Birmingham Opera Company
Graham Vick coaches the chorus during a rehearsal
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| Formation | 1987 |
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Director
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Graham Vick |
| Website | www |
Birmingham Opera Company is a professional opera company based in Birmingham, England, that specialises in innovative and avant-garde productions of the operatic repertoire, often in unusual venues.
The company was founded by leading international opera director Graham Vick and conductor Simon Halsey as City of Birmingham Touring Opera in 1987, acquiring its current name in 2001. CBTO's public debut came in September 1987 with the production of Falstaff at the Cocks Moors Woods Leisure Centre in Brandwood. In 1989 City of Birmingham Touring Opera commissioned and performed Ravi Shankar's work of musical theatre Ghanashyam (A Broken Branch), which won the company's first Prudential Award for Arts; the 1990 production of Richard Wagner's Ring Saga, adapted for performance over two nights and with a reduced orchestra of eighteen musicians, won the second. Birmingham Opera Company has also won the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Music for its 2001 production of Berg's Wozzeck in a derelict warehouse in Ladywood, and a South Bank Show Award for its 2002 production of Fidelio.
While City of Birmingham Touring Opera's works were performed nationwide and internationally, Birmingham Opera Company has since 2001 produced shows on an annual basis, working with large numbers of volunteers from local communities alongside professional musicians and performers. The Company is also notable for its use of unconventional locations for its productions, ranging from a large tent in Aston Park for 2002's Fidelio, the former Municipal Bank on Broad Street for He Had It Coming (based on Mozart's Don Giovanni) in 2007, and most recently the Argyle Works, a disused chemical works in Digbeth. On a much larger scale, however, the Company also performed Verdi's La traviata to an audience of almost 10,000 people at the National Indoor Arena in 2007.
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Wikipedia