Summer in the Co-opera forest: Cunning little vixen

Zoe Perman Baldwin, Kathleen Cronie and Robyn Allegra Parton

In April Planet Hugill helped spread the word about the Co-opera Company's development programme which aims bring together experienced professionals and young singers just starting out in their careers, providing a kind of apprenticeship. The culmination of the summer course is a full opera - this year a delightful production of 'The Cunning Little Vixen' by Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) at the John McIntosh Theatre directed by Natascha Metherell.

Although Janáček wrote his first opera 'Šárka' in 1887-8, it was towards the last years of his life that he really turned to this art form, including (in 1921-3) 'The Cunning Little Vixen'(Příhody lišky Bystroušky or The adventures of the vixen Sharp-Ears). Janáček based the libretto on an illustrated story in the newspaper Lidové noviny by author Rudolf Těsnohlídek and artist Stanislav Lolek. It is also thought to draw on his own experiences of unrequited love and a reflection on the increasing wisdom of age and the cycle of life.

Co-Oper8 - help support new youth opera company

Recently Co-Opera Co undertook a mini survey of their audiences; a perhaps surprising conclusion from this survey was that the majority of singers and audience members had discovered their love for opera in their formative years from actively taking part in a production rather than simply seeing a performance. So the company has decided to do something about this, to encourage young people.

In November, Co-Opera Co is launching a new youth opera company, Co-Opera8, in Bury St. Edmnuds. Young people between eight and 18 will be working with members of Co-Opera Co throughout the year and in a two week summer course which will culminate in two performances of an opera at the Apex, Bury St. Edmunds in August 2014. Of course, such things cost money.

To raise money for this exciting new venture, they are taking part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge, giving them the possibility of raising over £20,000 in matched funding. The first challenge is to raise £5,000 in pledges before 11 October. The are looking for people willing to pledge £100 (not payable until Januar 2014). Further information about Co-Opera8 from their website and if you can pledge money, then you can do so at the Big Give website.

Fun and Imagination - Co-Opera Co's The Mikado

Llio Evans, Georgina Stalbow and Susanne Holmes

Co-Opera Co's second opera in their season at the Hackney Empire continued the Japanese theme with Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (played in tandem with Madama Butterfly), though James Bonas's production emphasised the work's fundamentally English qualities rather than any notional ideas of Japonaiserie. Designed by Carl Davies with choreography by Ewan Jones, the production was set in an Opium Den in East London and formed a drug induced fantasy of three of the denizens. The concept was not pushed too far, instead Bonas used it to freely mix Japanese and English references, recognising that the opera makes fun of English habits. We caught the second performance on Saturday 7 September, with a cast including Martin Nelson, David Jones, Llio Evans, Tristan Stocks Georgina Stalbow, Thomas Asher, Owain Browne, Sandra Porter and Susanne Holmes, conducted by John Andrews.

Co-opera Co gala - A Grand Night for Singing

Last night (4 September 2013) Co-Opera Co took a break from their performances of The Mikado and Madama Butterfly at the Hackney Empire to present a gala A Grand Night for Singing, filling the theatre with a huge variety of singing in support of Co-Opera Co's Philip Langridge Bursary. Performers included Rosalind Plowright, Richard Suart, Martin Nelson, Harry Nicoll, Toby Stafford-Allen, Melinda Hughes, Llio Evans, Susanne Holmes, Li Li, Owain Brown and Adam Player, with the St John of Jerusalem Festival Chorus and Children's Choir, and dancers from the Lisa Gilbert Academy of Ballet, with the Co-OPera Co. Orchestra directed by Stephen Higgins and by John Andrews.

We started with a lively account of the overture to Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Stephen Higgins conducted the orchestra for the whole of the first half, and acted as compere. The first guest was tenor Harry Nicoll who gave a stylish performance of Where e're you walk from Handel's Semele. This was followed by Toby Stafford Allen's highly vivid account Ford's dream from Verdi's Falstaff. All performers sang from memory which heightened the communicativeness and immediacy of all the performances in the evening.

Madama Butterfly - Co-Opera Co at the Hackney Empire

Co-Opera Co launched their London season at the Hackney Empire with a stylish updating of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Jacopo Spirei's production debuted in July at Bury St. Edmunds, and featured Verunka Vlkova as Cio Cio San, David Woodward as Pinkerton and John Rawnsley as Sharpless with Susanne Holmes, David Menezes, Thomas Asher, Stephen Bowen, Espeth Marrow and David Linton-Ford, conducted by Martin Handley.

With a relatively bare set, just a series of white platforms to suggest the house against a plain backdrop, the production allowed full scope for Paul J Need's imaginative lighting. Working with a predominantly young cast, Spirei had rightly chosen to concentrate on the fascinating interactions between the characters. Co-Opera Co is a company which helps to provide experience and training for singers just starting their careers; training which is doing in collaboration with a number of distinguished senior members of the profession. For this production, the distinguished baritone John Rawnsley joined the cast as Sharpless.

Co-Opera Co Summer Season

Co-Opera Co is back for its  Summer season from 3 September, this time at the Hackney Empire, where the young singers will be performing in two new productions The Mikado and Madama Butterfly. The company's aim is to give aspiring artists the chance to work with and learn from some of the most highly regarded singers, conductors, directors, actors and choreographers in the business today. To this end, their Summer Season is the culmination of a learning process for the young performers. 

Have a flutter and support Co-Opera Co - Join the OperaLottery

Co-Opera Co, the inestimable training opera company, have come up with a fun fundraising idea. To raise funds for their 2013/14 season  which includes performances at Hackney Empire in September 2013, they have launched OperaLottery, a lottery where you have the chance to win prizes from £50 to £10,000. Tickets cost between £1 and £10, initially there will be five draws between May 4th and January 1st 2014 with prizes from £50 to £10,000. 50% of the money raised will go towards much needed funds to put on the season at The Hackney Empire in September and 50% will be given as prize money. You can buy a ticket or two at the Co-Opera Co website. Go one, have a flutter, you might surprise yourself and you'll be supporting a very worthwhile cause.

Co-Opera Co's season at Hackney Empire opens on 3 September 2013, and they will be performing two contrasting operas with oriental theme, Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado and Puccini's Madama Butterfly

Developments at Co-opera

Co-Opera Co - Hansel and Gretel

Co-Opera Co, the opera company which trains emerging professionals, is going from strength to strength and, building on the success of their 2012 with performances of Hansel and Gretel and Don Giovanni in London and on tour, they have announced that in 2013 their operations will be divided into a two tiered-system. Co-Opera Development Programmes and the Co-Opera Touring company.

Co-Opera Co - Don Giovanni

Co-Opera Co Don Giovanni

A perfectionist might argue that there is a case for some operas only being cast from singers who are fully formed artists with a goodly array of technique and life experiences. But we live in the real world, Mozart's Don Giovanni is popular with audiences and forms a staple for many a young artists and small opera companies. And, after all, how to learn but by doing? So, I caught up with the second of Co-Opera Co's performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the John McIntosh Theatre at the London Oratory School on Friday 24 August, eagerly awaiting how the young singers would deal with one of the masterpieces of western music.

Co-Opera Co - Hansel and Gretel

Co-Opera co, Hansel & Gretel, August 2012

Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel might have an apparently simple story based on a fairytale, but the opera itself is a deceptively complex beast. For a start, Humperdinck was one of Wagner's followers, he was an assistant to Wagner and music-tutor to Siegfried Wagner. This means that the score is very fully and richly orchestrated; it might be about children but it requires more than children's voices. Also, scenically it calls for quite a bit of skill, with the various magical transformations that are required. For performers, it has one fatal, yawning trap. Hansel and Gretel might be on stage for most of the three acts, but unless they are strong and sympathetic performers, there is a strong danger of the witch snatching the opera from them. The witch is in fact quite a small role, but it is such a gift that, in the right hands, it can run away with the opera. So all in all, quite a few challenges, and a very apt work for a group such as Co-Opera Co which aims to help coach young opera singers and give them experience. We saw the first night of their new production of Hansel and Gretel at the John McIntosh Theatre in the London Oratory School on 23 August 2012.

Co-operating towards opera

I recently I met up with soprano Kate Flowers, one of the co-founders of Co-Opera Co. to talk about the company and its forthcoming season at the John McIntosh Theatre in the London Oratory School.

Kate Flowers's career was on the up, she'd made her Covent Garden debut and her London Coliseum debut, she was appearing at Garsington in Rossini's La Gazetta and was about to go to Nantes for Powder her Face. Then she had to go into hospital for a routine thyroid operation. It turned out not to be quite routine, but something good would come of it. Co-Opera Co. An opera company which helps opera singers get experience.