What a day #OperaPassion on 24 October 2017 turned out to be. Thank you to everyone that took part in celebrating with us, it was a great day where all leading opera companies, BBC Arts and the V&A came together to celebrate our love and passion for opera. We feel very privileged to have been invited to take part and to spread the power of the art form to you all.
From 11am on 19 October 2017, #OperaPassion took over social media with live streams from all over the UK. From musical experiments from Tomorrow’s World to a Sing-a-long at St Pancras Station we covered it all. For WNO’s first contribution of the day we offered a look into the heart of our Chorus by going live on a rehearsal and providing viewers with a 360˚ insight into the power of our Chorus.
You can re-play the interactive video on our Facebook page where you can also see what our Chorus Master Stephen Harris had to say.
Alongside our live segments we also shared a WNO view on introducing people to opera and de-mystifying opera for newcomers. Our ‘New to Opera’ video was very popular with opera and comedy lovers all over the country. Take a look for yourself and share it with any opera sceptics to see if this funny video might change their minds.
Radio 3 played a part by broadcasting some of our favourite arias throughout the day and running a vote on which the public voted which opera would be broadcast at the end of the day.
Spoiler alert! Tosca won the competition and was broadcast on Radio 3 for us all to appreciate. For us at WNO this was something we were eagerly anticipating as we performed Tosca as a part of our Spring 2018 Season.
For our final segment we streamed live through the BBC Arts page a Touch Tour of our set of Die Fledermaus. A Touch Tour is a pre-show tour for blind and visually impaired audiences to learn more about the opera and also to get an idea of what the set is like. To learn more about what we provide for blind and visually impaired audience members take a look at our website. You can watch Julia Carson Sims and Jonathan Nash taking our audience on a tour of the extravagant set of Die Fledermaus
#OperaPassion was a celebration of all things opera and a wonderful way for us to reach out to new audiences, give a behind the scenes glimpse to our supportive opera-goers, as well as share our successes and applaud British opera. Take a look back at all the brilliant activities we were all up to by visiting the BBC Arts page.
Notes
To produce the live videos we worked closely with BBC R&D and would like to thank the whole team for their fantastic work.
We would not have been able to show you our touch tour without the help from WNO Stage Manager, Julia Carson Sims and Jonathan Nash from Sightlines.
A big thank you to the other opera companies that collaborated to create a wonderful day to support each other in our work and enjoying opera at its best. English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Glyndebourne, Northern Ireland Opera, Opera North, Royal Opera House and Scottish Opera.