Exciting times!

Exciting times ahead! In the next few weeks we will be ready to move into a new home and a new office! We're busy now making sure the infrastructure can support our next few years of growth, sorting out a new phone system, new IT hardware and software and we have just commissioned a brand new web site, from our very good friends at Commun Design. The new site should be up and running within the next couple of months, as will our new office. Our new facilities have enabled us organise our massive collection of props and staging more efficiently and provide more office and storage space.

We've just returned from our quarterly non exec directors meeting where we have been sharing our ambitions to develop an educational division to Opera Anywhere, hopefully to provide singing, acting and performance masterclasses to folks living in Oxfordshire. We're thinking along the lines of evening classes and the odd weekend session, probably 10 week terms starting in the Autumn, however, alot to be done before then, we need to persuade our non exec directors to be trustees of a new charity organisation we need to set up. On looking at all the opera companies around, they all seem to be charities and benefiting greatly from grants and donations, something we have been considering for some time now but have been concerned about the bureaucracy involved, however probably no alternative if we are to grow and thrive. Still waiting for Lord Farringdon at Buscot Park to come back with confirming dates for a couple of performances of the Menotti in June, as soon as we have dates I'll post them on the site.

Good news re our 'La Dolce Vita' opera cruises - already got a nice corporate booking for a half a dozen singers for a mass punting expedition in July. Currently very busy preparing for the Cheltenham Festival, a competitive singing competition middle of may, would love to come home with the Tenor cup! Also a concert on the 10th May, Victorian & Edwardian song.. (hence the image shown here) should be great fun.

Performance spooked!

Just recovering from last night's appearance at the Unicorn theatre in Abingdon, 'The Telephone' went as brilliantly as ever and 'The Medium' was going so well, until.... something really spooky occurred, something that never has happened to any of us before - but mysteriously freaked out our brilliant accompanist Linda, between the rehearsal and the performance 23 pages of music went 'missing'. The action on stage changed so much I didn't recognise it! Is there a ghost at the Unicorn that wanted to prevent us telling the real story that Madame Flora was a con merchant? The whole second seance was missed and vital truths about Madame Flora was illiminated from the story.!
Had I thought more quicker I would have got John (on lights) to dim them and have a pause in the action to allow for the performers to reset themselves. However, freaked out by what seemed to be happening before my eyes, I felt completely unprepared and the result was a premature, stunted and bloodless ending with the shooting of Toby . A real shame as Iain had rehearsed an amazing fall down the stairs and I noticed he had a double dose of blood ready to place in his mouth to ensure the most bloody and dramatic of deaths! Vanessa was mortified, Linda and the cast too. The ghost of the unicorn seemed to lurk over the atmosphere as the entire cast, following the show, resorted to dining out at our sponsors for the evening, 'Ask', an amazing new Italian restaurant in Abingdon. Some of the cast turned to copious amounts of drink to drown their sorrows, or maybe just as a relief that it was all over!
On the positive side we did make a brilliant discovery and could be an answer to my stage management problem, we 'employed' 2 young men, brothers in their teens, Daniel and William Hall of Bayworth. They made our lives so much easier with their incredible efficiency, good sense of humour and sheer hard work! When we eventually got home in the early hours of the morning we found that the Medium's spell was still over us, our boiler had packed up and no hot water to soak away our wounds!

Fab review in Oxford Times

We've just had a fab review for our Menotti published in the Oxford Times, Nicola Lisle came to see our first performance last weekend and obviously really enjoyed it and rated it highly. Comments like "Opera Anywhere has already established an enviable reputation for small-scale opera; with this double bill, they have set themselves a new benchmark in excellence" will do us a power of good, not least underlining the fact that we can produce good quality small scale opera ourselves without having to buy expensive directors in who I invariably end up having disagreements with. The success of the show is down to some great individual performances from each member of the cast, not only their singing and acting, but the way they have gelled together as a team and prepared to work under pressure and use their creative minds to develop what happens on stage. They have all worked so hard for this and I am delighted that the review rewards them all.... and long may this production tour and tour, it has many miles in it!
ps what a lucky chap 'Toby' is? Apart from getting shot that is!

The Joy Of Text!

We've had rather a triumphant week, with the launch of our Menotti double bill on April 1st at the Vodafone store in cornmarket. We performed The Telephone with suitably updated libretto, hence 'The Joy Of Text' heading on this blog. The performance commanded lots of attention and Vodafone supported the production by producing and distributing some great flyers whilst we were performing. The first performances of both operas at the o3 gallery were amazing in every sense of the word, some fantastic performance from the singers and wonderful actor (Iain Carter) and on both nights full to brimming, responsive audiences. In fact we were so tight for space our brilliant new musical director, Linda Ang, had to position herself under the stairs! All in all a brilliant and fantastic week that helps to make all the effort so worthwhile, can't wait till The Unicorn now in Abingdon on Saturday!