Create-an-Opera

This intensive programme for secondary schools involves immersive workshops at Garsington Studios in school time. Students collaborate with professionals to create and devise their own opera. The experience culminates several schools coming together to share their collective creations.

Create-an-Opera is a collaborative project bringing together young people from Cressex Community School, Highcrest Academy, and the Alsama Project in Beirut. Founded in 2020 by teenage refugees, Alsama has since grown to four centres, now supporting 880 young people.

Over five inspiring days, students from Cressex and Highcrest met student from the Alsama project online to explore the question “What is happiness?” Together, they transformed their ideas into an original opera, with every note of music and every line of text created by the participants themselves.

Their voices intertwine to form a single, resonant question at the heart of the work: Can you choose to be happy?

The result stands as a powerful testament to creativity, collaboration, and the enduring possibility of joy even in the most unexpected places.