Collision
Greenwood Theatre | Arcola Theatre (Grimeborn)
May 2017 | August 2017
Music by Lewis Coenen-Rowe (2016)
Libretto by Kurt Schwitters (1928)
‘Collision is ahead of us. The end of the world is near.’
Berlin, 1928: a strange Green Globe is on course to collide with Earth, and panic is rife in the streets. With lovers star-crossed and citizens inciting revolt, only the High Commissioner of Order can organise the final curtain. Irreverent cabaret-opera Collision begs the question: how would you spend your world's end weekend?
Collision started life in 1928 as a libretto by avant-garde visual artist Kurt Schwitters. Part madcap farce and part nihilistic satire, it was Schwitters' first and only foray into the opera world, and was never realised during his lifetime. 90 years on, Spectra Ensemble reinvents Collision as a fully-staged opera set to new cabaret- and jazz-influenced music by Lewis Coenen-Rowe, and with a set inspired by Schwitters' own brand of collage art.
Director: Cecilia Stinton
Musical Director: Sean Morris
Designer: Holly Muir
Lighting Designer: John Pham
Producer: Jessie Anand
Répétiteur (Greenwood only): Emas Au, Lantian Gu
Cast: Barnaby Beer, Alexander Gebhard (Arcola only)), Bethany Horak-Hallett, Henry George Page, Sharang Sharma (Greenwood only), Olivia Sjöberg, Juliet Wallace, and (Greenwood only) a chorus of Miles Ashdown, Kathleen Greene, Fabian Helmrich, Freya Morgan, Alessia Naccarato, Tom Rushton, Beatrix Swanson Scott
Band: Claudia Baum, Harvey Gibbons, Erchao Gu, Nicolas Kent (Greenwood only), Nick Lau (Greenwood only), Benedict Ng (Greenwood only), Eloise Riddell (Greenwood only), Justin Tambini (Greenwood only), Robert Winup, Laura Wormington (Greenwood only), Carlos Yeung
‘jazzily popular and rigorously serious’
The Stage
Images © Robert Workman / Katie Edwards
