Over the next 2 weeks, 170 pupils from schools across the North of England join forces with Opera North to perform a specially commissioned arrangement of The Water Diviner’s Tale written by award winning composer Rachel Portman and librettist Owen Sheers.
The Water Diviner’s Tale focuses on the theme of climate change and how we are all responsible for our actions on earth. School children will be performing as part of a massed choir, accompanied by professional soloists, The Water Diviner narrator and members of the Orchestra of Opera North lead by Timothy Burke.
Dates and Venues
21 June - Carnegie Theatre, Cumbria
23 June - Barnsley Metrodome
24 June - The Dome, Doncaster
28 June - Friday 1 Jul - The Venue at Leeds College of Music
Portman says of her composition “This is a piece for our time. The music gives an emotional voice to the science behind climate change while seeking to inspire both performers and the audience to question our relationship with the earth.”
Librettist Owen Sheers adds “The Water Diviner’s Tale is an attempt to evoke the emotional questions and human dilemmas surrounding one of the most vital challenge of our age — carbon induced climate change. The children involved, while learning through rehearsal and performance, come to embody an idea of ‘Promise’ in both senses of the word: as making a pledge and presenting themselves as the hopeful solution. This is a crucial piece of musical performance which deserves, and more importantly, needs to be heard now. That it is told through the voices of the children who will inherit the mistakes of their parents makes the piece particularly powerful.”
