With five weeks to go until her performance hits the tunnels of new venue Debut, we thought we’d catch up with Coming Up Creative Director Daisy Evans to see how she is taking Dido and Aeneas underground…
What I’m doing in the space has never been done before.
Putting on an opera is such a huge challenge in itself, and when you're trying to do something as radical as we are, that challenge is intensified. We started off with a totally different project; being silent is the only thing that’s stayed the same.
The concept is that Dido is already dead. You walk in to her burial chamber and she is lying out. Then, when you put the headphones on, the world starts to animate – it’s like replaying her life before her eyes.
Initially we were going to do a 20th-century Strauss piece with a huge orchestra and really difficult scoring. But it was just too big for our resources, so we've chosen Dido and Aeneas, a very early opera with smaller performance requirements.
We’re going to record the chorus and just have live soloists. We’ll also have two live musicians in the venue: a double bass and a lute.
I’ve wanted to do silent opera for ages. I see a lot of live opera and classical music, but I also listen to a lot of it on my iPod. I find that whenever I’m listening to it on my iPod I get really involved, because it’s just me and the music. There’s no sound space in-between, no one sitting next to you opening a sweet or coughing. It can really move you.
I’m a director and a designer. I find opera very interesting because you have the added element of the music, which adds a whole other tool to work with. Trying to make installation opera work is incredibly difficult because the music is this timeline that you have to follow. You can easily deconstruct a play’s script and still maintain the essence, but you can’t do that with opera.
If I were to do this again, I would get everything organised as early as possible. We’ll have two days this week to workshop it before recording. Until we record it we just won’t know how it’s going to work out.
This has been an amazing opportunity, because it has allowed me to make mistakes, but with a safety net.
Everyone will be dressed to look like Greek statues. They will all have the same base costume, but you build on top of that to inhabit the character. For example, Dido will have a huge cape with highlights of neon pink.
There will also be a wordless chorus in masks with a piece of chiffon wrapped around them so you can’t see their eyes and a black cross over their mouth to emphasise the silence. Then they will have a battery pack and a string of fairy lights around their heads. They will look quite magical. It will look great.
Daisy was talking to Nell Frizzell.
Daisy’s performance will be on 1 March at 7.30pm & 9.30pm and 3 March at 9.30pm. The performance will last an hour and tickets are free. Click here to book.
To find out more about Coming Up, visit the Coming Up Homepage.
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