madestrangeopera
opera but not as you know it
Founded in 2002 by Michael Oliva and Deepak Kalha, madestrange is a company that seeks to create a new form of opera for the modern world.
We believe that opera should embrace new technology, integrating computer sound and video into the narrative, creating a live show that can add all the techniques of cinema to its expressive palette, an opera inside a movie, and in fact we draw our inspiration from modern European cinema just as much as from staged opera and theatre.
Our aim is to produce popular, accessible, genuinely tragic opera, with a modern, reality based subject matter that brings with it relevance and new audiences. By mounting small scale productions in intimate venues, and by working hard to improve the acting style and skills of singers we hope to create shows with impact and great immediacy, operas where the story is told through action and image as much as through the words and music. We believe that the musical language should be clear and direct, combining melodiousness and lyricism with the vast possibilities given by computer sound and modern compositional techniques.
Above all the aim is to move the audience - opera can and should be a very powerful art form dealing with powerful themes - love, loneliness, desire and death are universal experiences, and opera is the ideal way to talk about emotions so strong they have to be sung rather than spoken.