OperaUpClose bring the maritime opera to Liverpool’s Invisible Wind Factory this summer.
The award-winning OperaUpClose in partnership with recent RPS Award winning Manchester Camerata, reinvigorate Wagner’s classic with an English libretto by poet and novelist Glyn Maxwell and an 8-piece chamber orchestration by Laura Bowler.
The Flying Dutchman is a haunting political tale exploring the displacement of people and the psychology and realities of living on an island with hardening borders, bringing an urgent and contemporary relevance to the fable of the ships captain cursed to roam the sea forever. The summer tour finishes at Invisible Wind Factory, Liverpool, on Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd July.
The production steers from traditional ‘end-on’ performance, breaking the fourth wall and immersing the audience directly in the world of the story. It dismantles the traditional barriers between pit, stage and orchestra with all performers, instrumentalists and singers, having equal agency as storytellers. It includes pre-recorded voices from a national network of community choirs, a virtuosic chamber orchestra and a principal cast of internationally-renowned opera singers.