Many long-time followers will know that for the past 6 years I have been running a small community opera company in Newcastle. It has been a joy and a privilege to work with amateur and pre-professional singers from the North East and beyond and to give them their first leg-up into the world of opera.
Sadly the time has come for Harlekin Studio Opera to close its doors for a variety of reasons, but not least because the world is so different to pre-covid times and our lives and patterns of living are changed. There is not enough interest in opera in the community, and aside from a small dedicated core, finding people with the drive and commitment to produce full scale traditional opera here has proved difficult at the best of times.
Rather than continuing to plough energy and resources into a fixed opera company, it feels like a better way to serve those who are interested in opera and classical singing is to provide a regular programme of bespoke events tailored to the individual participants in each instance. (Check out the event page for an idea of what's coming up.)
However, despite the sadness of losing our regular weekly sessions, there is a lot of pride for the things that our community achieved over the past six years.
Our production of Dido and Aeneas is the only recorded opera performance at Newcastle Castle - which considering it was built 1000 years ago is quite a feat! We also brought Pagliacci to Summerhill Bowling Club, and Prodana Nevesta to Brunswick Methodist Church. The later being perhaps the finest Czech language performance of the work in the entire North East of England... that is also a assuming it was the first and only one!
Going even further back, our first performance was at the Exchange in North Shields where our opera company was based for all of 2019.
We've made some great friends over the years, and attracted singers from Durham to Airdree via Whitley Bay and Monkseaton!
Here's to the years together, and to the future of Opera Newcastle... because this is only the beginning!
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