"Every child has the right to be alive and be protected from violence and abuse.
Governments and countries must make sure that children survive and develop in the best possible way.”
From articles 6 and 19 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, Children’s version.
A new contemporary chamber opera combining Indian classical and Western contemporary music.
Naciketa, a story about an Indian boy who questions Death/Yama and with music, liberates a child, persuades Forgiveness and reminds Memory that we are all infinite.
Governments and countries must make sure that children survive and develop in the best possible way.”
From articles 6 and 19 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, Children’s version.
A new contemporary chamber opera combining Indian classical and Western contemporary music.
Naciketa, a story about an Indian boy who questions Death/Yama and with music, liberates a child, persuades Forgiveness and reminds Memory that we are all infinite.
NACIKETA
Music by the British composer Nigel Osborne and text by the Chilean/American writer Ariel Dorfman.
Current partners include Southbank Centre, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth University, Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury, University of Kent and Lighthouse, Poole, Warwick Arts Centre amongst others.
An updated web page is in preparation.
The director is Sam Brown. The opera will tour in May and June 2021 to Lighthouse, Poole, Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, The Market Hall, Plymouth (TBC), the Electric Palace, Bridport and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London.
“What a wonderful evening. I was riveted from start to finish. And beyond. So moved, challenged and ravished with the beauty and savagery and tenderness of the music and lyrics and held enthralled by Death. I didn't feel it was a work in progress - until later in the discussion which opened further possibilities I could never have envisaged on my own. What great art to open up things you didn't know you knew so that you immediately recognise, understand and connect.” Audience member at a work in progress performance of extracts, Clore Studio, Royal Opera House.
The story in brief:
The music of this new contemporary opera is steeped in the ragas of India, the ancient Indian form of song, Dhrupad, and the dark urban rhythms of Africa. The story is inspired by the Upanishads, the Brahmin philosophical texts. The two protagonists, Music, and the boy, Naciketa, wrangle with Death/Yama and the fate of the lost children of our time. The music rescues him, consoles him and helps to envision a different and more hopeful future.
“And at the end, when Naciketa himself must face the Death he has been fooling and warding off, the Death from which he has been protecting the other children, it is with a final song that he takes the ultimate journey, it is with music that he defies extinction.”
Ariel Dorfman
Ariel Dorfman, the American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina since 1985.
Nigel Osborne, the British composer, researcher, inventor, musician and human rights aid worker and activist. He is a renown animateur in the uses of music for children with special needs and those suffering from trauma as a result of war or conflict. Nigel is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh and is published by Universal Edition in Vienna. He lectures at Universities all over the world and was recently given the Inspiration Award by the British Composer's and the Music Publisher's Associations.
“The libretto for "Naciketa" is doubly significant in this sense. Not only is it located among traditional musics I am closely connected with, but also has a storyline that takes place among some communities I have intimate familiarity with as an aid worker.” Nigel Osborne
Recent review of Bosnian Voices composed by Nigel Osborne for the Liverpool Philarmonic Orchestra,
Nigel Osborne, composer and Ariel Dorfman, librettist, both international artists and human rights activists, bring the depth of their experiences working with boy soldiers in Africa, Children of The Disappeared in South America and the children forced into prostitution in India, to tell this dark but humorous and hopeful tale.
Original extracts of work in progress commissioned by Simon Thacker to support Nigel Osborne's exploration of the music for Naciketa. The Birth of Naciketa and Fire Agni
Short film for an ISPA presentation January 2014 from R and D in India and work in progress at Opera North.
“I was very moved by the performance - and the eclectic brilliance of the music, overlapping styles....even a bit of rap coming through. I agree with what was said about children, I think children are wiser than we think and the magic of the form of theatre is that it can take us to devastating places, which we would not otherwise visit, it does not need to heal or offer solutions, but it enables children to engage very powerfully with real events and happenings at a distance.” Anna Ledgard, Producer/Educationalist. Work in progress performance of extracts at the Bridport Arts Centre, Dorset.
Creative and Production Team:
Music Nigel Osborne
Libretto Ariel Dorfman
Original Dramaturgical support David Pountney
Conductor/Musical Director Mark Forkgen/William Conway
Director Sam Brown
Design Sumant Jayakrishnan
Movement Director
Lighting
Projection/Video/Installation
Chamber Orchestra Kokoro Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's contemporary ensemble with re-sound
Research:
Projection/Animation Susan Sloan University of Bournemouth
Electro Acoustic Sound Ambrose Seddon University of Bournemouth
Production company Opera Circus
Commissioner Opera Circus
Artistic Director/Producer Tina Ellen Lee
International Producer Europe/US Gillian Newson
Company Manager/Project Manager
Music Publishers: Universal Edition, Vienna (tbc)
Orchestra:
2 violins (1 Carnatic), viola, cello, double bass, French horn, flute, clarinet, percussion, tabla, guitar and prepared guitar.
Simon Thacker guitar
sarvarsabri.comSarvar Sabri Tabla
Embar Kannan Carnatic violin
Voices
2 sopranos, 1 mezzo, 2 tenors, 2 baritones, 1 Indian Dhrupad singer•
• Prakriti Dutta
Education/Events Programmes:
Master classes - Indian music
Parallel performance/community work
Young people
Venue/Participation Partners/Consortium:
Southbank Centre, London (Queen Elizabeth Hall)
Lighthouse, Poole, Dorset
University of Kent
Chatham Historic Dockyard, Medway
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
RIO (Real Ideas Organisation) Plymouth
Streetwise Opera
University of Bournemouth
IDAT/Plymouth University (International Design Art and Technology)
Ideastest Swale and Medway (tbc)
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
Electric Palace Bridport Dorset
Glyndebourne Education in discussion
Contacts:
Tina Ellen Lee
Producer
Opera Circus UK
tina@operacircus.co.uk
0044 1308 420751/00447785774909
Skype: tleegolden
Gillian Newson
International Producer Europe and North America
gillian.newson@btopenworld.com
00442076228549/00447768166381
This web site will be developed further over the next 6 months.
Provisional touring dates May/June 2021
Casting and Design 2020
Original short film made of the first research and work in progress developed alongside the University of Edinburgh, Opera North, Bridport Arts Centre with funding from Arts Council England amongst others. Particular thanks to Will Conway and the Hebrides Ensemble, Simon Thacker, Nelson Fernandez, Robert Golden and all the cast and production team for making this possible, in particular Nigel Osborne. (Please ignore the dates at the end of the film, as obviously the development of this new work has been extended.)
Fragments from an Indian Journey
Music by the British composer Nigel Osborne and text by the Chilean/American writer Ariel Dorfman.
Current partners include Southbank Centre, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth University, Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury, University of Kent and Lighthouse, Poole, Warwick Arts Centre amongst others.
An updated web page is in preparation.
The director is Sam Brown. The opera will tour in May and June 2021 to Lighthouse, Poole, Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, The Market Hall, Plymouth (TBC), the Electric Palace, Bridport and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London.
“What a wonderful evening. I was riveted from start to finish. And beyond. So moved, challenged and ravished with the beauty and savagery and tenderness of the music and lyrics and held enthralled by Death. I didn't feel it was a work in progress - until later in the discussion which opened further possibilities I could never have envisaged on my own. What great art to open up things you didn't know you knew so that you immediately recognise, understand and connect.” Audience member at a work in progress performance of extracts, Clore Studio, Royal Opera House.
The story in brief:
The music of this new contemporary opera is steeped in the ragas of India, the ancient Indian form of song, Dhrupad, and the dark urban rhythms of Africa. The story is inspired by the Upanishads, the Brahmin philosophical texts. The two protagonists, Music, and the boy, Naciketa, wrangle with Death/Yama and the fate of the lost children of our time. The music rescues him, consoles him and helps to envision a different and more hopeful future.
“And at the end, when Naciketa himself must face the Death he has been fooling and warding off, the Death from which he has been protecting the other children, it is with a final song that he takes the ultimate journey, it is with music that he defies extinction.”
Ariel Dorfman
Ariel Dorfman, the American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina since 1985.
Nigel Osborne, the British composer, researcher, inventor, musician and human rights aid worker and activist. He is a renown animateur in the uses of music for children with special needs and those suffering from trauma as a result of war or conflict. Nigel is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh and is published by Universal Edition in Vienna. He lectures at Universities all over the world and was recently given the Inspiration Award by the British Composer's and the Music Publisher's Associations.
“The libretto for "Naciketa" is doubly significant in this sense. Not only is it located among traditional musics I am closely connected with, but also has a storyline that takes place among some communities I have intimate familiarity with as an aid worker.” Nigel Osborne
Recent review of Bosnian Voices composed by Nigel Osborne for the Liverpool Philarmonic Orchestra,
Nigel Osborne, composer and Ariel Dorfman, librettist, both international artists and human rights activists, bring the depth of their experiences working with boy soldiers in Africa, Children of The Disappeared in South America and the children forced into prostitution in India, to tell this dark but humorous and hopeful tale.
Original extracts of work in progress commissioned by Simon Thacker to support Nigel Osborne's exploration of the music for Naciketa. The Birth of Naciketa and Fire Agni
Short film for an ISPA presentation January 2014 from R and D in India and work in progress at Opera North.
“I was very moved by the performance - and the eclectic brilliance of the music, overlapping styles....even a bit of rap coming through. I agree with what was said about children, I think children are wiser than we think and the magic of the form of theatre is that it can take us to devastating places, which we would not otherwise visit, it does not need to heal or offer solutions, but it enables children to engage very powerfully with real events and happenings at a distance.” Anna Ledgard, Producer/Educationalist. Work in progress performance of extracts at the Bridport Arts Centre, Dorset.
Creative and Production Team:
Music Nigel Osborne
Libretto Ariel Dorfman
Original Dramaturgical support David Pountney
Conductor/Musical Director Mark Forkgen/William Conway
Director Sam Brown
Design Sumant Jayakrishnan
Movement Director
Lighting
Projection/Video/Installation
Chamber Orchestra Kokoro Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's contemporary ensemble with re-sound
Research:
Projection/Animation Susan Sloan University of Bournemouth
Electro Acoustic Sound Ambrose Seddon University of Bournemouth
Production company Opera Circus
Commissioner Opera Circus
Artistic Director/Producer Tina Ellen Lee
International Producer Europe/US Gillian Newson
Company Manager/Project Manager
Music Publishers: Universal Edition, Vienna (tbc)
Orchestra:
2 violins (1 Carnatic), viola, cello, double bass, French horn, flute, clarinet, percussion, tabla, guitar and prepared guitar.
Simon Thacker guitar
sarvarsabri.comSarvar Sabri Tabla
Embar Kannan Carnatic violin
Voices
2 sopranos, 1 mezzo, 2 tenors, 2 baritones, 1 Indian Dhrupad singer•
• Prakriti Dutta
Education/Events Programmes:
Master classes - Indian music
Parallel performance/community work
Young people
Venue/Participation Partners/Consortium:
Southbank Centre, London (Queen Elizabeth Hall)
Lighthouse, Poole, Dorset
University of Kent
Chatham Historic Dockyard, Medway
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
RIO (Real Ideas Organisation) Plymouth
Streetwise Opera
University of Bournemouth
IDAT/Plymouth University (International Design Art and Technology)
Ideastest Swale and Medway (tbc)
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
Electric Palace Bridport Dorset
Glyndebourne Education in discussion
Contacts:
Tina Ellen Lee
Producer
Opera Circus UK
tina@operacircus.co.uk
0044 1308 420751/00447785774909
Skype: tleegolden
Gillian Newson
International Producer Europe and North America
gillian.newson@btopenworld.com
00442076228549/00447768166381
This web site will be developed further over the next 6 months.
Provisional touring dates May/June 2021
Casting and Design 2020
Original short film made of the first research and work in progress developed alongside the University of Edinburgh, Opera North, Bridport Arts Centre with funding from Arts Council England amongst others. Particular thanks to Will Conway and the Hebrides Ensemble, Simon Thacker, Nelson Fernandez, Robert Golden and all the cast and production team for making this possible, in particular Nigel Osborne. (Please ignore the dates at the end of the film, as obviously the development of this new work has been extended.)
Fragments from an Indian Journey