Adjustments

If Opera is a new company with a long history. Founded as Iford Arts, the company has reinvented itself since ceasing to perform at Iford Manor, where the company was founded. 

Since the beginning of this year, Michael Volpe has been chief executive, and the aim is to transform If Opera into a repertory opera company with a fixed group of singers, performing work in specially chosen venues across the South West. 

The company has not yet announced its plans for next year, but it has not been silent and a new film, Adjustments written by Nicola May-Taylor, directed by Harry Mackrill, is now available on the company's website. It is not an opera, and wisely doesn't try to be, instead May-Taylor's story explores the power of music's effect on grief and the grieving process.

May-Taylor plays Maya, a sound engineer returning to work after the death of her father and whose life is profoundly changed by the effect of the music she hears, performed on the film by soprano Nadine Benjamin. It is a short, yet powerful and intriguing piece of work, one which is determinedly a film rather than a film musical performance, yet succeeds in making us consider music's effect on grieving and on mental health.

If Opera's Adjustments is available on YouTube.