companies in order to have access to their filmed productions, we currently have 'Tosca' from the Royal Opera House available to show on the big screen and we have been touring this with all the high tech equipment to produce fantastic opera on the big screen evenings.

Our year wouldn't have been complete without our singing waiters and 'pop up' type appearances at private functions like weddings and parties but also in public spaces and this year we got asked to appear at railway stations to help support a Sue Ryder Care home campaign. We enjoyed performing with a bunch of fantastic up and coming singers and met up with some marvellous, appreciative 'audiences'.

We exhibited at several conferences this year, such as the Making Music conference in Cardiff where we presented the idea of the collaborative concept for our Mikado tour and also at the BAFA conference where we were able to talk to festival organisations about hosting our work for 2013/2014.
Other plans for 2013/2014 are to revive our Pirates production so we can run alongside our Mikado and hopefully many more collaborative performances with choirs and orchestras across the UK. We are working with the Making Music organisation and the Send A Cow charity to help us identify interested choirs and orchestras.
We are also planning to create a new opera festival with the Waterperry Gardens organisation, they have a wonderful amphitheatre and we're hoping to maximise our appearances at the Art In Action festival that takes place there each year... watch this space, it could be a really exciting project if we can pull it off!
Our last few days of 2012 will be in the office applying for funding for our various projects, so watch this space of news and developments! Do keep in touch and 'like' our facebook page and follow us on Twitter, we also update our website on regular occasions and work hard to keep our diary pages up to date.

Opera Anywhere at the Barbican

2012-11-16T21:19:00.000+00:00

Exhibiting in the 'rooftop garden' at the Barbican at the BAFA conference

It was great to be at the Barbican last week, not performing this time but exhibiting at the BAFA annual conference. The British Arts Festival Association is a great organisation that helps festivals large and small to grow and develop, the conference is a great forum to be inspired by speakers who have done fantastic things and a brilliant opportunity to network and learn from experiences.

We had the opportunity to talk to festivals who might be interested in our production of The Mikado or our flash mob opera ideas.. we also were able to talk to festival organisers about our 'Opera On The Big Screen' concept and had an opportunity to show a clip from the ROH Tosca. Delegates clearly wanted more than a clip and we've a long list of leads to follow up!

We're very much looking forward to showing 'Tosca' at Cumnor Village Hall in a few weeks, on December 15th and before then, on December 8th we have our own production of The Mikado to perform at the Maltings Arts Theatre in St Albans.. and next week we're returning to Radio Oxford to do another interview with 'Kat', we'll be on air between 1pm and 2pm.

We're also due to put together some 'pop up opera' performances in train stations and town centres for 'Sing For Sue', the marvellous Henley based charity throughout December... busy times!

Do take a look at our diary pages on our website for the latest happenings and if you'd like to buy tickets for any of our performances click here, you can also donate to Sue Ryder via here as well..

Mikado on tour - Stroud

2012-10-15T22:39:00.001+01:00

We had a wonderful with our Mikado visit to the fabulous little theatre 'The Cotswold Playhouse' on Saturday, playing to a full and very responsive house it was a real pleasure to visit such a well loved venue, managed by some really dedicated people. We managed to hang our interpretation of the Katsushika Hokusai wave which our director / designer Paula Chitty painted herself.. we don't often have the luxury of space to hang the whole of the wave up becasue of our penchant for unusual and non traditional venues! I think though that maybe our experience at Stroud will entice us to seek out similar theatres across the country, it was such a treat to have a spacious green room with hanging rails for costumes and even mirrors to check our costumes and make up! The cast were amazing with lots of energy, enthusiasm and dedication - determined to keep the production moving on and trying to reach new levels.

Our fab lighting engineer, John Alcock travels with us to most places and adds so much to what we have to offer, he has an incredible understanding of when we are about to improvise and move into the audience when not rehearsed! Nia and Nick were great as ever as our orchestra and Sian extracted everything she could from her role as Pooh Bah! She is proving to be quite a find, Sian is amazing in all aspects of theatre, she's the one who hung the fly system.. no one else seemed very willing to go poking about up there in the rafters! Next gig is a rather exciting one, this time promoting our 'Opera On The Big Screen' concept, at the Parabola Arts Centre in Cheltenham, a showing of the ROH 'Tosca', exciting or what? http://www.operaanywhere.com/?diary.html

Making Music Cardiff conference

2012-09-20T22:31:00.000+01:00

We're getting around these days and spreading our wings! We were delighted to be asked to perform at the Making Music Conference in Cardiff last weekend and we also had the opportunity to present what we do to the delegates that came from choral societies, choirs and orhcestras from across the UK.

We're developing a UK tour for our Mikado and the idea is to be able to partner with Making Music members to provide either the chorus or the orchestra, or both. Indeed, our performance in Bristol on the 2nd Feb with the Gurt Lush Choir and the Bristol Schools Philharmonia will be a Mega Mikado, with a chorus of over 300 singers performing at the Colston Hall - exciting or what?! So this is the plan for 2013, collaboration and partnership - this is the way to go in these financially difficult times, especially for arts organisations. Having said that, its the best fun ever to work with other choirs and orchestras - they have such enthusiasm and passion about what they do.

The other important aspect about attending the Making Music conference was the TicketSource involvement we were able to negotiate, in the end TicketSource played a prominent role, as an exhibitor but also as a sponsor of the live lobby music throughout the weekend.

For all the images from the conference do check out our facebook page.

We're off to Gloucestershire in a couple of weeks for a Mikado performance in a gorgeous theatre in Stroud and then the week after in Cheltenham to show an opera on the big screen, Tosca from the ROH! Do check our diary pages on our website for more information.

Mikado month!

2012-09-12T17:01:00.002+01:00

A hectic time with our Mikado production this month has led us to the wonderful amphitheatre at the Said Business School in Oxford, a hot but blustery day proved demanding and exhausting but our happy and enthusiastic audiences kept us going and we did get a lovely review from the Oxford Prospect magazine. "Opera Anywhere managed to encourage us to easily believe we were in medieval Japan, rather than atop one of Oxford's newest buildings. What is very clear from talking to various members of the audience at the end, that everyone had very enjoyable and entertaining summer afternoon out. I can't wait to see Opera Anywhere’s next new productions".

So, very good news for the team, we know when the audience is enjoying themselves and appreciating what we're trying to do but it is very ratifying to see it in print. It struck me, especially with this production how important the audience response is, how much energy they provide us with, how they can encourage us to go 'further' with it. Every performance so far in our tour has felt like that to me, perhaps with one exception - our largest audience so far, at the Sunningwell Festival, on the pond, but that can probably be explained by the distance between stage and audience.

We have got a number of Mikado performances coming up within the next 6 months, the next one in the Cotswold Playhouse, Stroud.. a super little theatre with a great organisation behind it.

Aside from our regular Mikado performances we are getting an increasing demand for our private party and corporate work and have found our take on singing waiters to be particularly popular, we even did a 'singing Mikado waiters' gig this week and a surprise appearance at a business breakfast event in Witney, performing 'O Solo Mio' at 8am on a breakfast table!

The Weekend sees us visit Cardiff to attend a Making Music conference, we're hoping to attract interest amongst choirs and orchestras to collaborate on a UK tour. Exciting times!

As always to keep up to date with our very latest happenings check us out on our website, facebook and twitter pages!

5 performances in 9 days!

2012-08-12T09:36:00.000+01:00

It has been an incredibly busy time for us just lately, performances seem to come all at one and these days the range of events we get involved in range quite widely. Thankfully the weather hasn't played too much of a part in our plans, with many of the events we've been involved in haven't relied on too many outdoor performances. That said we have had two spectacular weather days when we have been performing outside, at Bill Heine's 26th anniversary of the 'Shark' and at a dinner for a client at the amazing 'Leathern Bottel' in Goring, right on the River Thames. We've also been entertaining students of a summer school in Oxford on our 'opera punt' and then in addition some private opera punts.

We took our Mikado production to the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham, we chose to do the performance indoors in their wonderful little theatre which adjoins the gardens, so it was a great evening for the audience to have picnics outdoors in their wonderful gardens and then come inside to see the opera, almost a mini Glyndebourne experience. The video clip shows a clip of our rehearsal on their tiny stage. http://youtu.be/0FxwebDVPlY Our wonderful versatile mezzo, Sian Millett was able to perform the role of 'Pooh Bah' in David Ireland's absence, she did amazingly well and with very limited rehearsals!

We've had to drop the idea of using a small orchestra for our Mikado performances, the numbers just don't add up however, we have hit on a great combination of Piano and Flute, Nia Williams and Nick Planas make a great combination, for the mid sized venues we'll use Tymps but obviously when we perform in larger venues hosted by the choral societies and orchestras we hope to work with it will be a full blown orchestra.

We've booked an exhibition space at the Making Music conference in Cardiff next month and hope to discuss the idea of touring our Mikado across the UK, working with local choral societies and orchestras..

We're also very close to finalising our autumn programme of Opera On The Big Screen and will be announcing dates and times shortly, we have already a date for the ROH Tosca showing in Cheltenham, please check out our diary pages on our website for more information.

If you would like to keep in touch with everything Opera Anywhere please do follow the links:

Website; Facebook Page and Twitter

Jean Allister R.I.P.

2012-07-16T17:38:00.002+01:00

We've just heard that our beloved singing teacher, friend and coach of many years, Jean Allister, passed away last week.
Jean was a tremendous supporter of Opera Anywhere and has been a terrific encouragement to us both.

Jean Allister performed principal roles at Glyndebourne Festival many times during the 1960s, we were browsing in a second hand music shop recently & purchased the 1968 programme which lists Jean as performing the role of Melide in Cavalli’s L’Ormindo, the beautiful photograph is taken from that programme. Jean was also featured in a book that celebrated Irish singers who performed at Glyndebourne, ‘Irish voices at Glyndebourne.’

We first met Jean in the mid-1990s when Vanessa took part in an Oxford vocal summer school, Jean was teaching alongside Paul Hamburger & Peter Gelhorn, who’d been a music director at Glyndebourne in the ‘60s, soon after that Vanessa began to study privately with Jean and gained so much from Jean’s tuition as an experienced Oratorio soloist and also Jean’s knowledge & vast library of British song. Vanessa was privileged to be coached by Jean in the role of Popova from The Bear by Walton, Jean had originally performed the role in the premiere run in 1967 taking over from Monica Sinclair. Jean remembers that on one occasion the set nearly caught fire from a wayward candle flame! (no battery candles in those days!) We also have a wonderful recording of Jean singing the role of Katisha in The Mikado from 1962, she must have been a very young Katisha! Again Jean’s tuition & experience has been helpful to Vanessa who is currently performing the role.

Mike enjoyed many years of being coached by Jean, after receiving adjudication from Jean at one of Oxford Music Festival's singing classes, Mike was convinced Jean was the coach for him. Jean had publicly told off one of the other contestants for waffling on during their introduction - this made quite an impression with all the competitors and made us all realise Jean would not stand for any nonsence and would happily call a spade a spade.

It was such fun working with Jean and one always knew where you stood - and she was so loyal and commited to her students. She even allowed a channel 4 TV crew into her house to witness one of our sessions and played her part brilliantly, leaving no room for the TV company to manipulate events to their advantage!

Thank you Jean for everything you have done for us personally but also the wider classical music community and the genre.

Rooftop opera - a dream fulfilled!

2012-07-08T09:08:00.001+01:00

We've had an exhausting few weeks, 'recovering' from a wet and windy Sunningwell Festival where we did manage in the end one outdoor performance of our Mikado on the pond. Not satisfied with risky weather to put on our Mikado on the pond at Sunningwell we have also decided to go for our life long ambition to stage an opera on the rooftop of the Said Business School in central Oxford! They have an amazing rooftop amphitheatre which we have been dying to use, but we're not due their until 9th September, surely the summer would have arrived by then?

In the meantime Mikado bookings elsewhere are coming in thick and fast, we have a couple of dates close to confirmation in Gloucestershire, one in Stroud and one in Cheltenham and we have interest from the Chipping Norton theatre. In the meantime we have performances of our Mikado set up at the Art In Action festival at Waterperry in July, at the Botanical gardens in Birmingham in August and another performance scheduled for the Colston Hall in Bristol for Feb next year.

We've also performed 'pop up opera' and singing waiters events this month including at the Brackley Festival and we're due a couple of performances at the Feathers in Woodstock, also a wedding reception and a birthday party to perform at!

Our growing popularity has challenged us not to be such control freaks and we're learning to delegate much more, so we're able to accept several bookings on the same dates! We have such a strong pool of young professional singers and pianists who are keen to work and have such talent that on several occasions this month we've been able to spread our wings considerably.

All these are 'live' performances but we've also introduced our 'opera on the big screen' with a unique agreement with the Royal Opera House to show their recent production of 'Tosca', touring with high definition Blu-ray film and projection equipment with an excellent sound system, we're aiming touring the concept to communities, perhaps to people who would prefer to see productions within their own locality and not travel into town centres. We launched our first 'performance' this week in Sunningwell and received a very warm reception - so we're actively now pursuing other opportunities.. Time for a rest . .we're off now to see our 5th Billy Budd in recent years and are looking forward to seeing ENO's new production! To check out all our upcomimg performances see our diary page on our website.

Licence granted for Tosca from the Royal Opera House

2012-06-18T22:19:00.000+01:00

After months of negotiations with the Royal Opera House we are pleased that Opera Anywhere now have the licence to show their 2011 production of Tosca on the big screen. We have been trying to find ways of providing communities with high quality opera performances in village halls and churches and staging full productions is just out of reach for many, hence the idea of providing a very high quality opera at the cinema experience. We're touring Tosca for the foreseeable future with a very powerful projector and high quality sound, if the ROH are happy with our work we hope to add other titles. Our first 'performance' of Tosca will be in our home Church of St Leonard's on Friday 6th July at 6.30pm, we're combining it with a gourmet 3 course dinner in the Village Hall, so do join us if you can! Tickets are available online or 01865 735910
Meanwhile, on our Mikado front, its zipping along nicely with the cast really buzzing following five very successful performances, the latest at Richmond Village, Letcombe Regis. A magnificent stage 'in the round' in a glorious marquee and a full to brimming excited audience . . it doesn't get much better.