Maya Sapone


SEPTEMBER 2011 CAVENDISH MUSIC: ACTION/THRILLER 4 New Film Trailer Album Out now! IMAGEM PRODUCTION MUSIC The Largest Independent Production Music Publisher Duration: 223 minutes Releasedate: 2011-09-02 Composers: Jochen Flach, Lorenzo Piggici Vocalist: Maya Sapone, soprano (Vocals in "Dystopia"; "Homeland"; "Spiral Radius" and "Gaia Planet") Venue: Imagem Production Music, Aldwych House, London WC2B Please click here for more information
JULY 2011 WHO ARIA? RIVERSIDE’S ZANY OPERA FEST IS HERE. Hammersmith singer Maya Sapone trades the West End for two nights of letting loose at Riverside Studios during August’s mad laboratory of opera. Like your opera a bit unhinged? If so, the return of the outrageous Tête à Tête opera festival to Riverside Studios should be music to your ears. For just £6, the Hammersmith venue offers a glimpse into the bold new frontier of contempo rary opera as it hosts more than 70 performances from August 4 to 21. From ‘silent opera’ daredevil Ergo Phizmiz to the Glyndebourne Youth Opera, some of the world’s most legendary – and most notorious – singers, composers, librettists, acrobats, video artists and set designers will grace Riverside’s stages for the fifth year running. Living in Hammersmith Road, soprano Maya Sapone is already a veteran of the Tête à Tête madness as she marks her third festival appearance in the chamber opera, The Moonflower, on August 18 and 19. The 34-year-old singer, born in West Africa’s Gabon to a Thai mother and an Italian father, plays Lua (Portuguese for ‘moon’) as the English botanist and explorer Margaret Mee and Brazilian rubber tapper and environmentalist Chico Mendes meet in the after life to ensure the delicate moonflower is saved from extinction. Maya’s charac ter Lua is both ‘sensual’ and a bit of a ‘lunatic’, Maya said. “I play a creature not of this land which guards the moonflower. It sym bolises the cycles of life and eventually drives Lua mad.” The Trinity College of Music-trained singer, who has also performed with madcap singer Damo Suzuki (formerly of psychedelic Krautrock band Can), says her part was written especially for her after composer Mario Ferraro spotted her singing music by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos – and as sumed she was South American. “And I think he’s done well,” Maya said. “Even though the score is very contemporary, you can hear elements of Brazilian music in it. It is quite challeng ing to sing – and even to watch at times. But there’s an acrobat! And the music, the visuals and the story are all very powerful.” When Maya is finished exploring the outer reaches of the operatic world, she heads off on a six-month tour as part of the cast of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I. But I get the feeling it’s the freedom of the festival she rel ishes. “This is your chance to see opera from a different perspec tive. The festival attracts a wide range of people who all want to see unknown composers or smaller companies present their work – whatever it is!,” she said. Another highlight of the unlikely festival is the appearance of Richard Thomas. Fresh from his Royal Opera House smash hit Anna Nicole and West End dance spectacular Shoes. The Tête à Tête Opera Festival runs August 4-21. Date: July 2011 Venue: Riverside Studios, 9RLCrisp Road, London W6 Please click here for more information
JUNE 2011 GREENWICH+DOCKLANDS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL presents "BAROQUE BOX, a dance-opera installation" by Vocal Motions Elastic Theatre. In collaboration with London Metropolitan University and supported by the Wellcome Trust critically acclaimed Vocal Motions Elastic Theatre invites you to peep into the imagination of a Baroque artist. In a special staging under the beautiful colonnades of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, a large box becomes the window into seventeenth century ideas about the human body. With an original score performed live by CELLOMAN, dance-theatre and opera create a voyage across sacred, scientific, sensual and superstitious visions. View Promo Video here! Cast: Maya Sapone (Theresa in Ecstasy), Chiara D'Anna (The Artist), Nicolas Simeha (The Scientist), Adam Kirkham (Puzzled Jesus), Madalena Pinto (an Angel). Musicians: Ivan Hussey (cello), Samy Bishai (violin), David Jean-Baptiste (clarinet/bass clarinet), Cosimo Keita (percussions). Music: Ivan Hussey. Design: Nadia Malik. Production Team: Greg Piggot, Rishi Trikha, Andrew Morley, Georgina Themeras, Paul Millen, Simeon Lewis. Film Documentation: Savage Mills. Concept and Direction Jacek Ludwig Scarso. A Launch Event of "BAROQUE BOX - the making of a dance-opera" will be taking place at London Metropolitan University on Thursday 16 June at 6.30pm. Date: Fri 24 June - Sat 2 July Venue: OLD ROYAL NAVAL COLLEGE (King William Colonnades), Greenwich, London SE10 Please click here for more information
JUNE 2010 VOCAL MOTIONS ELASTIC THEATRE PREMIERING “BAROCCATA, A DANCE-OPERA” at the Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival 2010 Vocal Motions Elastic Theatre embarks on a journey through Baroque ideas about the body. Inspired by seventeenth century art and science, this dance-opera takes the audience into a weird and wonderful world of body contradictions: from sacred to secular, from anatomical to voyeuristic, from scientific to superstitious. At times bizarrely comic, at times dark and mysterious or poetic and moving, the piece features Vocal Motions Elastic Theatre’s trademark staging style: boldly stark, visually striking and highly atmospheric.The original score, created through improvisation methodologies, will integrate the use of toy pianos, in an exclusive collaboration with Kate Ryder, internationally acclaimed specialist in this unusual instrument. BAROCCATA will be launched, in a unique live installation version, at the opening of a contemporary art exhibition organised by The Facility and Islington Exhibits at the Graduate Centre, London Metropolitan University on FRIDAY 25th JUNE 2010. The fully staged production will premiere at the Riverside Studios on SATURDAY 14th and SUNDAY 15th AUGUST 2010, as part of the acclaimed Tête à Tête Opera Festival. Bookings open from Monday 14th June. Box Office: 020 8237 1111. Date: Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th August 2010 Venue: Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, London W6 9RL Please click here for more information
MARCH 2010 NOA – NEW OPERA ACTION, IMPROVISATIONAL MUSICAL THEATRE WORKSHOP The 3rd Contemporary Opera Festival NOA (New Opera Action) which takes place on 28th of March invites You to the workshop `Improvisational Musical Theatre` in Arts Printing House, dedicated to the artists of contemporary opera and musical theatre. This workshop is organized together with the company from Great Britain Vocal Motions Elastic Theatre, which establishers Jacek Ludwig Scarso and Maya Sapone are the guest teachers in the workshop and who will familiarize the participants with the principles and situations of improvisational opera. The trainings of the duration of five hours will include the variety of exercises, the testing of singing techniques, vocal improvisations and experiments and the art of acting. Here, the scenes of musical theatre will be created spontaneously, providing only the fragments of scenario by the participants previously. The opera soloists and choristers are invited to participate as well as all the artists who are interested in theatrics: singing actors, the practitioners of the art of improvisation and other enthusiasts. Venue: Arts Printing House, Vilnius, Lithuania Please click here for more information
TIME OUT LONDON recommended Classical Music Concert Young Iberian specialists, the soprano Maya Sapone, guitarist Morgan Szymanski and pianist Helen Glaisher-Hernández, present Spanish and Latin American classical music. Federico Mompou's 'Charmes'; Heitor Villa-Lobos's 'Forest of the Amazon'; 'Bachianas Brasileiras No 5'; JoaquÌn Rodrigo's Tres Canciones Españolas; Alberto Ginastera's 'Canción al árbol del Olvido'; Antonio Lauro's Venezuelan Waltzes (selection); and AgustÌn Barrios's 'Una limosna por el amor de Dios'. Venue: Schott Recital Room, 48 Great Marlborough Street, Mayfair, W1F 7BB Please click here for more information
AUGUST 2009 “MEDOUSA, a miniature opera” by VOCAL MOTIONS ELASTIC THEATRE “Fabulously hot-blooded performance“ - The Times Opera meets dance-theatre in this visually striking adaptation of the ancient myth of MEDOUSA directed by Jacek Ludwig Scarso and premiered at Tête a Tête - The Opera Festival 2009, Riverside Studios, with soprano Maya Sapone in the title role, Fernando Balsera Pita as Perseus, cellist Carina Drury and flutist Eva Caballero. Listed as one of the Festival’s Highlights in Time Out, the original score for MEDOUSA has been created through a collaborative process based on Maya Sapone’s vocal improvisations and supervised by composer and conductor Andrew Morley on a new libretto by Jacek Ludwig Scarso Venue: Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, London W6 9RL Please click here for more information