Growop! Puts the audience in focus

GrowOP! is developing an opera and a musical drama for children, with the help of the audience. Through a newly formed regional and international partnership, this project will create something new. It is an international opera festival for kids, driven through a partnership through Operaen i Midten, Figura Ensemble, Børnekulturhuset and The Danish National Opera. The project is one of many projects that Aarhus 2017 supports.

The project rethinks and challenges opera as it is and sends it to new direction.

“Opera and musical drama is special for kids but isn’t very big in Denmark, but we have been inspired by other countries. It is the audience that is put in center, it is on their terms, in that way the act is rethought. The experience of the audience is put in the center – but without giving up the quality of the music,” said the project leader at GrowUP!, Birgitte Holt Nielsen.

Opera for kids
In 2015 – 2016 GrowOP! will host more events, such as inspiration workshops for kids and adult, international and Danish performances and innovative musical drama and opera. In September, the first opera was shown in Ikast, hosted by Operaen i Midten. The Portuguese company Companhia de Musica Téatral came and performed Babelim and held an inspirational workshop.

The next project will occur the 12. and 13. of November in Aarhus, in cooperation with the Women Museum and The Danish National Opera. It will be an opera for kids, the play Lyrehalen, created by the London based SpitalfieldsMusic.

International Opera Festival
In 2017 GrowOP! will organize an innovative international opera festival for kids and adults. It will be the first and only one in Denmark with focus on kids and opera.

“The festival will go on for about two weeks in three different municipalities in the region. It won’t be the same content in all three places, but there will be a common theme,” explained Holt Nielsen.

She added the project’s goal is to “grow and create circles in the water,” and the festival should live on after 2017. Her goal is that every year, the festival will be held in different municipals.