Brighton Magazine

The Brighton Magazine

Selected Brighton Magazine Article

Tuesday 29 October 2024

Uprising @ Glyndebourne: Sussex Opera House Set To Stage Largest Mainstage Community Opera In Its history

Glyndebourne will stage the largest mainstage community opera in its history in February 2025, featuring over one-hundred-and-forty local people performing on stage and in the orchestra pit.

The amateur singers and musicians range in age from teenagers to adults and will perform alongside professionals in the world premiere of Uprising, a new opera by acclaimed composer Jonathan Dove and writer April De Angelis about climate change and young people.

Appearing on stage will be a community chorus of 110 singers made up of 60 young people (aged 14-19) and 51 adults from across Sussex, along with eight drummers from the Brighton & Hove Percussion Ensemble.

A further 24 young instrumentalists, predominantly from Brighton and East Sussex Youth Orchestra, will appear in the orchestra pit, playing alongside professional musicians from the Glyndebourne Sinfonia and players from the Jerwood Pit Perfect scheme, a talent development programme for recently graduated instrumentalists. 

Open auditions for Glyndebourne's new community opera were held this summer at various locations across the local area, offering those living within 25 miles of Glyndebourne the opportunity to take part in the production. 

Applications from those whose backgrounds are currently underrepresented in the world of opera were actively encouraged. 

Uprising's community chorus will join a professional cast including Ffion Edwards, Madeleine Shaw, Julieth Lozano Rolong, Ross Ramgobin and Nkululeko Innocent Masuku, the South African tenor who recently reached the final of ITV series Britain's Got Talent. 

Exploring the themes of youth activism and the climate crisis, Uprising looks at the state of the world through the eyes of the young, and asks whether one person has the power to make a difference. 

"How can someone as small as me change anything?", asks Lola, the opera's teenage protagonist, horrified by the destruction of the rainforests. 

The plot follows a mother and a daughter navigating their relationship through a time of personal and global turmoil.

Ivor Novello Award-winner Jonathan Dove composed Glyndebourne's first community opera, Hastings Spring, on Hastings Pier in 1990. 

His breakthrough work, the 1998 opera Flight, was subsequently commissioned by Glyndebourne and has since been performed over 150 times worldwide. 

The environment has been a central theme of Doves work for over 20 years. He said of his new project:

"Uprising is my fifth and most urgent operatic attempt to write about the biggest thing that's happening, this time through the eyes of a teenage girl who becomes an activist. 

"It's inspired by Greta Thunberg and Fridays for the Future, and the search for a sustainable way of living."

Performances of Uprising will take place on Friday 28 February at 7.00pm,  Saturday 1 March at 3.00pm and Sunday 2 March at 3.00pm. There will also be a dedicated Performance for Schools on Wednesday 26 February at 11.00am. 

Public booking open now - Visit glyndebourne.com

by: Mike Cobley




Share    

Credit: Mark Sellger

Multi-platinum-selling neo-soul superstar Maxwell has been announced as the first headliner for next summer's Love Supreme Jazz Festival, which returns to Glynde Place in East Sussex from July 4th - 6th 2025.

Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson's supernatural Ghost Stories visits Theatre Royal Brighton, next July. The production was last seen in the UK in 2019 when, after a run at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, the show transferred to the Ambassador's Theatre for its latest West End Run. 

To support Towner Eastbourne gallery, as it faces a cut in its local authority funding, two limited edition prints of Robert Tavener's works Cliffs & Foreshore, Seven Sisters and Boats & Nets are available to purchase for a limited time only.

After decades of being inseparable, time is inexorably closing in on Mr and Mrs Bick, and now they are being intruded upon by a powerful, third presence – the mysterious Mixie (which plays at New Venture Theatre, Brighton, from 8th - 16th November 2024.

Why? is the new single from Sussex-bound musician Beans on Toast. A song all about those existential questions with potentially non-existent answers. 

The Brighton Half Marathon returns to the city on Sunday 2nd March 2025. Last year thousands of runners took to the streets of Brighton and Hove in the Half Marathon, Wheelchair Race and Youth Races. This year the race will have a new home on Hove Lawns and the Youth Races will take place the day before on Saturday 1st March 2025. 

A Brighton student has created an innovative health app designed to improve maternal and neonatal care for black and brown people.
Credit: Sarah Reddin

A new report by University of Brighton researchers has revealed Bexhill-on-Sea's annual festival of light delivers a major boost for the town's local economy and social benefits for residents.

Charleston in Firle unveiled its Autumn/Winter programme for 2024. There will be talks from acclaimed authors, including Matt Haig and Jeanette Winterson, as well as the annual winter edition of the Designer and Maker Fair.
Credit Andrew Hasson

Create Music, lead organisation for the Sussex music education hub, and Glyndebourne opera house have expanded their educational partnership, One Voice, to enable more children across Sussex to experience and benefit from the joy of singing.
Credit Syl Ojalla

The Winter Artists Open Houses returns for 2024 with over 50 houses to explore across Brighton & Hove this festive season. 

From ultra-catchy pop and dance tunes to intimate and acoustic pieces, Sussex-bound Senegalese kora player and composer Seckou Keita continues to defy categories with an impressive body of work that blends traditional music and rhythms with pop sonorities, embracing afro-pop, urban, hip hop, and spoken word. 

Organising a conference or event in Brighton?
See our Brighton Conference section.
Brighton web design by ...ntd