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Visiting Professor of Opera 2017-18 – Stephen Langridge

The University’s Visiting Professor of Opera, 2017-18

Events
Admission is free, but please book via http://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newchamberopera

26 October 2017
Stephen Langridge in conversation: “Why play opera at all?”
5:00-6:45pm; T. S. Eliot Lecture Theatre

27 & 30 October 2017
Making Opera

27 October 2017
Singers’ workshop
10.00-1.00pm; Long Room, New College
New creations
2.00-5.00pm: Long Room, New College

30 October 2017
Working with the New
10.00-1.00pm: Long Room, New College
Performing the New
2.00-5.00pm: Long Room, New College

Biography
Stephen Langridge is Artistic Director (Opera/Drama) of GöteborgsOperan, the Gothenburg Opera. Having studied Drama at Exeter University, Stephen then spent several years working as assistant director, mostly with the cutting edge company, Opera Factory, but also at Covent Garden, Opera North and Scottish Opera. His own practice developed through a mixture of small-scale tours of cut-down classics with Pimlico Opera, practical laboratories for composers and librettists, and devised music theatre projects, often in unconventional spaces with unconventional people. Underlying all his work is the belief that music theatre is a natural and dynamic form of human expression, to which everybody should have access, both as a creative participant and as an audience.

Stephen is well known for his education, development, and training work (projects in France, Spain, Germany, Finland, Holland, Sweden, Senegal, South Africa, and throughout the UK), and for his theatre work in unusual settings, including West Side Story (Bernstein) and Julius Caesar (Shakespeare) with large casts of prisoners in various British high security prisons, and Ngoma, a multi-racial music and theatre project in South African townships.

Although his directing work is now often on a larger scale – including productions at many of the world’s leading opera houses – Stephen continues to work off piste incorporating smaller scale experimental and developmental projects as an essential part of his working life.