Watch: The Place Beyond Tomorrow
Watch a new musical performance created by young people from the UK and the USA in response to the multiple crises rocking the world in 2020.
In 2020, a year of global upheaval, young people from the UK and USA with a shared love of opera and performance, and shared experience of performing the opera Belongings, came together to collaborate, create, share and dream about the ‘Place Beyond Tomorrow’.
You can watch the video they have created below.
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This ground-breaking collaboration between the young people of Glyndebourne Youth Opera and Minnesota Opera’s Project Opera group in Minneapolis all started in February this year when Project Opera staged a new production in Minneapolis of Lewis Murphy’s opera Belongings, a piece which was commissioned by Glyndebourne and premiered by Glyndebourne Youth Opera in 2017. The themes of kindness, hope and understanding against a background of dislocation and conflict were as relevant in Minneapolis in 2020 as they were in 2017 in the UK.
The idea of coming together came about during the Covid-19 pandemic as a response to the multiple crises rocking the world. A creative and collaborative process was devised with expert facilitator Darren Abrahams taking place over three Saturday evenings (mornings for the Americans) making full and inventive use of the latest digital tools and platforms.
The young people taking part were given the mission to articulate collectively their vision for the place beyond tomorrow, with the words from Belongings as their starting point. Further provocation and inspiration was provided by two guest artists, British soprano (and Glyndebourne favourite) Nardus Williams, and award-winning US writer Kao Kalia Yang.
Over the three sessions the young people formed mixed working groups in which they devised a mandala image (see a selection above) to represent their vision and then live presentations involving film and poetry to convey their message to the bigger group. The results were moving and profound for all involved, demonstrating that despite, or maybe because of isolation distance and turmoil it is possible to find new ways of coming closer together:
– The Place Beyond Tomorrow participant
You can see more of the project in this behind-the-scenes video:
Abby Engbrecht
Ahan Devgun
Alex Bailey
Alice O’Brien
Alysa Wu
Anya Singh
Ben Doran Burke
Cerys Herbert-Stott
Connor Malewicz
Daisy Wardle
Daisy Willats
Donovan Schumacher
Ella Grabsky
Enzo La Hoz Calassara
Francesca Seaborne
Gigi Casey
Gracie Tiller-Kaemmer
Hannah Ray
Heather Alys Law
Ilana Melnik
India Pelster-Wiebe
Isaac Stokes
Jess Frisby
JJ Klein
Katie Garner
Kevin Kereakos-Fairbanks
Kristian Stohrdahlen
Lexi Lott
Luca La Hoz Calassara
Madeline Johnson
May Abercrombie
MC Hulse
Moana Muller
Olivia Orton
Olivia Shelton
Richart van Zyl
Rose Berelowitz
Ruby Greis
Sydney Sistad
Valerie Wick
Walter Hall
‘Lullaby’ From Belongings
Music by Lewis Murphy
Words by Laura Attridge
Sung by young people from the Belongings cast 2017 (Glyndebourne Youth Opera) and Belongings cast 2020 (Project Opera, Minnesota)
Soloist: Madeline Johnson
Conductor: Matthew Abernathy
Piano: Kathy Kraulik
Film: Dave Fricker
Sound: Myles Eastwood
With thanks to Lewis Murphy, Laura Attridge, Darren Abrahams, Kao Kalia Yang, Nardus Williams and all at Glyndebourne and Minnesota Opera
Glyndebourne’s education programme is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.