Opera inspired by children’s conversations with others less fortunate

AN opera inspired by a global dialogue between children living in war-torn communities and refugee camps and children in the UK will be performed at Garsington Opera at Wormsley this month.

Composed by Roxanna Panufnik, with words by librettist Jessica Duchen, people’s opera Dalia looks at what happens when a 12-year-old Syrian girl comes to live in the UK and is fostered by a cricket-mad family.

As she discovers a love of the game, Dalia has to come to terms with friction from the local community and the trauma of losing her family.

Dalia is played by Adrianna Forbes-Dorant as part of the Garsington Opera Youth and Adult companies, who will be joined by the Philharmonia Orchestra, Millbrook Junior Company, Ibstone Infant Company, the Amwaj Choir from Palestine and the Al-Farah Choir from Syria’s capital Damascus.

The opera evolved out of Garsington’s 2019 production Dare to Dream, which was performed at the Royal Albert Hall by 1,600 schoolchildren.

Dalia is joining local children digitally with the Amwaj and Al-Farah Choirs.

Director Karen Gillingham says: “It’s a long-standing relationship. We worked with the Syrian choir on Dare to Dream using Skype and we were in schools connecting children from both places.

“The children in Damascus, their school had actually been bombed and was being rebuilt. They had lived through the war and they were exchanging poems about loss and hope. It was just so beautiful, the exchanges they made, and we didn’t want to drop those intercultural dialogues between young people.”

The children in the choirs have been interacting online with their UK cohorts.

Karen says: “They joined us on Zoom and the children performed to each other. They came up with some of the choreography. They performed their section and they were so chuffed to see the children in the UK performing their movement.

“They asked each other loads of questions. One of the big ones is about electricity — in Damascus, they have two hours of electricity on and then four hours off. The children suddenly clicked and loads of questions came out like ‘What do you do in the four hours off?’ They were saying, ‘Well, we have candles’ and everyone was feeling sorry for them. They were like, ‘No, we’re really positive’. They were very determined and full of hope, saying, ‘We don’t want to talk about the war, we’re going to get through this, we just need to rebuild’.”

Karen says the children were also able to bond by comparing eating habits.

She says: “They asked each other a lot about food. They sent us a little video of baklava being made and said, ‘What’s a common food in the UK?’ One of the little girls said ‘pancakes’, which I thought was quite funny.”

• Dalia is at Garsington Opera at Wormsley on Thursday, July 28 and Saturday, July 30 at 7.30pm and there is a matinée on Sunday, July 31 at 3pm. The opera is sung in English with English supertitles. Tickets cost from £30 to £60. For more information and to book tickets, visit
garsingtonopera.org