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NI Opera is an opera company founded in 2010 and based in Northern Ireland.
Funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, it began its first season with a remit for performing high-quality opera throughout Northern Ireland, while promoting young talent from the region and forming partnerships with arts organizations from Northern Ireland, Great Britain and further afield. The company is based in the Grand Opera House, Belfast. Its Artistic Director is Oliver Mears.
In his review of the company's first production, Tosca in March 2011, where he notes the enthusiastic response of the first night audience Terry Blain continues by stating that:
[i]n a part of the United Kingdom where opera has suffered constantly over the years from chronic inattention and lack of proper funding, and for long periods has seemed simply an irrelevance, Mears and his team have shown at a stroke that there is hunger for the art-form in an area where historically there has been no coherent or continuous operatic tradition.Early performance history
After launching in October 2010, in December 2010 NI Opera collaborated with Barry Douglas and his Camerata Ireland orchestra in a Christmas concert at the Ulster Hall. In February 2011 it co-produced its first NI-wide tour, with Second Movement Opera, a production of The Medium by Gian Carlo Menotti which travelled throughout Northern Ireland.
While productions of many of the operas in the standard repertoire have been given, some of the more unusual or rarely-performed ones have been included in seasons after early 2011.
Every year, the company holds an annual Festival of Voice at Glenarm, County Antrim. Judges and coaches include Iain Burnside, Kathryn Harries of the National Opera Studio, and David Gowland, Artistic Director of the Jette Parker Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In 2013, a series of recitals from Glenarm were broadcast as part of a BBC Radio 3 recital series. Past recitalists have included Ailish Tynan, Claire Booth, and Stephan Loges.
The company's patron is Sean Rafferty.
2011 - 2012 season
The company's first major production was Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, in three different historic spaces in Derry in March 2011, featuring Giselle Allen in the title role, with Jesús León as Cavaradossi and Paul Carey Jones as Scarpia. The production won the Irish Times Theatre Award for best opera in February 2012.
The season also included a concert featuring Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and the winner of the company's inaugural Glenarm vocal competition at the Belfast Festival at Queens, and a touring production of Orpheus in the Underworld, in a new translation by Rory Bremner, and with Nicholas Sharratt in the title role. A co-production with Scottish Opera, it toured Scotland and Northern Ireland in Autumn 2011 before travelling to the Young Vic Theatre in London in December 2011.
In March 2012 NI Opera toured a new production of The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten which travelled to the Buxton Festival in July 2012. The cast included Fiona Murphy, Andrew Tortise, Giselle Allen and Yvonne Howard with Nicholas Chalmers conducting. The production was designed by Omagh-born Annemarie Woods, winner of the Ring And European Opera Awards 2011. The production subsequently travelled to Novaya Opera Theatre, Moscow in August 2014.
2012 - 2013 season
The 2012-13 season was launched in June 2012 and it included five world premieres of works by Northern Irish composers: Brian Irvine, Deirdre McKay, Conor Mitchell, Ed Bennett and Christopher Norby, together with new libretti by writers including Mark Ravenhill and Frank McGuinness at the new MAC theatre in Belfast, in the company's latest collaboration with the Ulster Orchestra. The production was directed by Rachel O'Riordan and designed by Gary McCann. These new works travelled to the Southbank Centre in London in July 2012.
In July 2012 the company produced another opera by Benjamin Britten, Noye's Fludde. This site-specific production was performed in Belfast Zoo in August 2012, before travelling to Beijing as part of the Beijing International Music Festival in October 2012, the first time a production of one of Britten's operas has been to that country. It was performed again at the Shanghai Music In The Summer Air (MISA) Festival in July 2013.
In November 2012, Hansel and Gretel travelled to the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, in a first visit to the Republic, in a collaboration with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. It featured renowned tenor Graham Clark and a mainly Irish cast.
Other productions included the first Northern Irish staging of a Richard Wagner's opera, The Flying Dutchman in February 2013 as well as a touring version of William Walton's The Bear in March 2013.
2013 - 2014 season
The season featured three co-productions with companies from Ireland and the UK. In October 2014, it became the first Irish company to premiere Gerald Barry's new opera version of The Importance of Being Earnest, which had premiered in concert in 2012 before receiving other 2013 productions in Nancy and London. This co-production with Wide Open Opera, directed and designed by Antony McDonald with the Crash Ensemble conducted by Pierre-André Valade, toured to Belfast, Dublin, Cork, and Derry.
The company also collaborated with Opera Theatre Company, Dublin, on a new production of Donizetti's opera L'Elisir D'Amore which toured Northern Ireland in September 2013, and the Republic of Ireland in autumn 2014.
In February 2014, the company co-produced a new version of Verdi's Macbeth with Welsh National Opera, directed by Oliver Mears. This production will be presented by WNO in its tour of Wales and England in autumn 2016.
2014 - 2015 season
In July 2014, the company's production of The Turn of the Screw travelled to Nevill Holt in Leicestershire, before being presented at Novaya Opera Theatre in Moscow in performances conducted by Jan Latham Koenig.
In September 2014, the company toured its first version of The Magic Flute, a touring production, with sold-out performances at the Lyric Players' Theatre, Belfast.
In February 2015, NI Opera presented its first Richard Strauss opera, Salome, at the Grand Opera House Belfast, with the Ulster Orchestra. Giselle Allen sang the title role.
2015 - 2016 season
The company's season opened with the world premiere performance of Brian Irvine's golf opera, Lovegolflove, a collaboration with playwright Owen McCafferty, as part of the Irish Open at Newcastle, County Down.
In September 2015, in collaboration with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the company staged its first Handel opera, Agrippina, which toured Ireland and Northern Ireland, with Jonathan Cohen conducting.
October 2015 saw the opening of a new production of Turandot at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, directed by Calixto Bieito, a co-production with Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse and Staatstheater Nürnberg. The cast included Orla Boylan, Marc Heller and Christopher Gillett.