Noyes’s Fludde: A Community Opera at Lichfield Cathedral
A Schools Singing programme, led by a partnership between Lichfield Cathedral School and Lichfield Cathedral School (with significant funding from Arts’ Council England via The Music Partnership) is delighted to reach its 20th birthday. Celebrations will see the production of the community opera, Noye’s Fludde by Benjamin Britten, performed in Lichfield Cathedral on the 10th and 11th November 2023, 7.30pm, with tickets available from https://www.trybooking,co.uk/46413.
The opera sets the medieval mystery play text about Noah’s Ark and has parts for amateur and professional musicians, making this the perfect piece to celebrate a singing programme, which in its 20 years, has worked with all ages and abilities from 0-99.
MusicShare runs 5 choirs, 3 of which will be directly involved as soloists and chorus within the opera. This is particularly astounding because the choirs are not auditioned and therefore we have young singers, some as young as 7, delivering solo roles in a major opera who, in some cases, have come to us with no singing background.
The animals are played by local schoolchildren and across the performances will feature students from Lichfield schools of Chadsmead Primary Academy, Queen’s Croft High School, Lichfield Cathedral School, Rocklands School, St Michael’s C.E. (C) Primary School, Willows Primary School Lichfield plus students from Stoneydelph Primary School, Tamworth and Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Ashbourne. It will also feature professional soloists playing Mr and Mrs Noye and the Voice of God, a professional string quintet, piano duet and organist plus Lichfield Cathedral School orchestra, U3A recorder players from Lichfield and Stafford and the Alton Handbell Ringers.