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Company Information
President: Ian Wallace O.B.E. Patrons: Dame Anne Evans and Josephine Veasey C.B.E.
For 18 years, Opera Box has toured extensively presenting high quality, complete, fully-staged opera at theatres and outdoor venues throughout the UK.
In 2004, the company's high artistic and musical standards came to the attention of The City & County of Swansea who wished to support a new, flag-ship touring opera company to promote Swansea nationwide. Elements of Opera Box were incorporated into the new company, Swansea City Opera, and the company now receives ongoing funding from the Council. Swansea City Opera tours to venues as diverse as Blackwood Miners Institute to the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury and the Buxton Opera House, whilst Opera Box continues to tour in its own right to smaller theatres and outdoor venues.
Company Profile
Opera Box has a fair claim to be one of the most impressive musical successes of the 1990s and was described in The Times as 'a visionary touring company'. Founded by Brendan Wheatley and Bridgett Gill in 1989, the company has progressed from comparatively modest beginnings to being a name synonymous with quality of production and singing. The company started life performing in the open-air, amid the historic ruins of English Heritage sites, and is now considered to be Britain's leading exponent of 'outdoor' opera, giving many performances in the open-air during the summer months.
Many of the company's singers have worked for the major British opera companies, including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, ENO, WNO, Opera North, and Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
The choice of repertoire is imaginative and wide ranging, with past productions which include Maria Stuarda, The Magic Flute, Tosca, La Boheme, Die Fledermaus, Der Freischutz, The Flying Dutchman, The Pearl Fishers, La Traviata and Madam Butterfly. The company's production of The Tales of Hoffmann received rave reviews: "rip roaring operatic entertainment…simply magnificent…brought the house down".
Opera Box's pioneering approach has led to the company performing where little or no opera has previously been heard. The company were the first ever to mount opera at the famous Hackney Empire - an important and successful event which the theatre acknowledged by presenting Opera Box with the prestigious "Dome Award". Anyone attending any of these performances would have been struck by the cosmopolitan nature of the audience.
Opera was being taken to the people, and the people loved it!
The Company moved into yet more innovative areas in 1999/2000 when it commissioned and premièred 'Tower' opera by Alun Hoddinott. This new opera was based on the true story of the Tower Colliery, the pit dramatically saved from closure by its workforce in 1994.
Opera Box was awarded nearly £300,000 of Arts Council of Wales 'Arts for All' lottery money towards the project. The eminent Welsh composer, Alun Hoddinott wrote the score, BAFTA award-winning TV & Radio script-writer John Owen wrote the libretto, and the internationally renowned bass Robert Lloyd sang the leading role.
'Tower' toured Wales in Jan/Feb 2000 and was awarded a grant from the European Commission in the 'pilot' round of 'Culture 2000' projects - the only UK led performing arts project to be successful. (Please see Swansea City Opera web site for further news on a revival of TOWER)
In January 2001, Opera Box obtained ACW Arts For All Lottery Funding of £41K for a Schools Opera Project called ‘Opera Biz’.
Opera Biz aimed to stimulate an interest in music-making and opera in particular , and develop ‘life skills’ in pupils, through a series of professional opera performances and production workshops in schools. Nine schools from very different backgrounds worked together, as a team, on the Project.
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