Opera North and Newcastle University launch three-year partnership

Newcastle University and Opera North will work together over the next three years in a bid to “transform performance practice and audience accessibility”, it has been announced.

The organisations, which have previously worked together around the Leeds-based opera company’s regular tours to Newcastle and Gateshead, said their plans include measuring audience responses to opera using neuroscience, with the goal of enhancing access and participation.

They also plan to conduct an “all-embracing exploration of the voice on the stage”, from vocal health to questions of the representation of marginalised or silenced voices.

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One of the first collaborations is a new podcast Staging the Voice/Voicing the Stage, which brings together staff, creatives and performers from Opera North with academics and researchers from throughout the university for a series of conversations about the voice in performance.

The first episode in the series was released in February on Spotify.

Becky Smith, Head of Academic Partnerships at Opera North, said: “Opera North is excited by the opportunities this new academic partnership with Newcastle University brings”. 

“We can already see how our joint activities are supporting our mutual efforts to connect with communities in the region, ensure diversity and inclusion in our work, boost knowledge creation and student engagement, and strengthen the sustainability of our business as we develop the company’s creative ambitions”.

Professor Jennifer Richards, Director of Newcastle University’s Humanities Research Institute, said collaborating with Opera North represents an “enormous opportunity” to develop new ways of linking across sectors and faculties.

“This partnership has been many years in the making: we have spent time exploring the ethos we share, the themes that matter to us, and how we want to co-create together.”