GIANNI SCHICCHI,

WHERE THERE'S A WILL

or

When a wealthy second homer hosts one last seasonal soiree, the evening doesn’t quite go according to plan. As local opportunist Gianni Schicchi steps in to save the day, things go from bad to worse for the bourgeois liberal elite.

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.

Scored for a cast of highly skilled actor musicians and exceptional opera singers and set in an unnamed coastal town, this radical reworking of a classic takes a surreal and satirical look at the challenges of a second home economy, entitlement and class assumptions. In a world where everyone is out for themselves, what does it mean to be complicit and who should be held to account?

Captioned as part of the design, this new production, directed by PJ Harris, will tour to mid-scale spaces in early 2026, alongside a specially commissioned spoken word prologue in partnership with ArtfulScribe. 

VENUES & DATES

Coming Soon

“Packs a punch”

The Times

“Intensifies the Experience to something

personal yet universal”

Pink Prince Theatre

company

  • 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 South East 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 OperaUpClose 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.

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