THE oPERA PROJECT Inc

About

THE oPERA PROJECT Inc.

opera / ‘opra / opara    (It. from L.: service, work, a work)

Since 1997 The opera Project (co-founded by Nigel Kellaway and Annette Tesoriero) has committed itself to the development of a flexible ensemble of mature, experienced and respected theatre artists. The company’s concerns are in pursuing a contemporary theatre practice that deliberately examines a breadth of cultural heritage in theatre, music, dance and associated technologies. In fourteen major works over twenty-five years, The opera Project has explored in multifarious ways the etymology of the word “opera” (its literal Italian meaning, “a work”) as well as its culturally implied meanings. It is a “project” in that it entails, first and foremost, an interrogation of form. Our concerns are in a theatrical practice in which music is but one contributing component. We stress that music can be visual and embodied, employing the spatial, visual and corporeal to challenge audiences ultimately to listen and watch anew. Appropriately our collaborators bring to the work rich skills across theatre, music, dance and the visual arts. We describe the defining qualities of theatre simply as “the fast and slow, loud and soft bits”. We employ music as both a stage direction and tempo indication. It becomes the dramaturgical, emotional and rhythmic backbone to the work – not merely a structural order but providing a kind of polyphony and counterpoint, a multiplicity of conjunctions and confrontations in which theatre is experienced as a “site of collision”. The opera Project’s work has been enriched by over sixty returning collaborators over the past two decades.

Major Works:

THE BERLIOZ: OUR VAMPIRES OURSELVES (Performance Space, 1997, touring Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart, and the Powerhouse, Brisbane, 2001)

THE TERROR OF TOSCA (Performance Space, 1998)

TRISTAN (Performance Space, 1999)

THIS MOST WICKED BODY (a restructuring for the 1998 Adelaide Festival)

EL INOCENTE (Performance Space, 2001)

ENTERTAINING PARADISE: WHERE ALL THINGS ARE PERMITTED (Performance Space, 2002)

ANOTHER NIGHT: MEDEA (Performance Space, 2003, redeveloped as CANTATAS for Stopera, Street Theatre, ACT, 2003)

THE AUDIENCE AND OTHER PSYCHOPATHS (Performance Space, 2004)

SLEEPERS WAKE! WACHET AUF! (Performance Space/Carriageworks, 2007)

THE RAMEAU PROJECT (Performance Space/Carriageworks, 2009)

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: a beautiful naked woman “of a certain age” brutally stabs a young man to death (Performance Space/Carriageworks, 2013)

GLORIAS (Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2016)

Presently in development:

SHOT IN THE DARK

HAMLET IN ARCADIA