Running from April 2022 to May 2023, the festival brought together composers, choreographers, designers, filmmakers, singers and people with experience of homelessness, to create a collection of nine micro-operas. The works were performed live, re:sounding together, in March 2023.

A core element of the project was the research activity that was developed and delivered in London, Nottingham and Manchester, which was kindly funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. This research was inspired by the creation of the micro-operas in each city; both helping to inform the creation of these 9 micro-operas and – once they had been created – enabling performers to have a more informed and detailed knowledge of content of the opera themselves.

Throughout the year, Streetwise Opera performers in all areas visited museums, galleries, accessed archives, went on walking tours – to research into the history of their cities, in order to enrich the creation of the 9 micro-operas.

The final stage of this project focused on capturing the impressions of the cities through the eyes of the Streetwise Opera performers that live in them.

Our aim was to find out more what it means to these performers to be citizens of London, Manchester and Nottingham – what the city means to them – and how they see themselves as part of it.  

In order do this, we set up oral history interviews between pairs of Streetwise performers in each region; and to prepare performers for these interviews, we set up training with Oral Historian Jen Kavanagh.

Please do tune in to the interviews below…