English Touring Opera
in the community

 
PRESS RELEASE April 2005
ONE BREATH

a new opera for Doncaster and Sheffield

English Touring Opera are staging a new opera based on the life of Mary, Queen of Scots in Doncaster and Sheffield this June.

The opera, called One Breath, involves eleven groups of adults and children from the Doncaster and Sheffield area who will perform alongside two professional opera singers. There will be two performances; at Doncaster Dome on June 17 and at Manor Lodge in Sheffield, the castle where Mary was imprisoned for 11 years, on June 18. Tickets will cost just £2 for adults and £1 for children.

The music for the opera is written by composers Helen Chadwick and Rachel Leach and has been commissioned specially for these performances by ETO, to coincide with the end of their tour of Donizetti’s opera Mary, Queen of Scots. Rachel is particularly delighted to be involved as she was born on Manor Lodge Estate and attended the local primary school. The words are a combination of writing by Mary, Queen of Scots and her contemporaries, lyrics devised by the community groups involved, and additional text by Tim Yealland, ETO Artistic Associate and director of the project.

The community groups are rehearsing and developing the work with the two composers in workshops over the next two months. The story takes Mary’s execution on the scaffold and the thoughts and memories she may have been having at that moment as a starting point for an exploration of her life. Celebrated soprano Carol Smith sings the role of Mary, Queen of Scots, while bass-baritone Andrew Slater is the Narrator. The singers are both local - based in Yorkshire and Derbyshire respectively - and have performed extensively with ETO and other leading opera companies.

The community groups involved are a mixture of all ages and abilities. There are children from Willow, St Oswald’s and Manor Lodge Primary Schools; Firth Park Community Arts College, McAuley Catholic High School and Myrtle Springs Secondary School; two special schools, Oakes Park and Cedar School, and the Sheffield Community Youth Choir. The adult groups are Movers and Shakers, a dance group for the over-50s, and Doncaster-based Quirky Choir.

In all, 250 people will take part in the two fully-staged performances. Project director Tim Yealland said, “This will be the first time an opera has ever been performed at Manor Lodge, and it’s exciting and appropriate that it should be about Mary, Queen of Scots, who has such strong links with the venue. I’m delighted so many local people from Sheffield and Doncaster are taking part - there’s been a real energy and buzz at the early workshops.”

English Touring Opera is very grateful to Youth Music, the PRS Foundation for New Music, Sheffield Council, R M Burton Foundation, Sheffield Town Trust and Askew Design and Print (Doncaster) for their generous support of the One Breath project.