Isolated Incidents

12 composers responded to the theme of ‘isolation’ in our first contemporary opera project​, Isolated Incidents, ​directed by Eleanor Burke and musically directed by Callum Hüseyin.

From Beckett’s ​Waiting for Godot ​to a cat and dog waiting for their owner, this smorgasbord of operatic scenes tells a range of stories inspired by isolation through a variety of musical styles. We streamed two operas per week from 1 April 2021.

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Cast & Creatives

Week 1 – Isolation

Voices
A man is experiencing a claustrophobic, timeless isolation. He hears a voice, and in a dream-like delirium hopes that it is a companion there to join him. As the voice continually echoes him (mirrored in the score), the character starts to realise that it is only a construction of his mind, and his desire for even the most basic forms of human interaction, change and otherness, cannot be satisfied.

Leo Salem – Composer
Maxwell Levy – Tenor
Hebe Hamilton – Mezzo
Anna-Lou Mary – Choreographer/Dancer
Ruby Gray – Videographer
Luisa Lazzaro – Video Editor
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Week 2 – Introspection

The Lost Path
Isolated in the wilderness, Jesus contemplates and confronts his feelings of loneliness. Text from Milton’s Paradise Regained.

Gary Rushton – Composer
Edwin Dizer – Jesus
Diana Vucane – Videographer
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Anna’s Aria
Alone in the country, Anna has grown increasingly paranoid as her mental health begins to unravel. She becomes convinced that Vronsky no longer loves her. Her pleading letters to him remain unanswered so, tormented, she resolves to seek him out at the train station. Based on Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

Maria Shepard – Composer
Fiona Finsbury – Anna Karenina
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer/Videographer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Week 3 – Cohabitation

Duel
During lockdown, Albert confronts his downstairs neighbour, Bernard. Stuck indoors all day, he is forced to tolerate Bernard’s noisy lifestyle which has been thwarting his romantic efforts.

Leo Salem – Composer
Daniel Kringer – Albert
Luke Thomas – Bernard
Dan Light – Sound Engineer/Videographer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Too Close for Comfort
The inventor, Daedalus and his young son, Icarus are imprisoned in a tower in Crete. Frustrated by their confinement, they dream up an elaborate plan to escape. Adapted from Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

Oliver Jones – Composer
Maxwell Levy – Icarus
Johannes Moore – Daedalus
Darren East – Puppeteer/Videographer
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Week 4 – Technology

Hello Alice!
Bob is a bafflingly incompetent and unenthusiastic English (as a foreign language) teacher, and Alice his more forgivably hopeless pupil. Exasperated by Alice’s attempts, Bob contemplates his solitude and his longing for his love to return to him.

Dan Gilchrist – Composer
Emma Warner – Alice
David Padua – Bob
Dan Light – Sound Engineer/Videographer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Alone
A university student in lockdown for two months realises that she has reached out to her friends more often than they have reached out to her. This short scene expresses her fears about feeling alone and not being missed by those she loves, while she tries to fight the anxiety and reassure herself that this is not true.

Rebecca Doherty – Composer
Joanna Harries – Student
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer/Videographer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Week 5 – Perspective

“you don’t know what our twilights can do”
A scene from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Pozzo ruminates on the suffering of mankind and concludes that “the tears of the world are of a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, another stops”

William Gardner – Composer
Aleksi Koponen – Pozzo
Richard Black – Piano
Diana Vucane – Videographer
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

One Day
“I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better.” These immortal words of Anne Frank sound against the voice of a news reporter, reading a series of statistics about the pandemic. In this juxtaposition of past and present, One Day explores the fact that even in the midst of darkness, we can hope for a brighter future but this future will always be haunted by the darkness of its past.

Alexander Papp – Composer
Donna Macfadyen – Soprano
Donna Macfadyen – News Anchor
Ciaran Walsh – Artist
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer/Videographer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Week 6 – Animals

Dog and Cat
In 2020, during lockdown, the owner of a dog and a cat has gone out. The two pets squabble over where their owner may have gone and chaos ensues.

Paul Ayers – Composer
Michael Temporal-Darell – Dog
Lana Quaid – Cat
Liza Cox – Puppeteer/Videographer
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Me Time
Bruno decides to make the most of lockdown by finally settling down to write his novel. However, he is easily distracted and worries that he might be losing his marbles as he starts to talk to his only companion, his small dog. But, as Bruno says, you’re only mad if the dog talks back…

Richard Peat – Composer
Timothy Knapman – Librettist
Logan Lopez-Gonzalez – Pooch
Conall O’Neill – Bruno
Dan Light – Sound Engineer/Videographer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

Week 7 – Inspiration

The Porter
The Porter’s monologue from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The lonely porter laments the fact that whilst he watches many people come and go, few will remember him.

Jonathan Whiting – Composer
David Padua – The Porter
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director

The Visits
Joy, an old woman, is furious and lonely that her once active lifestyle has been brought to a halt by lockdown. When organising her book collection she comes across a joint from her youth and lights up. Whilst reading she then is visited by various characters from the books she has been reading. This is a sample of a longer work and thus Joy is only visited by Alexander Selkirk and Harriet Jacobs. Both of them had experienced isolation and incarceration and offer Joy advice on how to cope with her feelings.

Oliver Vibrans – Composer
Bryony Lavery – Librettist
Chloë Allison – Joy
Luke Thomas – Alexander Selkirk
Victoria Oruwari – Harriet Jacobs
Beth Charlton – Art Director/Animator
Jade Stainton – Animator
Eleanor Barber – Concept Artist
Georgina Lloyd-Owen – Sound Engineer
Eleanor Burke – Director
Callum Morton Hüseyin – Musical Director