Garsington

Our last visit of the season to Garsington, and a completely different type of opera.

It was the world premier of Roxanna Panufnik's "Dalia", an opera about a young girl, a refugee from Syria. Most of her family dies but she is eventually fostered in a typical English country town, where she faces a lot of prejudice.  She eventually wins a place in the community (through cricket!).

There were 5 professional singers plus a cast of about 200 from the local community - adults and children.  My eyes are still full of tears from the dozen 5 year olds from the local infants school who sang a Syrian song of sadness and yearning.

It's the second community opera that Garsington have produced. Part of the motivation for building the Arts Hub (I blipped the building site back in May) is to be able to do more community work.