Rearrange is a series of short films, commissioned to place older, well-known operatic arias in today’s world and to show how the themes echoed in the stories are still relevant today. WNO invited four directors – Rebbecca Hemmings, Daisy Evans, Mathilde Lopez and Abdul Shayek – to take an extract from an opera of their choice and to give it a contemporary spin for the modern world.
Mathilde Lopez
Mathilde Lopez takes Monteverdi’s ‘Tu Se Morta’ from Orfeo as inspiration and explores sadness, powerlessness and how we seek to recapture what we have lost.
Matthilde Lopez, DirectorIt has been immensely gratifying to delve in and out of Monteverdi’s Orfeo. Like Orfeo, we all have been deeply stunned, hit by an unbelievable level of sadness, enraged by our powerlessness and we too have tried anything to carry on believing. And we are still doing it.
Abdul Shayek
Inspired by Puccini's powerful 'O mio babbino caro' from the opera Gianni Schicchi, director Abdul Shayek looks at whether love can ever bridge the divisions caused by class.
Rebbecca Hemmings
Inspired by Puccini's internationally recognised 'Nessun Dorma', Rebbecca Hemmings' interpretation The Paradox follows a man as he navigates the daily realities of racial disparities as he travels to work.
Daisy Evans
Director Daisy Evans places Rossini's Trio from Le Comte Ory at an office party where three colleagues slink off at the end of the night and get up to all sorts of shenanigans