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A Q&A with… British Comic Opera

By February 26, 2016No Comments

Daisy Evans, founder and artistic director of British Comic Opera, has a single mantra for her new project…

Have more fun

With a big bag of opera tricks ranging from improvised opera, to sing-offs, to jazz opera and even an operatic Death Match – it’s the dizzying heights of grand opera, delivered straight to your cocktail table.

 

Intrigued? Confused? A little frightened? We wanted to get a better look at what she has in store for us before BCO make their appearance at Omnibus on the 5th of March.

 

Say the words, “British Comic Opera” and people probably think Gilbert and Sullivan. What’s the concept here?

British Comic Opera is designed to make you laugh with high quality music making. There are so many songs, scenes and pieces that are hilarious, we want audiences to see them! We also have sketches and improvised sections that show just what is so funny about opera and what we go through as music-makers day to day in the business. Opera is not always serious – just have more fun!

Does opera – with all its passion and intensity – mix with laughter and comedy?

If music is capable of making you weep, its capable of making you laugh. Through music, emotions are distilled and presented in a heightened way. It’s perfect for comedy as well as tragedy!​

What kind of audience is this for? People who love opera, or those who’ve never heard a bar of one?

This is for everyone, young and old, music lovers or not. Our core principle is comedy. We just use music to make it!

You’ve worked at ENO and the Royal Opera House. Now you’re going to be faced with more intimate audiences and more intimate spaces. How do you adapt to that?

I have also worked in intimate spaces with my company, Silent Opera. I’m used to it, and I think it’s a much more interesting place to make opera.

What would you like your audiences to feel after they’ve been to a BCO evening? Should they just feel amused or is this an introduction to more and bigger productions?

This is the start of making opera on a mid scale, and BCO aim to make longer evenings that present fully staged comic operas in an interesting format and accessible space.

British Comic Opera are at Omnibus 5 March

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