Operatunity

Last updated April 29, 2019

Operatunity was a talent search— and Michael Waldman's film that documented it— in which the English National Opera conducted a nationwide search to find someone in the United Kingdom without professional opera experience, who could be coached to sing in a staged opera — Verdi's Rigoletto in the event— on the stage of London's Coliseum Theatre in the company of world-class performers, part of the ENO's regular season.

English National Opera opera company based in London

English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera, Covent Garden. ENO's productions are sung in English.

The United Kingdom (UK), officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.

Opera is a form of theatre in which music has a leading role and the parts are taken by singers, but is distinct from musical theater. Such a "work" is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor.

Audition and choosing

The audition process followed a casting call for submitted videotapes, that resulted in some 2500 entries from a colorful group of which a hundred were auditioned in person, on a bus tour that encompassed regional auditions, which led to a series of London workshops for the final six participants, including an investment banker, a builder—who stood on a scaffolding at a construction site to belt out a Neapolitan song— an ex-police officer, wrestler and model, a supermarket cashier, and a blind mother of three. The finalists received intense vocal coaching and dramatic technique, as well as physical training and the fundamentals of stagecraft. Two finalists were selected, Jane Gilchrist and Denise Leigh, who shared the demanding role of Gilda onstage, in March 2003. The documentary follows their nerve-racking final days before the performance and the exhilaration of their operatic debut, combining real-life drama with the high theatrical drama and emotional intensity of grand opera.

Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog signal or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) or, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram.

Naples is a major city in southern Italy. It is the capital of the Campania region, and the third-largest municipality in Italy after Rome and Milan. The city is called Napoli in Italian, and Napule in Neapolitan. The name comes from Ancient Greek Νεάπολις, meaning "new city", via the Latin Neapolis.

A police officer, also known as an officer, policeman, policewoman, cop/copper, garda, police agent, or a police employee is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the rank "officer" is legally reserved for military personnel.

In a sense, Operatunity was an expansion of ENO's program for young opera singers, The Knack, directed by Mary King, a panel member for Operatunity. A criterion for the selection, in addition to raw vocal talent, was the ability of a singer rapidly to put into practice guidance from the coaches. The other members of the panel consisted of Anthony Legge, head of music at the English National opera, Karen Gillingham, an actress singer trained at The Knack, Paul Daniel, conductor at ENO, and Philip Traugott, a classical music album producer.

Paul Daniel CBE is an English conductor.

Winners

The winners followed up with concert tours and at the end of the year joined to sing the children's duet from Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel , broadcast on BBC Four, Christmas Day 2003.

Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera Hansel and Gretel.

Hansel and Gretel is an opera by nineteenth-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck, who described it as a Märchenoper. The libretto was written by Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, based on the Grimm brothers' fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel". It is much admired for its folk music-inspired themes, one of the most famous being the "Abendsegen" from act 2.

BBC Four is a British free-to-air television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was launched on 2 March 2002, with a schedule running from 7:00 pm to 3:35 am. The channel shows "a wide variety of programmes including comedy, documentaries, music, international film, original programmes, drama and current affairs ... an alternative to programmes on the mainstream TV channels". It is required by its licence to air at least 100 hours of new arts and music programmes, 110 hours of new factual programmes and to premiere 20 foreign films each year.

Operatunity won a RAI Prix Italia in 2003.

Australia

ABC TV and Opera Australia combined to produce Operatunity Oz , which offered Australians the comparable “operatunity”.

ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public service broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas. ABC is one of five main free-to-air networks in Australia.

Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House accompanied by the Opera Australia Orchestra runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the Arts Centre Melbourne, where it is accompanied by Orchestra Victoria. In 2004, the company gave 226 performances in its subscription seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, attended by more than 294,000 people.

Operatunity Oz was a 2006 talent search, and accompanying four-part television documentary by Simon Target, in which Opera Australia conducted a nationwide quest to find someone without professional opera experience, who could be coached to sing in a staged opera – Verdi's Rigoletto in the event – at the Sydney Opera House in the company of professional performers, as part of Opera Australia's regular season. It was modelled on the earlier British Operatunity (2003).

New Zealand

Operatunity is a national concert company formed in the year 2000 which is now the major employer of singers in New Zealand. The founders Susan Boland (Artistic and Managing Director) and John Cameron (Director and CFO) perform regularly in their Daytime Concerts Series alongside many other professional New Zealand artists. They produce 8 national tours every year covering a variety of genres and tour to 24 different centres across New Zealand, performing over 200 concerts every year.

Operatunity's Daytime Concerts are at 11am, and the ticket price includes a light lunch after the concert which is served by the performers. The Daytime Series are quality concerts which provide a fun family atmosphere, and are loved by seniors across New Zealand.

From the concerts Operatunity Travel has grown into what is now Australasias largest specialist Music Travel company taking thousands of music lovers around the world to attend their particular brand of operas and shows and the finer sights of the world. All tours are escorted by the performers that appear in the concerts and are renowned for their high quality offerings.

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