The University of Leeds

Graduate Student, Performance and Cultural Industries

Thesis Title: Adapting Opera: Creation, collaboration and communication in the recent productions of Opera North

About

After Herbert Lindenberger’s complaint regarding the engagement of various scholarly disciplines with opera, whereby he found literary scholars, musicologists and others to be ‘talking past one another’ (Lindenberger in Marvin and Thomas, 2006), my work attempts an interdisciplinary approach to opera studies, and a connected and holistic engagement with opera (itself a collaborative and synergistic art form).  This AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award project focuses on the work and identity of Leeds-based national opera company Opera North and uses individual case studies of new works and productions to analyse:
  • the role of Opera North as an opera company working today;
  • the nature and effect of Opera North’s communication of this role to its audience;
  • the pressures, tensions and opportunities present in the commissioning and production of new works;
  • and the process of operatic adaptation within a wider cultural context.
    I use ethnography as a key component in a cyclical process of mixed methodologies, returning and cross-referring to literary and musicological analyses.  I observe and interview key stakeholders and participants in the creation of new opera: commissioners, librettists, composers, directors, performers and other creatives as well as company administrators.  I also observe and question audience members and maintain a cohesive, contextual view of those satellite activities that take place around the main stage production such as education workshops and special projects.
    I aim, ultimately, for a cohesive picture of the nature and work of this contemporary opera company as producers of culture for the North of England: how this work is carried out, how important messages are mediated, and how the role or roles of Opera North are communicated verbally and in the act of production, how these messages and this work is received by audience and by the public, and to what effect.

    I study within the School of Performance and Cultural Industries, the School of Music (University of Leeds) and with Opera North. This CDA project also links to a larger, collaborative partnership between the University and Opera North, DARE. dareyou.org.uk  I teach on several modules in the University of Leeds, and am also a keen performer and conductor/musical director.