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