April in Newcastle may have been pretty dreich overall, but it was all sunny at Harlekin Studio Opera. Reeling from the high of our Harlekin Sings concert at the end of last month, we’ve been looking to the future for our charitable opera company.
Thanks to the generous people of Tyneside Alternative Social Co-Operative we were able to relaunch our website for the first time since Covid sent us into hibernation. This means that we’re now able to expand our mailing list, but also to accept donations and sell tickets direct through our website.
It’s been a month of growth for us and we’re recieving more interest than ever before. We’re delighted that three new people have joined us this month and are already stuck in with the challenges (and rewards!) of learning opera. We even have a few more people coming along to try what we’re offering in the coming weeks.
Our weekly Tuesday workshops are centred on Smetana’s Prodaná Nevěsta, which is a Czech language opera from 1866. We have a lovely native Czech speaker who has been keeping us on track with our pronunciation and giving words of encouragement through the process. And many members have even taken to duolingo to boost their Czech language skills.
It’s not too late to get involved as our performances are not until November. Our dedicated members site has all you need to catch up with what we’ve covered so far, and there’s still space for one or two principal singers as well as chorus.
Coming up
After five years at the coast we’ve finally found a Newcastle venue that is affordable, on public transport lines and hopefully the right size for our rehearsals. We’ll be testing it out this week and then possibly relocating to Jesmond! Watch this space!
We also have plans in the pipeline for a fundraising quiz which will be fun for all the family and support our work in providing opera education to the people of the North East from our Newcastle base.
That’s everything for this month! Thank you for your ongoing support, our community is everything to us.
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