Touring this summer Backseat Stories from All Aboard Opera!, is a quartet of pieces that offer a relaxed, engaging entry to the world of opera. Daily Info sat with the team behind the show to learn a but more about what audiences can expect from the show.
Daily Info: What's Backseat Stories all about?
All About Opera: Backseat Stories is a quartet of short operas staged in beautiful outdoors settings across Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. It's a production that celebrates storytelling; the show is presented by five friends who are lost on a road trip, and who decide to pass the time by telling stories. Encompassing four rarely performed gems by Mozart, Holst, Lehmann and Sullivan, this is a truly unique way to experience opera. Audiences are encouraged to bring along a picnic and a drink, and to sit back and enjoy an evening of summer sunshine and music in a relaxed and joyful environment.
DI: What can audiences expect from the show?
AAO: Audiences can expect a bit of everything. All Aboard Opera! like to deal in the unexpected, so we'll be taking on outdoor opera with a twist. 'Backseat Stories' is a set of operas within a new play, so you can expect a lot of spoken dialogue as well as singing. A major inspiration behind this project were the many summers as a child I spent watching touring Shakespeare companies perform outdoors - and we thought, why not do that with opera? It's opera with no frills and no fuss; our entire production is based around a battered Ford Fiesta that our characters use as both backdrop and dressing up box for their storytelling. The four operas encompass a whole range of genres; comedy, tragedy, romance and farce - and one isn't even technically an opera! It's a unique evening where we'll laugh, cry, and celebrate the incredible power of storytelling.
DI: How have you curated the pieces that are part of this show?
AAO: The four operas that make up Backseat Stories were very carefully selected. Without giving too much away, each piece represents a different genre and celebrates a different type of storytelling. We are passionate about representing lesser-performed works; we believe that we are only the second company to perform one of our pieces, 'The Happy Prince' by Liza Lehmann, in the UK since it premiered in 1908. There are also some forgotten gems by far more well-known composers; before Arthur Sullivan was half of beloved G&S, he wrote a hilarious operetta set in London zoo which we are thrilled to be bringing to life! There's truly something for everyone in the Backseat Stories collection; audiences are guaranteed a journey from love to loss to laughter.
DI: There's a relaxed quality to All Aboard Opera. Do you feel this a way for opera to appeal to a wider audience?
AAO: All Aboard Opera!'s motto is: innovation, accessibility, adventure. Everything we do has to fit into all three of those categories, and Backseat Stories certainly does just that! We want to show that opera doesn't have to be in a theatre, or something you need to sit quietly through. Opera can also be performed out of the back of a car, in a field (or a vegetable garden, or a park), and can be something that you enjoy while having a picnic with your friends and family on a warm summer's evening. We perform everything in english, which is something we find very important when appealing to a wider audience. Opera sometimes has a reputation for being complicated and difficult to understand, but at its heart it's simply stories set to music - and that's something that humans have been creating for as long as we've been capable of dreams.
DI: Can you sum the show up in three words?
AAO: The words I would use are: adventurous, exciting, different!
Backseat Stories tours Oxfordshire and Glouctershire in August.