New Directions Blog March 2024

Music Theatre Wales is releasing two new Digital Opera Shorts commissioned as part of our New Directions programme:

GRIEF by Francesca Amewudah-Rivers and Connor Allen
&
interbeing by Simmy Singh and ASHA

Available to watch Free of Charge via our website from March 27th at 7pm

New Directions is all about re-imagining opera by inviting outstanding artists who are already working in different areas of storytelling and music, but are not yet included in the world of opera, to collaborate on the creation of new operatic works. These short, digital pieces bring together all the elements that make opera so powerful – a continuous musical arc that conveys the inner story; an impactful human message; image; performance; and the operatic voice. New Directions pieces serve to breathe new life into opera making, and to challenge the very identity of opera as an historic and fixed form.

This year, MTW invited four artists to collaborate in opera for the first time. None of them had previously met, but all were excited by the potential of this multidisciplinary artform, and by the prospect of creating something in which music, story and image work as a single entity. Both pairs – Francesca Amewudah-Rivers and Connor Allen, and Simmy Singh and ASHA – have taken this short operatic form to new levels and we are proud to share GRIEF and interbeing with you.

You are invited to watch them on whatever digital device you choose, free of charge. If you can use headphones or good quality speakers all the better, and the bigger the screen the more immersive they will be.

If you like the pieces, please share them with others. We want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to re-imagine opera with us, and join us on our journey to find a new and much more diverse place for opera in today’s world.

Elayce Ismail
Artistic Associate, MTW

Michael McCarthy
Director, MTW