Patisserie Valerie, Wimbledon Piazza
We had such an amazing time running our Merton Opera project Drifting Dragons this summer – we hope you managed to catch one of the performances on your high street or perhaps participated in one of our workshops at schools and young people’s groups in the area.
It was fantastic seeing the surprised faces in Morrisons and M&S as customers realised that other customers were opera singing their conversation! And we were delighted by the positive audience responses – everybody seemed surprised and pleased we’d gatecrashed their lives for 10mins in a public space as they went about their daily life, shopping, waiting for a bus or drinking coffee.
Jigsaw4u
The biggest thanks to all of the local businesses across the borough of Merton that supported the project and allowed us to perform in their stores – Wyevale Garden Centre, The Gorringe Park Pub, Tesco Tooting, M&S and the Qube Centre, Café La Lavella and Morden Library, the New Horizon Centre and Pollards Hill Library, Starbucks & Waitrose Raynes Park, Tag Elezz Café and Morrisons Mitcham, Patisserie Valerie and Morrisons Wimbledon, Saucer & Cup and the Co-Op Wimbledon Park, Maison St Cassien and Bayley & Sage! And also thanks for those involved in our performances as part of the Arcola Theatre’s Grimeborn Festival – Café Route, Dalston Junction station manager, Dalston Square, Hackney Council and of course the Arcola itself. We had so much enthusiasm and support so thank you all!
Jigsaw4u
And huge thanks to all the brilliant young people who we met in our workshops at various schools and groups across the area – Jigsaw4u, St Marks Academy, Lonesome Primary and others. We had such a great time teaching these brilliantly talented and enthusiastic young people about opera – teaching them to sing some of Drifting Dragons and writing their own songs from their own stories. We very much hope to work with you all again in the future!
Jigsaw4u
We have had such fun creating an opera about the real lives of real Londoners, teaching young people about opera and performing Drifting Dragons in everyday places for everyone to see. We really hope you enjoyed it too – get in touch and let us know what you thought, if you had ever seen opera before and whether you’d consider seeing it again! We’d love to hear from you….
