Celebrating a fruitful two years

Mahogany Opera Group had an event on 20 January 2016 to celebrate the two years of the company's existence (from the merger of the Opera Group and Mahogany Opera), to look back over a very fruitful two years and to look ahead to new projects. We had a preview of the company's new family opera The Rattler, which has music by Stephen Deazley and words by Martin Riley. This premieres at the South Bank Centre in March and then goes on tour.

The last two years have seen the company creating a diverse range of exciting and innovative work from Hans Krasa's children's opera Brundibar, through HK Gruber's Gloria a Pigtale to Rolf Hind's Lost in Thought the world's first mindfulness opera, and Emily Hall's Folie a Deux.

Artistic director Frederic Wake-Walker talked about the importance of new work and breaking boundaries with the company's research and development programme which has workshops and rehearsals which are opened up to partners etc, which he describes as a terrifying idea but helps to connect the company to the real world. The company tries to keep a broad perspective, creating opera and music theatre, and working with children and young people is a very important strand for them, especially giving young people the opportunity to work alongside professionals. Some of the young singers from their recent production of Brundibar have now gone on to join the Royal Opera House's youth opera company.

One of the admirable things about the company is that project have a long shelf life and so they can have a number of different works in various stages of touring both at home and abroad.