Photo cred­it – Priscilla Northe. Striped trees pro­duc­tions.

Dido and Aeneas: Recom­posed is a fringe fest style opera brought to BATS by Unstuck­O­p­era.  Dir­ec­ted by long time Wel­ling­ton cre­at­ive Frances Moore and re-com­posed by one of NZ’s lead­ing young com­posers, Alex Taylor, their re-work of Henry Purcell’s clas­sic includes samples from Strav­in­sky, Jazz Greats, and even Bey­on­cé and is per­formed by sing­ers in over-the-top gowns, crazy make-up and Chuck Taylor sneak­ers. The people behind the show answered a few ques­tions by email.

Tell me about the people who’re work­ing on this pro­ject.

  • Toi Whakaari gradu­ate Frances Moore foun­ded Unstuck­O­p­era and dir­ects this show. She’s a clas­sic­ally trained sop­rano, a Lex­us Song Quest final­ists and a Ful­bright Schol­ar. She’s also very fond of gin and has a com­pletely non-iron­ic love of Taylor Swift.
  • Com­poser Alex Taylor is an Arts Found­a­tion New Gen­er­a­tion Artist and a win­ner of the SOUNZ Con­tem­por­ary Award, New Zealand’s most pres­ti­gi­ous com­pos­i­tion prize. His works have per­formed in New Zea­l­and, Aus­tralia, Indone­sia, Amer­ica and Europe, and by groups such as the New Zea­l­and Sym­phony Orches­tra. He also sings the role of Sor­ceress in the show in a mean fal­setto and looks great in a red cor­set.
  •  Sop­rano Amy Jansen sings the role of Dido. She’s from Queen­stown via Christ­ch­urch and has a Mas­ters of Music from Auck­land Uni­ver­sity. Amy has been a jazz sing­er and a band man­ager and finds run­ning the king­dom of Carthage a breeze by com­par­is­on.
  • Rhys Hing­ston sings Aeneas and Second Witch. By night, he per­forms with vari­ous opera com­pan­ies, endeav­ours, and a cap­pella cham­ber choirs; by day, he moon­lights for an innov­at­ive loc­al tick­et­ing com­pany. And fights crime.
  • Tam­syn Match­ett sings the role of Belinda and First Witch. She has degrees in clas­sic­al voice, runs her own opera com­pany, DJs and dir­ects opera too. Frances makes sure she nev­er walks down stairs in front of Tam­syn.
  • Bar­bara Pater­son sings Second Woman and Third Witch but plays backup to no one. This New York­er has per­formed at the Lin­coln Centre and the Kennedy Centre and has per­formed in the USA, France and New Zea­l­and. She’s a ter­rif­ic mum to her wee boy Isaac, too.

 

How did this pro­ject come about?

Dido and Aeneas: Recom­posed began as the final pro­ject for Frances Moore’s Mas­ter of Theatre Arts degree at Toi Whakaari and Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity. It premiered in a sold-out sea­son at Te Uru Gal­lery in Auckland’s Titir­angi and sold out again in a second run at the  Base­ment Theatre in 2016. NZ Her­ald review­er Wil­li­am Dart called it an “extraordin­ary music­al and the­at­ric­al adven­ture.”

 

Why this opera?

This opera is about the deli­cious­ness of fall­ing in love, the dev­ast­a­tion of los­ing love, and the beau­ti­ful intim­acy found in strong female friend­ships. It also exam­ines the ques­tion of fate, and how much agency we have. Themes you find in any pop song or work of great lit­er­at­ure. It’s rel­ev­ant, power­ful, stuff.

Some­times opera, as a form, comes with its own set of pre-con­ceived ideas – that it’s about big voices, grand spaces and fancy cos­tumes. We wanted to dis­rupt this sense of scale, and cel­eb­rate the intim­ate, vis­cer­al power of the human voice by get­ting up close and per­son­al with our audi­ences. In this prom­en­ade per­form­ance, the sing­ers are often singing right next to audi­ence mem­bers as we all move through dif­fer­ent spaces. This intim­acy and vul­ner­ab­il­ity cre­ates some­thing pretty mov­ing and power­ful.”

This is an every­day kind of story; girl meets boy, they fall in love, he bails on her because the gods tell him to and she throws her­self on a burn­ing pyre and dies. We’ve all been there. So this show is for every­one and any­one.

If you’ve nev­er seen opera before, this is the per­fect play­ful intro­duc­tion. It’s cheap, it’s an hour long, it’s all in Eng­lish and in prom­en­ade, so we’ll take you over every inch of BATS Theatre. There is some ser­i­ously good singing and the score samples Strav­in­sky and Bey­once as well as Henry Pur­cell and our own Alex Taylor.

If you’re already an opera fan, come and see a com­pletely dif­fer­ent take on a clas­sic text.

 

What do you hope the audi­ence is think­ing after the show?

 “Bloody hell! No one should do that with a feath­er boa!” We also hope they’re think­ing, “Can’t wait to see what this com­pany does next”.

 

Is there any­thing else you want to say?

Love’s a bitch… Book your tick­ets at bats.co.nz