Hastings-based Prologue Opera is heading out on tour with its new production of Becoming Tosca.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor with Sussex Newspapers. Lovely
00:06to be speaking to Anthony Flown, who is the CEO of Prologue Opera. Fairly new company,
00:13three years or so, based in Hastings, with a really enticing novel approach to opera,
00:20and on the road before long with Becoming Tosca. Now, to explain that approach, what
00:25do you do? Because it's about widening access, isn't it, and making opera more appealing?
00:32That's right. So Prologue Opera is based around the fact that everyone has a backstory, everyone
00:38has a prologue, and the characters that you see on stage, whether it's in a play, in an
00:43opera, in a musical theatre piece, they all have a backstory. So in opera, we take the
00:50characters of well-known operas like Tosca, and we give them backstories, and we've commissioned
00:56new music, a wonderful local composer called Frank Moon, and the director Chris Cowell has
01:02provided the lyrics, and dialogue as well, and then we gradually lead the audience into
01:07Puccini's wonderful score. So our aim is to make these pieces much more accessible, and
01:15much more of a choice for people to think, I'm going to go to the opera this evening,
01:21rather than going to the theatre, rather than going to the cinema, the pub, the restaurant.
01:28Opera should be one of your choices for a good night out.
01:30And your starting point is that, sadly, rightly or wrongly, there is something about opera
01:35that can be, well, rather off-putting, can't there?
01:38Absolutely, absolutely. But you can come to any one of my shows, they're all in English,
01:44they are characters and situations that you will recognise. Some of them, of course, involve
01:51some of the scenes that involve murder, and things like that that people might not immediately
01:58recognise, but they will recognise from today's society. So they are subjects and feelings
02:05that everyone has at some point during their life, and the backstories affect everyone's
02:10future. So it's immediately understandable, immediately recognisable. And some of the
02:16music you will also recognise, because we use some pre-existing music from musical theatre,
02:24we've got a tango number in the piece, because we're setting it in Argentina in the mid-20th
02:28century. And then you've got the wonderful score from Puccini. So there's a little bit
02:33for everyone.
02:34That sounds great. And tell me, to what extent will people come away thinking, oh, I've seen
02:38Tosca? Or is it more like a bridge to seeing a full production at the later date?
02:45I think people will come away, hopefully, saying that was wonderful. There is some pieces
02:52in Tosca that won't be present, because we've cut a couple of characters, and we've slightly
02:57changed the story. Very slightly, though. But all the popular numbers that people might
03:04know if people know Tosca, Visita Arte, Recondita Armonia, these arias translated into English
03:11are in the piece, interlaced with the new music. So people will probably come away saying
03:17they've seen a version of Tosca. And it might encourage them to go and see the full version
03:22of Tosca, which I would absolutely encourage, because if a micro-op company can convince
03:29someone that hasn't seen an opera to go and see another opera, a full-length opera, in
03:35a different opera house, then I've done my job, because that means I'm widening the audience
03:40to the art form.
03:41Fantastic. It sounds great. Good luck with the tour, good luck with the company and the
03:45productions. Lovely to speak to you.
03:47Thanks very much for your time.