Dalia: Garsington community opera representing every generation

When Douglas Boyd, artistic director of Garsington Opera in Oxfordshire, started talking to composer Roxanna Panufnik, librettist Jessica Duchen and director Karen Gillingham in 2018 about a follow-up to their hugely successful community opera Silver Birch, which had a First World War commemoration theme, they quickly began to imagine a story about a Syrian refugee arriving in the UK on a migrant boat. 

Duchen developed the libretto as a fictional scenario loosely based on the experiences of real-life refugees: the heroine Dalia is placed with a family in an English town and despite most people’s superficial kindness and generosity, she finds it hard to be truly accepted until she shows an extraordinary aptitude for cricket. Just as she is about to represent the local team at Lords in a major youth tournament, she hears that her mother, whom she had feared lost, is in a detention centre in Dover. 

Little did the Garsington team realise how much more vividly this story would resonate when Dalia reached the stage at the end of July 2022. ‘The tragedy of conflicts not only in Europe but in other parts of the world have created yet more displacement, exile and the loss of voice,’ says Boyd. 

The opera involves professional adult singers in some of the main parts and a huge, inclusive community chorus, representing every generation down to a group of very young children who are taught a Syrian song by Dalia. Members of Garsington Adult and Youth Opera, Millbrook Junior and Ibstone Infant Companies were magnificently well rehearsed both musically and dramatically. On-screen contributions from Al Farah Choir, Damascus and Amway Choir, Bethlehem and Hebron, rehearsed via Zoom, added to the emotional and cultural/social impact. 

As Dalia’s foster-siblings, 14-year-old Erin Field, performing in her first opera, and 11-year-old Joshey Newynskyj, a veteran of Stagecoach Theatre company and The Voice Kids UK, were outstanding. Dalia herself was played by Adrianna Forbes-Durrant from South London, a student at the Junior Department of Trinity Laban Conservatoire and a London Music Fund Scholar, in an extraordinarily powerful performance.

Panufnik’s music is often influenced by her love of music from around the world and here the fusion of Western classical style with Middle Eastern folk melodies and Islamic motifs works very effectively – instrumentalists include an on-stage oud player for some scenes. The Philharmonia Orchestra in the pit ensured that the atmospheric score was immaculately played.

‘Opera has got to continue to engage with difficult subjects if we want it to stay alive,’ says Duchen. ‘We hope this will open a few eyes and ears and hearts.’

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