Opera uit het Hart
Opera uit het Hart [Opera from the Heart] was the first project which enabled Yo! Opera to show on a large scale, outside the context of its festival, that it had the intention and the capacity to organise larger size projects. Opera uit het Hart was also the first project to join in with the community arts trend from across the Channel. Opera uit het Hart was a large-scale community opera, set in the ultimate shopping centre of the Netherlands, Hoog Catharijne. Hoog Catharijne is a part of Utrecht where people from all walks of society meet, directly and indirectly. Its characteristic seventies architecture and outline create a unique atmosphere. By offering this community opera, Yo! Opera intended to contribute to further plans for the development of this area from the perspective of the arts. At the same time, Yo! Opera wanted to add a new dimension to the phenomenon of opera by positioning it at the heart of society.
Opera uit het Hart was created in close collaboration with Culturele Zondagen [Cultural Sundays], an organisation which organises a monthly and easily accessible cultural programme in Utrecht, and which is very successful in mobilising large audiences. Opera uit het Hart was not a single opera project, but it consisted of 30 mini-operas of three minutes each. The texts were written by children; the compositions were made by young and adult composers. The end-results were performed at thirty shops in Hoog Catharijne by a small cast of two singers and one musician per opera.
Pupils of grades 7 and 8 of the Jenaplanschool Wittevrouwen in Utrecht went to Hoog Catharijne one morning in November 2003, and were ordered to fantasize about the theme 'a special encounter'. Writer of youth plays Susanne van Lohuijzen helped them to transform their ideas into a libretto. Thirty composers, with backgrounds in jazz, non-western music, hip-hop, classical music and pop, between 21 and 71 years of age, composed the music, resulting in thirty three-minute operas.
The Utrecht shopping centre was for once transformed into a concert hall on Sunday 2 May 2004. In three hours, the audience could zap itself from one mini opera to the next. The thirty performances were made without any décors, technical means or sound amplifiers.
The little operas were performed in the shops for which they were written, and were mostly sung by professional opera singers, but also by several children. Standing near a clothing rack at a warehouse, a woman suddenly sang out an aria; opera sounded from a snack bar; someone came singing out of a fitting room; and the audience – sometimes completely unsuspecting - was taken by surprise by a man in a fish shop who burst out singing. Anyone who wanted to calm down was welcome at the meditation centre in Hoog Catharijne, where Schubert's Ave Maria could continuously be heard. At the end of that afternoon, the sounds of the Utrecht Opera Choir filled all corners of Hoog Catharijne with highlights from Verdi's opera Nabucco.
The project has had many positive effects for Yo! Opera. The organisation became well-known in- and outside Utrecht. Many years later, the names of Yo! Opera and the project Opera uit het Hart were bracketed together. Yo! Opera's staff had had a first taste of the successes of a project of this kind: the whole experience was clearly very moreish. From 2004 onward, Yo! Opera would step into the outside world more and more often, in order to bring about a marriage, a collision, or both. It would be a permanent search for the connection between that very dear world of opera and society, and an idealist urge to be meaningful to that society.
Opera uit het Hart was created in close collaboration with Culturele Zondagen [Cultural Sundays], an organisation which organises a monthly and easily accessible cultural programme in Utrecht, and which is very successful in mobilising large audiences. Opera uit het Hart was not a single opera project, but it consisted of 30 mini-operas of three minutes each. The texts were written by children; the compositions were made by young and adult composers. The end-results were performed at thirty shops in Hoog Catharijne by a small cast of two singers and one musician per opera.
Pupils of grades 7 and 8 of the Jenaplanschool Wittevrouwen in Utrecht went to Hoog Catharijne one morning in November 2003, and were ordered to fantasize about the theme 'a special encounter'. Writer of youth plays Susanne van Lohuijzen helped them to transform their ideas into a libretto. Thirty composers, with backgrounds in jazz, non-western music, hip-hop, classical music and pop, between 21 and 71 years of age, composed the music, resulting in thirty three-minute operas.
The Utrecht shopping centre was for once transformed into a concert hall on Sunday 2 May 2004. In three hours, the audience could zap itself from one mini opera to the next. The thirty performances were made without any décors, technical means or sound amplifiers.
The little operas were performed in the shops for which they were written, and were mostly sung by professional opera singers, but also by several children. Standing near a clothing rack at a warehouse, a woman suddenly sang out an aria; opera sounded from a snack bar; someone came singing out of a fitting room; and the audience – sometimes completely unsuspecting - was taken by surprise by a man in a fish shop who burst out singing. Anyone who wanted to calm down was welcome at the meditation centre in Hoog Catharijne, where Schubert's Ave Maria could continuously be heard. At the end of that afternoon, the sounds of the Utrecht Opera Choir filled all corners of Hoog Catharijne with highlights from Verdi's opera Nabucco.
'A Mix of Opera and Merchandise'
"On Sunday 2 May, Shopping Centre Hoog Catharijne was transformed into one large opera stage where audience and artists were milling around, and where reality and fiction blurred. The aim was to release opera from its straitjacket of plush chairs. The bold venture turned out to be a brilliant move. Clothes stores and perfumeries for a short while changed into small theatres, where audiences listened attentively and reacted enthusiastically. It was remarkable to see what can be done in a performance of three minutes only! Most librettists – pupils from grades 7 and 8 of primary school – had never seen an opera before. But what sense of theatre and what comical talent! The composers succeeded in creating a whole range of different styles and in building up suspense in most of the operas. This project is worth doing again!"
(from: Utrechts Nieuwsblad, 3 May 2004)
"On Sunday 2 May, Shopping Centre Hoog Catharijne was transformed into one large opera stage where audience and artists were milling around, and where reality and fiction blurred. The aim was to release opera from its straitjacket of plush chairs. The bold venture turned out to be a brilliant move. Clothes stores and perfumeries for a short while changed into small theatres, where audiences listened attentively and reacted enthusiastically. It was remarkable to see what can be done in a performance of three minutes only! Most librettists – pupils from grades 7 and 8 of primary school – had never seen an opera before. But what sense of theatre and what comical talent! The composers succeeded in creating a whole range of different styles and in building up suspense in most of the operas. This project is worth doing again!"
(from: Utrechts Nieuwsblad, 3 May 2004)
The project has had many positive effects for Yo! Opera. The organisation became well-known in- and outside Utrecht. Many years later, the names of Yo! Opera and the project Opera uit het Hart were bracketed together. Yo! Opera's staff had had a first taste of the successes of a project of this kind: the whole experience was clearly very moreish. From 2004 onward, Yo! Opera would step into the outside world more and more often, in order to bring about a marriage, a collision, or both. It would be a permanent search for the connection between that very dear world of opera and society, and an idealist urge to be meaningful to that society.
