Guest Blog: Ella Marchment On Opera Innovation and Helios Collective's Formations Masterclasses

Ten years ago, I knew next to nothing about opera, save for learning some arias while studying singing. I had never been to an opera, and I had no interest in ever even thinking about going to see one either.

But things changed when, as a music scholar studying piano, cello, and singing, I was offered the chance to complete a summertime internship with Dorset Opera, working on their production of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. Corny as it may sound, it was love at first sight, and a decade later, I not only work as a freelance opera director for opera houses in Europe, but I am also the artistic director of an opera company called Helios Collective, which focuses on reaching out to new audiences by putting on imaginative, kooky, and thought-provoking works.

For me, opera doesn't start and end with the productions put on by the major opera houses -however spectacular and intoxicating they might be - but with the core idea of giving audiences a really entertaining evening out, by offering them a range of unexpected 'think again' productions.

Since I started to work in the industry, I've created operas and performance installations for outdoor spaces, reimagined existing works, turned traditional classical operas into rock pieces (if you haven't seen Rock Tosca, you haven't yet had your mind blown), commissioned operas that confront social issues, created new operas that are total romps, written and sold out several plarias (hybrid plays that feature opera arias), and pushed the boundaries of classical performance, all in a determination to challenge and change the way that opera is viewed by others. It doesn't have to be what it has always been.

For me, opera encompasses everything. Drama, dance, humanity, and song. Someone performing circus skills onstage. A 200-piece orchestra. One musician playing. One voice singing. An epic narrative. Art, architecture, theatre, and design.

It involves all of the senses, and it appeals to all of our sensibilities. It confronts life's greatest questions, takes us to the brink of emotional turmoil, and sensationalises the mundane. It extends time, slows time, and eradicates time completely. It is experience, a way of life, and a sentient joy. As Shakespeare observed, all the world's a stage, and there is no part of the world that cannot be reached and observed by the theatrical and revealing world of opera.

There's one more thing that opera is about, and that's people. Whether it's the stories being told, the singers on the stage, the technicians who make the magic happen, the directors and producers who push on, round and over every single obstacle that's placed in their way, or the people who sit or stand in the theatres to love, question, and challenge the productions that they've paid to see, opera is all about people and how they act, react, and interact before, during, and after performances.

I soon realised that if opera is to survive and thrive in the internet age, it needs to offer its audiences the very best products that it can, and to do exactly that, you need to bring people together to share their ideas and their skills in order to take opera forward as a relevant and modern art form.

This November, Helios Collective is running Formations, a series of developmental masterclasses in which three new opera commissions will be workshopped by leading industry professionals, with a final performance at Lilian Baylis House on Friday, 25 November, supported by English National Opera. The three works that we've chosen this year are eclectic, diverse, and challengingly different.

All of the masterclasses are open to the public, and everyone who attends a masterclass is welcome to share their thoughts, questions, and ideas during Q&A sessions. So why not join us for Formations 2016? You never know - you might just fall in love with opera. And who knows where a new love might lead you.

www.HeliosCollective.co.uk

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