Much Ado About Northern Opera – Part 2

Rehearsals are well underway now for ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and it has been great to meet the rest of the cast and see the imaginative ideas of David Ward and his fellow creatives brought to life. 

If you can join us at Morley Town Hall on either Friday 23rd or Saturday 24th August, there are still some tickets left if you are quick. You can buy tickets on the Northern Opera website HERE.

Following on from my post last week I want to share part two of my interview with David Ward, Director of the Northern Opera Group. In this part of the interview, you can read about my character, Hero and my on-stage partner Claudio who is played by Roger Paterson.

Then to close the interview David shares his thoughts on how to engage and attract future audiences to opera.

How would you characterise Hero, my role in the production?

The key to getting Hero right is to get the balance between her purity and innocence, and the flame of mischief and an awakening sexuality.

In our 1950’s set production, she’s clearly the model example of a teenager we find in these great instructional videos of the era – obedient, well behaved, never not chaperoned around a boy … She’s the token ‘Queen’ of the High School Prom – the girl all the boys want, but will never be allowed to get. Think Sandy, rather than Rizzo!

She is, however, turning into an adult, soon to leave home and marry, and start a life slightly removed from those societal structures she has grown up around. She’s emboldened by the attention she’s received from Don Pedro and Claudio (and, we can assume, many other young men) and under the influence of the unconventional Beatrice, it’s crucial we don’t let Hero become simply a wet character – the character’s sympathetic (but dull) victim.

My significant other romantic interest in the opera is Claudio, how do you envisage him?

The opera is marked by the distinction between the two central couples. Whilst Beatrice and Benedick are fighting against society’s norms, Hero and Claudio are living up to them. They are the perfect young lovers – respectful of each other and of the parents, not jumping the gun in following the expected stages of their burgeoning relationship.

Claudio – like Hero – is adjusting to his new place in the world, where he’s no longer a kid in school, but becoming a man. He’s already been to War, and now returns ready to take up his place in society. He’s still rather shy around women – he’s got a lot of emotional growing up to do! – but when he feels that he’s been deceived by Hero, he takes up the alpha-male role that society and culture have taught him to adopt.

But this isn’t the real Claudio. As we discover in the opera’s final scenes, it’s not a role he’s comfortable with, nor one he really wants. He loves Hero, he believes in her, and he recognises his follies. He might have been to War, but there’s still a lot of growing up to do …

I read a tweet from @operamagazine that referenced an article in Vogue Magazine, Can Opera Attract A New Generation Of Fans? At La Scala, Signs Of Hope

Asking Will Millennials Kill Opera, Too?  Can Opera Attract a new generation of fans?  I noticed you had special price tickets for students and young adults with prices starting at £10, £15 and adult tickets £20, what other ways are you trying to engage a new generation of fans?

I think that opera companies of all sizes have to be mindful of how we can attract new audiences.

There are three key things we do to help bring through a new generation of audiences

i) The staging of community productions, where anyone can take part in performing in a fully staged opera, for free. I originally discovered a love of opera through taking part – I didn’t come from a musical family or have any friends who liked opera, however, I was roped into taking part in a show where they were low on male voices and ended up staying! We do a lot of work with local choirs, schools and universities to attract new people to take part, and making participation free is crucial to attracting a wide range of people. Many choral societies and drama groups charge fairly significant fees to take part which prohibits people from joining – particularly those people who aren’t sure if they’ll like it or not. We’ve had people from ages 9 to 80+ take part in previous productions, and by bringing them together with professionals for future shows, we hope to add to the attraction and experience of taking part.

ii) The programming of a range of repertoire, for a range of audiences. By staging rare operas, we’re able to delve deep in opera’s past to find works that will appeal to both audiences new and old. This is particularly important for our community productions, where often a large part of the audience are friends and family of those involved – they need to be attracted by repertoire which sounds enjoyable, accessible and suitable for the whole family. For example, we’ve previously staged Pauline Viardot’s ‘Cinderella’ (a well know and well-loved story) and this December we’re performing Pfitzner’s ‘The Christmas Elf’ which is both a terrific opera and one that should chime with younger audiences this Christmas.  ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is another example of a work which will have appeal to new audiences who are familiar with theatre and Shakespeare.

iii) A commitment to low and affordable tickets. I spend a lot of time fundraising for our productions (we are a registered charity) to ensure that we can keep tickets prices at an affordable level and that we can taper ticket prices suitable for young audiences. We want ticket prices to be affordable so that a whole family can attend – if you think that a West End show might be £40 for the cheapest seats, £160 for a family of four to sit in the Gods can be extremely prohibitive! We also want tickets prices to be at a level where new audiences are willing to take a punt on something new. For our 2018 Festival, we had 40% audiences under the age of 35 which points towards some success in our ambitions to make our work attractive and affordable to young audiences. We have also trialed short, free, pop-up performances in recent years – delivered by a high-quality cast of repertoire that’s suitable for casual and new audiences. From 2020 we’ll deliver one free pop-up tour of a short opera every year to reach new audiences across the North of England.