Our new programme of reinvented classics by Vaughan Williams, Puccini and Richard Strauss. A series of three one-act operas reimagined for the modern world in thrilling new chamber orchestrations by some of the UK’s most exciting composers and writers.   

RIDERS TO THE SEA  

Vaughan Williams’ and John Synge’s sung play about family, duty and loss in a sea-faring community, in a new chamber orchestration by Michael Betteridge for accordion, clarinet and oboe. This masterful miniature is partnered with a specially commissioned choral prologue, The Last Bit of the Moon, composed by Michael Betteridge, and written by ArtfulScribe's Community Sirens Collective led by Antosh Wojcik, bringing hope, light and the modern world to a classic.

Directed by OperaUpClose Artistic Director Flora McIntosh, and designed by multi-media specialist Cheng Keng, the production will combine live performance with projection and sound design. Created for the most intimate studio spaces, this will be powerful and immersive musical storytelling at its most direct.

In association with MAST Mayflower Studios, Riders to the Sea will open in January 2025 before embarking on a nationwide tour.

GIANNI SCHICCHI,
or where there’s a will

Rising stars writer Hannah Kumari (“Deceptively subversive” The Stage) and composer Vahan Salorian (“...truly genre breaking” Backtrack) are bringing Puccini’s enduringly popular masterwork roaring into the 21st Century.

Developed through artist-led workshops in Autumn 2024, this Schicchi will be scored for a cast of highly skilled actor musicians and exceptional opera singers putting all performers at the very heart of the storytelling.

The production, directed by PJ Harris, will tour to mid-scale spaces in early 2026, alongside a new spoken word comic prologue commissioned in partnership with ArtfulScribe.

SALOME

In development for a planned tour of nightclubs and cabaret spaces in early 2027. A new chamber interpretation of Strauss and Oscar Wilde’s disturbing musical drama. Created to fully immerse audiences in the hedonistic, warped world of both music and narrative, this Salome aims to be as powerful and provocative for today’s audiences as the original was at the time of its premiere.   

Film Credits:
Artistic Director Flora McIntosh
Producer/Photographer Grace Weltch
DOP Kasra Firouzyar
Cam Op Lance Penez
Performers Chiara Vinci & Flavio Rodrigues

MEET OUR CREATIVE PARTNERS

RIDERS TO THE SEA

Michael Betteridge Composer
Described as ‘bold’, ‘colourful’ (The Times), and ‘inventive’ (Financial Times) British Canadian composer and conductor Michael Betteridge has an eclectic output in which his music draws on the stories of people and places, past and present, animating everything from concert halls and opera stages to slate mines and market squares! As well as creating work for some of the country’s top ensembles, he is passionate about work with communities and leisure time groups. He is also Artistic Director of The Sunday Boys – Manchester’s low voiced and open access LGBTQ+ choir. He was made an Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music in 2023. 

Cheng Keng Designer
Cheng Keng is a scenographer, lighting and video designer based in London. He trained at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, completing an MFA in Scenography.  

Theatre credits include: Grud (Hampstead Theatre), Grills( CPT) ,Project Atom Boi (CPT); So That You May Go Beyond The Sea (CPT); 1884 (Shoreditch Town Hall); The Littlest Yak  (Marlowe studio); Chriskirkpatrickmas (7 Dials Playhouse); Tiger ( Omnibus Theatre); 555: Verlaine En Prison; Double Bill  At the statue of Venus and La Voix Humaine (Arcola Theatre); 1984  (The Cockpit); Let Your Hands Sing In The Silence (Marlowe Theatre); These Words That'll Linger Like Ghosts Till The Day I Drop Down Dead  (The Pleasance); The Retreat; Pennyroyal  (Finborough Theatre); The Zone (Taoyuan art centre); Sankofa: Before the whitewash (Roundhouse); Beauty and the 7 Beasts (Brixton Jamm); Borders (Drayton Arms Theatre); Blue Island 99 (International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival) and Hello World (National Taichung Theatre, Taiwan).  Assistant lighting designer include: The human body (Donmar Warehouse).  

Gianni Schicchi,
or where there’s a will

PJ Harris Director
PJ is a British stage director originally from the Midlands. His work in opera has taken him across Europe and includes world premieres, community projects and productions for TV, including a drive-in staging of La bohème for English National Opera, which won a BAFTA in 2021.   

Hannah Kumari Writer
Hannah Kumari is a writer and former actor based in Southeast London. She has been commissioned by companies including Sky Arts, Coventry City of Culture, Exeter Northcott Theatre, The Wardrobe Ensemble and Eastern Angles Theatre Company. Her acclaimed one-woman show ENG-ER-LAND toured to over 30 venues from 2021-2023 and returns to the King’s Head’s new theatre this Summer. Hannah is thrilled to be working with Opera Up Close for the first time on Puccini’s perfect one act Opera Gianni Schicchi.    

Vahan Salorian Composer
Since graduating from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2015, Vahan has gone on to create operas for BBC4, The Opera Story and Tete a Tete. His past works include the immersive nightclub opera, Boys of Paradise, and a hammer-horror retelling of Goldilocks, which premiered at The Bussey Building in Peckham.