As we approach this month's Magna Carta celebrations at Runnymede, East Molesey's Julia Cripps tells us how she and other Surrey singers found themselves performing at the Royal Albert Hall in a community opera celebrating 800 years of democracy
It’s the end of May, and I’ve recently made my debut at the Royal Albert Hall, as part of the Adult Stage Company and a cast of a least a thousand volunteers, in The Freedom Game. Commissioned by Surrey County Council’s Surrey Arts division, it's a community opera written by Sir Richard Stilgoe and composed by Hannah Conway to celebrate the 800 year anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede in Surrey.
I’m still pondering how this has come about. I abandoned the stage after university, many decades in the past, but returned to performing when I joined the Esher-based community choir Earthly Voices ten years ago. in an attempt to stave off Alzheimer’s and shore up my dwindling lung function (I’m a long-term sufferer of a progressive lung condition called bronchiectasis).
Last December, sporting a badly sprained wrist and a bad attack of the hives, I attended a workshop audition with Surrey Arts, which was looking for Surrey residents to act, dance and sing in the Adult Stage Company. The advert appeared in the small print of an email asking for community choirs to participate in the Mass Choir of a new community opera.
The workshop was great fun. It involved a number of team building improvisations, such as acting out domestic appliances expressing various emotions (amorous vacuum cleaners, anyone?), followed by the aural learning of a song from the show, with accompanying choreographed actions.
I was rather surprised to get an email confirming my place in the Adult Stage Company. So since early January, 31 of us that make up the Adult Stage Company have been meeting weekly to rehearse in a primary school in Englefield Green. Here we have been knocked into shape by director Karen Gillingham and voice coach Suzi Zumpe, both of whom are artistic directors at the Royal Opera House’s Youth Company and have high professional standards.
We’ve only come together with other stage company participants – primary school children, dancers and professional opera singers – for occasional intensive rehearsals over a few weekends. At the first, bass/baritone Keel Watson (the friendly and down to earth opera singer playing the role of the Dictator in the opera) turned up and was suitably loud and scary, and I realised what a great opportunity this is for all the children involved to experience opera close up. I am sure many of us have no experience of the genre beyond the ‘Go Compare’ ads.
One Sunday early in May all the performers, except the dancers, congregated at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking to sing through the opera with the orchestra for the first time. This was a very exciting day for us, hearing the whole piece come together for the first time; it was like the building of a giant Meccano set, bit by bit we fitted the components together and hoped that the mechanism would work.
By the day of the performance, May 12 and after three days of intensive rehearsals, we were match fit and ready to go. For some one like me, used to working from home, having to commute to the Royal Albert Hall for 9am turned out to be the most stressful part of the day. The women of the Adult Stage Company were thrilled be installed in the Principal Dressing Room, just off the main stage, although the men had a bigger dressing room (and there were less of them) I noticed we had more mirrors.
It was thrilling to walk out into our performance space and look up at the all the empty seats and boxes. The 120-piece orchestra was installed on the stage on the stage and by 11am a mass choir of 600 adults and children flanked the organ.
The Royal Albert Hall is huge, but the rehearsals had prepared us for the space and orientated us to the entrances and exits, and it felt natural to be moving around in it. We had two run-throughs, a technical one to check the lighting and sound and a dress rehearsal, which included a practice of our bow and strict instructions from the director that no one was allowed to play keepie uppie when balloons were released on to us from above during our final bow.
Our performance was at 7.30pm, Prince Edward and his wife were present in the Royal box, and the auditorium was full. Amazingly, we managed to keep in time, quite a feat in such a large space with tricky acoustics. There were monitors of conductor ‘maestro’ Tim Murray everywhere and deputy conductors keeping us in the arena and the mass choir together. The evening went in a flash and we got a standing ovation at the end of an emotional, exhausting, happy day where everyone gave everything they had to tell the history of how democracy and liberty was won.
The opera tells the story of a Surrey family, stripped of its liberties by an evil dictator, which then has to win them back by playing through different levels of a computer game. The action goes back in time covering the last 800 years, signposting important events in history that led to the winning of our freedoms. It is a witty and informative piece which drives home the fact that it’s taken a long time to achieve our own imperfect democracy. The sealing of the Magna Carta by King John was only the first small step, achieved by a group of self interested Barons. But it did at least put everyone, including the King under the law and protected all men from illegal imprisonment.
And what of the 31 of us who have been flung together to create the Adult Stage Company? We are a diverse bunch, but are all positive and enthusiastic performers. Many of us enjoy singing or acting in our spare time. Some of us are very well trained for the role and are running drama clubs, working as drama teachers, leading choirs or working as film and TV extras, others haven’t attempted to perform on stage for many years.
However, for some of us, including me, the adventure continues. A reduced Stage Company will perform a 15 minute excerpt of the Freedom Game twice more. First, at Royal Holloway's free Charter Fair on Sunday June 14 at noon, and then on the anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede in the presence of the Queen and other members of the Royal Family, as well as foreign dignitaries and further invited audience of almost five thousand people. This event is considered to be the pinnacle of events to celebrate the anniversary. During the event, the American Bar Association memorial to the Magna Carta will be rededicated - which will ensure a considerable American presence too with much online speculation that President Obama will be present.
And as for future performing opportunities, happily Hampton Court Palace’s Sing500 programme is going to provide just that. These events celebrate the 500 year anniversary of the founding of the Palace by Cardinal Wolsey in 1515.
The Freedom Stage Company group has been accepted to work with English Touring Opera, who are providing a composer and director to work with a few local groups to create a musical event which will be staged in the Palace’s Great Hall in November.
The Freedom Game excerpt can be seen and heard at The Great Charter Fair, June 14 at noon, featuring bass baritone Keel Watson in the role of King John/Dictator.
It can also be seen at the Runnymede celebrations on June 15 viewed on giant screens near the site itself.
