The Royal Opera House

The OperaGenesis Project with the Royal Opera House 2005-2009

OperaGenesis, the programme funded by the Genesis Foundation at the Royal Opera House (ROH2), reached its conclusion in Autumn 2009, having brought together more than 30 creative teams over the previous four years.

The emphasis of the programme was on the process of creation and experience for the composer/librettist team rather than on necessarily achieving a fully staged production of a new work.  As a result of OperaGenesis, over 20 music theatre projects are in various stages of development.  For more about some of the diverse new works produced in the context of Opera Genesis, please click here.

A joint initiative of the Genesis Foundation and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, OperaGenesis was created to encourage composers and librettists - both emerging and established - to develop new approaches to writing opera in the 21st century.

Opera Genesis asked questions such as:

• Do the old forms of opera still work for a contemporary audience?
• What new approaches would be more suitable for our times, and how can they be integrated into current practice?
• Can different forms of music theatre be combined to create a new type of opera?
• Where else, beyond traditional opera houses, can modern opera be performed?
• What will attract new audiences?