The Works: BAC Opera 2000

An innovative approach to opera which is described as one of London's most fertile breeding ground for new talent in music theatre.
BAC Opera 2000 therefore offers open house to a deliberately wide range of composers and performance-artists. Ben Park's Love, scored for three singers - marimba, trombone, cello, harp and bassoon - sets Yeats love-poems to music that Morris describes as "a complete fusion of blues, folk and classical influences". Love, he says, "illustrates the way we work here: at a very early stage of development, we'll show the work to an audience so the artist can learn about where it is". And so Love got an early airing at the BAC in May; afterwards, the audience was dragged off to the bar to give its opinion.

One show in particular has been attracting prurient attention: Richard Thomas's Tourette's Diva (20, 22, 24, 29 August; 2 September) features two mezzo-sopranos - with kosher operatic voices - singing what Morris describes as "the most ear-bending obscenities you can possibly imagine". Just poking fun? Apparently not, as Morris explains: "The effect is incredibly liberating, because it seems to slit the belly of opera's pretensions, without in any way undervaluing the music.