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Cast Announced for our Carmen R&D!

Tomorrow marks the start of our research and development workshop for our latest re-imagining, Carmen. This follows on from our acclaimed Die Fledermaus (4 stars The Guardian & The Stage) and Cosi Fan Tutte (Best Opera Production Finalist, OffWestEnd Awards). Over the course of 3 days we will be exploring our version of the piece, with a new modern English libretto by Joanna Turner, and score for violin, accordion and bassoon arranged by Leo Geyer.

Our work will culminate in a free sharing at 4.30pm at Lantern Arts Centre. If you’d like to attend you can sign up for tickets here. Read more

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Be the first to see our new reimagined Carmen!

Die Fledermaus (2019) Production

Following on from our success of Die Fledermaus we have been busy reimagining Carmen and this is your first chance to take a peek at what we’ve been doing!

On 4th November at 4.30 pm we will be showing selected scenes from our reimagined Carmen production. This is a FREE event but we have limited capacity so if you are interested in attending please submit the following form and we will confirm your seats. Read more

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Skill Sharing Workshop for Facilitators – Work with us in 2022!

We are delighted to be partnering with Southwark Playhouse to offer a free opera skills sharing workshop from 1pm to 4pm on Friday 8th October 2021.

We are looking to meet facilitators who are interested in learning about opera and how their skills may be transferable to working in opera in future, and for us to meet talented facilitators to work with Baseless Fabric on our 2022 projects which will range from one-off sessions to long term programmes.

We recognise that opera is traditionally a white middle class artform and the lack of diversity in the arts is one of the sector’s most important issues. We strongly believe not only that opera is for everyone but that our casts and workshop leading teams should be representative of the South London areas in which we perform and where we provide young people with our opera workshops. As such, we strongly encourage theatre facilitators of colour to apply. Read more

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Introducing Opera to Merton and Wandsworth Schools

Across 2 weeks last July, 14 workshops were delivered to 8 primary and secondary schools in Wandsworth & Merton. Sports halls were filled with the sounds of the Toreador Song and the moves from the latest TikTok trends as the children were introduced to Baseless Fabric’s adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen by our wonderful team of facilitators Rachel Maby, Juliane Gallant and Elliott Daley.

Feedback from the students has been wonderful. 99% of students said that they liked the workshop with 81% of those saying they loved it. 85% of students said that after the workshop they would now definitely attend or consider attending an opera. When asked what they had learnt during the session answers ranged from as specific as “the position of the larynx when singing” to simply “that I like opera!” and “that opera can be fun!”

Possibly one of the most rewarding parts of these workshops is that our facilitators see the impact the experience can have on the students, and even see growth in the confidence and interest of individual children over the course of the session. For example, student ‘P’ started his session with his back to the facilitators. During the course of the workshop he became more interested, especially when Juliane compared music to his favourite subject, maths. By the end ‘P’ was fully involved, excited and he wanted to answer ALL the questions! Read more

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Opera Taster Workshops Are Underway

This week marked the start of our Carmen Opera Taster Workshops to 8 primary and secondary schools in Wandsworth & Merton. The workshops were organised with the help of the lovely teams as Merton Music Foundation and Wandsworth Music and will be delivered over the next 2 weeks by our brilliant team of facilitators – Rachel Maby, Juliane Gallant, Elliott Daley and Elizabeth Humphries.

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Care Home Concerts Return!

Claire & Elspeth

Following the success of our concerts in September 2020, our covid-safe Care Home Concerts are returning this May! Thanks to the generosity of Wimbledon Foundation and Merton Giving, we will be performing for residents and staff from the gardens and carparks of care homes across Wandsworth and Merton.

We are thrilled that Soprano Claire Wild and Pianist Elspeth Wilkes will be returning to deliver these concerts with us. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram where we’ll be posting throughout the project.

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Welcoming Rachel to the Baseless Fabric Team

We are delighted to welcome Rachel Kraftman to our team. Rachel will be organising our concerts for care homes and workshops for schools over the next few months. We asked her a few questions so you could get to know her!

What excites you most about working with Baseless Fabric?

I share Baseless Fabric’s passionate belief that theatre and music have the power to build community and transform society. I am so excited to be focusing specifically on community engagement and providing opera, music and theatre experiences to people who may not have had the opportunity otherwise. 

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Carehomes Carpark Die Fledermaus!

Die Fledermaus Arcola Theatre

David Horton as Eisenstein & James McOran-Campbell as Falke

Despite the grey January days this particularly bleak January we have something very exciting to look forward to this summer! With the hugest thanks to the Postcode Community Trust, we are thrilled that later this year when the weather warms up, Covid restrictions are lifted a little and hopefully many carehome residents will have received their vaccine, we are able to offer South West London carehomes a FULL PERFORMANCE of our acclaimed re-imagined Die Fledermaus (4 stars – The Guardian)!

As with our recent carehome concerts, these performances will again take place in the carpark or garden of the care homes to keep residents, staff and artists safe in these changing challenging times. And we are thrilled that this time rather than just concerts we can offer a full performance of Die Fledermaus giving residents and staff an opportunity to enjoy the full story of Strauss’ operetta. Read more

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Announcing our new adaptation!

We are thrilled to announce that we are re-imagining another classic opera for London life today in our unique street opera style! This time we are taking on one of the big tragic operas with perhaps the most widely recognised operatic music – Carmen by Georges Bizet!

We are so excited to take on this challenge and hugely grateful to our funders: Arts Council, Wimbledon Foundation, Samuel Gardner Memorial Trust, Humphrey Richardson Taylor Charitable Trust, Merton Council, Wandsworth Council and Three Monkies Trust. Thanks to their support we’ll be working on the creative adaptation and offering projects for local young people in 2021. We will also be fundraising further to make the final performances and further activity for young people and the elderly happen in 2022. As ever, if you feel able to support our work we’d be incredibly grateful. Read more

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Covid Safe Care home concerts

During late September/early October 2020 we headed to seven different care homes across Wandsworth and Merton to provide a concert to their residents and staff to try and bring some musical joy and lift spirits during these difficult times of Covid 19. Kindly funded by Wimbledon Foundation, Merton Giving and Sylvia Waddilove Foundation we performed outside in the car parks and gardens of care homes so that residents and staff could safely enjoy our socially distanced performance. Check out our video for a peek at what we got up to! Read more

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