Vision Voices Community Opera Previously Vision Opera
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As many of the performers as possible are drawn from the community to include principal singers, members of the chorus, Newspaper Articles AND Reviews
EMAS NEWS NO 17. Jan 2008
Treemonisha – Black History Month Opera Performance at Sadler’s Wells
One of the highlights of Islington’s Black History Month 2007 was a performance of
Treemonisha, a long-lost opera by Scott Joplin 1868-1917.... The
performance was beautifully sung by Vision Community Opera, a multicultural group of professionaland amateur singers. In the words of the group’s founder, Deborah Aloba. ‘Vision Opera was set up because I was told it wasn’t possible. I was told that people from ethnic minority groups wouldn’t support the project. There was no opera in this area at all .’ Judging by the rapturous reception given by an extremely diverse audience, this was living evidence of the community’s interest in opera. As an added bonus, the opera was preceded byMperformances by youth group ‘Nu Generations’. This talented group of young people wrote and performed
their own sketches, dances and rap songs on the theme of growing up in London today. Section of letter from Waltham Forest Local Authority dated 29th Oct 2007
"The group's perfomance of Treemonisha was a joy to watch. It was encouraging to see the audience was an excellent mix of backgrounds and age.....The standing ovation you received ...was stong proof of that",
Waltham Forest Guardian
11:04am Thursday 19th April 2007
Slavery mirrored in new form in opera project
By David Williams
AN ambitious project to raise awareness about slavery could be one of the highlights of this year's Leytonstone Festival. And its organisers want local people, from children to pensioners, to get involved. Locally-based Vision Opera are planning to stage Treemonisha by ragtime composer Scott Joplin as the centrepiece to a community-wide art project. The event is intended to commemorate this year's 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, and to connect it with the issue of modern-day slavery and human trafficking. Treemonisha was written in the early 20th century, and is set shortly after the abolition of slavery in the United States. On the day of the performance, scheduled to take place at Leytonstone library on July 17, organiser Deborah Aloba wants to display work by local artists and essays from local schoolchildren. She is also looking for older people who came from abroad to live in Britain to contribute their stories. A contemporary music session is planned, also themed around historical and contemporary slavery. Ms Aloba said: "We have not moved that far forward. For some reason, as human beings we cannot get past the point of using and abusing each other and treating each other like fodder. We are an intelligent society, and we should have learned by now." After its Leytonstone premiere, the event will travel to Wanstead and, if a suitable venue can be found, Walthamstow. Ms Aloba hopes the concert will have a positive effect on all concerned. She said: "We cannot constantly look backwards as victims, we must look forwards. We have the ability to change. "If all those people died and no-one has learned from it, what is the purpose?"
Anyone interested in being involved in any aspect of the project should contact Ms Aloba on 8539 7889, visit visionopera.org or email [email protected] as soon as possible.
OPERA is coming to the East End. That's the message from Leyton's Deborah Aloba. The full-time personal injury litigator has been a passionate fan of opera since an early age and has realised her lifetime ambition of opening her own opera company Vision. Deborah, 35, of Fulready Road, believes The Romance of Opera, which features professional and semi-professional performers, will immediatiately convert its East End audience. "I truly believe that I've spotted a niche in the market here," she said. "Opera is traditionally seen as a passion of the rich, but it should be accessible to everybody. "It's so much more familiar to us than any of us realise. The music is now regularly played on adverts from British Airways to Levi's. "But what people often don't understand is that the storylines are so similar to soap operas. "Opera is about love and jealousy and rivalry and arguments and friendship and family everything that you will see on a typical episode of a soap. "My operas and concerts will be the EastEnders of the opera world." Deborah was born in Bournemouth, where she grew up and attended classes at an amateur dramatic society and sang in church. There, her talent was spotted by a woman who recommended that she take up Italian song. Deborah immediately fell in love with the style of singing, which has close associations with opera. When she was 23, she travelled to London in the hope of becoming a professional singer and it worked. Living in Leyton, she has worked as a personal injury litigator while performing during her free time, which has taken her to the Royal Albert Hall. "It's a passion, not a hobby," said Deborah, adamantly. "Opera covers every facet of human nature. There's not a single area that someone like Verdi hasn't looked at. "Opera takes you to a different place. You get tingles down the back of your spine and it can touch your soul. You get the full range of emotions it can make you laugh and make you cry." The Romance of Opera is performed at St John's Church, The Broadway, Stratford, on Saturday at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £7 or £4 with concessions. You can order them by calling the box office 8279 1000. For further information call Deborah on 07944 979 447
Broken legs won't stop the opera performance
Friday 25th February 2005
PERFORMERS may say break a leg' to bring good luck, but not for one local opera company which has seen two cast members suffer broken limbs and a third injured in a car crash. The disasters struck Vision Community Opera (VCO), which is due to perform Il Trovatore in six weeks' time. VCO project co-ordinator and mezzo-soprano Deborah Aloba, 35, said: "We all worked incredibly hard on the music, we took a lot of time to audition everybody and the singing rehearsals went well. "We are all sitting back feeling quite comfortable. For once there were no dramas. "Then, when we were more than two thirds along, our soprano, Anne Davey, broke her ankle." After a frantic search, the group found another singer, Margaret Pearman, 41, from Harrow, who had performed the role before in Italian and agreed to re-learn it in English straight away. Ms Aloba said: "Then we had another accident. Our stage director suffers from multiple sclerosis. He just bent down to do up his shoes and he broke his ribs. "I was thinking what on earth are we going to do?' You just cannot get a stage director at six weeks' notice. It would have been the end. "But he only missed one rehearsal and that's when he went to hospital. He told me I said I would do it and I will do it'." Next Ms Aloba herself was involved in a head-on collision while driving her car. She said: "If I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt I would have been very seriously injured or dead." On top of this, six other members of the cast dropped out for personal reasons and the group almost lost their rehearsal space in All Saints' Church Hall, Forest Gate, when it turned out it was double booked for a service. Ms Aloba said: "It's just been one thing after another. We're beginning to wonder if someone's trying to tell us something." But the plucky performers, who live in Walthamstow, Leyton and Leytonstone, Forest Gate and Wanstead, are determined the show must go on. Ms Aloba added: "Somehow it's made us a tighter group and a stronger team. "Nothing is going to stop us. If we can cope with a broken ankle and broken ribs, believe me we can cope with anything. We're going to put on a fantastic performance." Il Trovatore, a tragic story of love, death and revenge, is performed on March 18 and 19, at All Saints' Church, Hampton Road, Forest Gate and on March 31 and April 2, at Wanstead URC, Nightingale Lane, Wanstead.
