ROH2
ROH2 is the contemporary arm of the Royal Opera House, commissioning and producing dance and contemporary opera works in the Linbury Studio Theatre, Clore Studio Upstairs, Paul Hamlyn Hall and various other locations situated both within the Royal Opera House and outside. ROH2 also provides additional artistic resource to partners and associate artists in order to help the organisation realise its strategic aims. ROH2 focuses on developing the art forms, creating opportunities for emerging artists and attracting new and diverse audiences to the Royal Opera House.
ROH2 has a multi-layered approach, which includes:
- New productions and commissions in the Linbury Studio Theatre and Clore Studio Upstairs
- Co-productions and co-commissions with partner organisations and companies
- A contemporary opera development programme
- Associate artist programmes and professional development work
- Festival programming in the public spaces of the Royal Opera House and outside the building
- Visiting companies whose work complements the artistic programme
- Taking ROH2 productions to partner regions and venues across the UK as part of the ROH On The Road programme
Working with partners
ROH2 has developed, and values, partnerships with a range of arts organisations and companies, including Music Theatre Wales, The Opera Group, The Britten Sinfonia, Akademi, London Sinfonietta, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, Ballet Black, the National Dance Network, Opera East, Dance Umbrella, London Jazz Festival and the London International Mime Festival.
Benefits include:
- Opening up ROH to a range of new audiences
- Access to ROH resources for partner companies
- Skills and knowledge sharing
- Innovative approaches to developing new work
- Involvement of the ROH in a range of forums, opening up communication and enabling new relationships
New Productions
ROH2 commissions and produces opera and dance work on a regular basis. In recent years new productions initiated by ROH2 have included:
Faeries (Will Tuckett), Pleasure’s Progress (Will Tuckett/Paul Englishby), Goldberg (Kim Brandstrup/Tamara Rojo), Ghosts (Cathy Marston), The Soldier’s Tale (Will Tuckett); Into the Woods (Will Tuckett), Dalston Songs (Helen Chadwick), The Thief of Baghdad (Will Tuckett/Paul Englishby), Into the Little Hill (John Fulljames/George Benjamin), The Red Balloon (Aletta Collins/Street Furniture), Parthenogenesis (Katie Mitchell/James MacMillan).
Significant new work from visiting companies has included Opera East with Heart of Darkness (Tarik O'Regan/Tom Phillips), Music Theatre Wales with In the Penal Colony (Philip Glass), English Touring Opera with Promised End (Alexander Goehr), Segue with Songs from a Hotel Bedroom (Kurt Weill/Kate Flatt/Peter Rowe), Open Heart Productions with God’s Garden (Arthur Pita), The Opera Group with The Enchanted Pig (Jonathan Dove/Alasdair Middleton), Music Theatre Wales with Letters of a Love Betrayed (Eleanor Alberga), and Ballet Black with wide ranging programmes of new dance commissions, Ros Warby as part of Dance Umbrella, Cleveland Watkiss and Nikki Yeoh as part of the London Jazz Festival and the Josef Nadj Company, Jos Houben and Andre and Lefeuvre as part of the London International Mime Festival.
Work for families and young people
ROH2 has created a significant portfolio of high quality work for family audiences. The Royal Opera House can now offer a rich catalogue of work for young people and families, produced by ROH2 over nine years including Faeries, The Wind in the Willows, Pinocchio, Gentle Giant, Timecode, Thief of Baghdad and The Red Balloon.
Artist Development Initiatives
ROH2 is committed to providing a space where artists can take creative risks and explore new ideas.
In 2008-09, ROH2 launched a new, two year Choreographic Associates programme. This is a structured programme of professional and creative development opportunities for three emerging choreographers, currently Laila Diallo, Sarah Dowling and Freddie Opoku-Addaie. The participants are offered a range of opportunities across ROH, working with different departments, and identifying areas of special interest for their practice. They also take part in Wayne McGregor’s Arrows programme, alongside members of The Royal Ballet, and will be commissioned to make a new work as part of the 2011/12 Season.
Orlando Gough and Aletta Collins have recently become ROH Associates, joining Patrick Haggard (Scientist) and Dominique le Gendre (composer). ROH Associates are attached to the organisation in an informal way, and we work with them to find creative opportunities within different areas. Other partnerships continued with companies including Music Theatre Wales, The Opera Group and Ballet Black.
DanceLines, ROH2’s choreographic laboratory programme, runs annually, with Wayne McGregor directing the course between 2008 and 2011.
In 2005, with the support of the Genesis Foundation, ROH2 embarked on an intensive programme to promote and encourage opera composition and launch new collaborations between composers and librettists. Over four years (2005-9), OperaGenesis supported over 30 creative teams through workshops, mentoring and informal showings. The projects, ranged from work rooted in the classical tradition, through electro-acoustic music, animated opera, choreographic collaborations and even an opera that eventually became a musical.
Although OperaGenesis activity was focused on development, around a third of the operas have subsequently been fully commissioned and have received, or will receive, their world premieres in theatres across Europe, including the Linbury Studio Theatre. These include Dominique Le Gendre’s Bird of Night, Julian Phillips’ Varjak Paw, Edward Rushton’s The Shops, Eleanor Alberga’s Letters of a Love Betrayed, Misato Mochizuki’s The Bakery Attacks and Jean-Philippe Calvin’s The Bald Soprano.
The Opera Development programme (2009–2011) at the Royal Opera House is designed to allow composers and librettists at a variety of different levels the opportunity to produce new opera. The programme will help young people with less opera/vocal-writing experience develop their skills in writing for opera and the theatre through courses for composers, librettists and directors, as well as main stage rehearsal observerships which allow small groups to watch the rehearsal process of Stage and Pianos to Sitzproben to Stage and Orchestras. ROH2 will also work with more established composers, allowing them the time to create new works through week-long workshops.
Performances within the programme also offer a number of diverse opportunities for composers:
Exposure; Snapshots of New Opera allows performance opportunities from a variety of emerging composers. Extracts from new operas are be performed in an informal, cabaret setting.
OperaShots – evenings of short operas by composers outside the classical mainstream. June 2010 saw works by Nitin Sawhney, Orlando Gough and Jocelyn Pook, April 2011 sees works by Anne Dudley (dir Terry Jones) and Stewart Copeland, and November 2011 will see new work by Errolyn Wallen and Bonnie Greer.
Chamber Opera commission – ROH2 will commission a new opera in the Linbury Studio Theatre, giving exposure to emerging composers of the moment.
Festivals/outside events
Deloitte Ignite, sponsored by Deloitte launches the ROH season. Each year, a guest curator is invited to take the art forms of the ROH as the starting point for a series of commissions, installations, exhibitions and performances which challenge audiences to see opera, ballet and contemporary art in new and different ways. The first Deloitte Ignite (2008) was curated by Wayne McGregor and took place over three days, attracting over 9000 people to the ROH. In 2009 Time Out magazine curated the festival and the world’s first Twitter Opera was born. 2010’s festival was curated by Joanna MacGregor with an arboreal theme and an eclectic range of music, dance and film based installations and live events.
In July, Voices Across the World attracts new audiences to the ROH with its exploration of the voice in different cultural traditions, with performers and musicians from Sub-Saharan Africa, Japan, Romania, Israel and the UK.
ROH2 also takes the Royal Opera House to festivals such as Latitude, a boutique festival in Southwold with 23,000 attendees. Last year a custom stage was built in the woods for Will Tuckett’s Pleasure’s Progress, which was performed daily at dusk, as well as mounting performances at sites outside the Royal Opera House, such as Covent Garden Piazza.
References
External links
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