OperaUpClose's Flourish Competition

OperaUpClose - Ulla's Odyssey
Edward Hughes, Flora McIntosh, Sarah Minns & Pamela Hay
Photo by Christopher Tribble

OperaUpClose's Flourish competition is designed to find new small-scale opera from up and coming librettist/composer teams. The four finalists have been announced and extracts from the works performed at a finalists showcase on 22 November 2015 at Kings Place.  15 minute extracts from each work will be performed and the judges will announce the winner that evening. The winning opera will then be developed with the composer and librettist for a full length production by OperaUpClose at Kings Place in Autumn 2016.

The winner of last year's festival, Ulla's Odyssey by Anthony Young and Leanna Brodie is currently being performed by OperaUpClose at Kings Place.

The short list is:

Opera Bingo: Opera - with added balls!
Composer:  Eve Harrison (Opera North Youth Company, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, Tête à Tête)
Librettist:  Andrew Loretto (Opera North Youth Company, founder of Sheffield People’s Theatre)
This immersive piece puts the audience in the centre of the action during a highly irregular game of Bingo, which has life changing effects for its players.

The Rue Morgue: Edgar Allan Poe’s dark and sinister mystery story turned operatic.
Composer & Librettist: Louise Mander (Cantata Dramatica, Tête à Tête)
The brilliant yet jaded detective, Dupin, takes on a private (and secret) case of a mysterious double murder of an elderly mother and her spinster daughter, in 1840s Paris.

Concrete Music: Satire on modernism set during the 1960s reconstruction of Britain
Composer & Librettist: Jonathan Pease (ENO Mini Operas 2012, Director of Music at Christ Church Isle of Dogs)
Modernist architect Charles Bronstow climbs from ignominy to fame; but victory turns to depression and ultimately suicide when he realises that even his most ardent backers don’t really understand his utopian vision.

They Came Back: Mankind is enlightened or living through its darkest days.
Composer & Librettist Martin Ward (ROH, Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Polka Theatre)
It is the near future and the world is in the grip of a compelling phenomenon; in small but ever growing numbers the deceased are returning. What many interpret as a great unifying human experience others see as a dark omen.