Synopsis
OperaShots returns to ROH2 and invites leading contemporary talent from other fields to break the mould and take a brand new shot at opera. Lasting about half an hour each, OperaShots is short, sharp and experimental and offers a new angle on opera, for both experienced opera lovers and opera virgins. OperShots is part of an ongoing programme of opera development work across the Royal Opera House which ranges from full-scale commissions to development workshops, courses and observer programmes. This year it is the turn of minimalist composer Graham Fitkin and Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy to explore opera from unexpected angles. Only in its third year, OperaShots has already gained a name for unusual and imaginative points of departure-quantum physics, football, a doctor who is a dog have been some of the subjects and so far composers and librettists including Natin Sawnhey, Stewart Copeland, Jocelyn Pook and Terry Jones have taken shots at this exciting art form. Neil Hannon's OperaShot, Sevastopol is a new compact chamber opera which follows young writer Leo Tolstoy's journey to the depths of the Crimean war. Tolstoy witnesses the horrors of the first great modern military conflict and through his various encounters with soldiers, sailors, nurses, officers and gunners, matures both as man and artist. Linbury Studio