Shadwell Opera is one of the UK’s leading young opera voices. Since its inception in 2009, the company has brought opera productions to wide-ranging and diverse audiences throughout the country; from the intimacy of sell-out runs in Rosslyn Chapel as part of the Edinburgh Festival, through chamber opera in London’s West End, to its partnership with Channel 4’s Random Acts which shared two short opera films with 400,000 people nationwide. Throughout this period, Shadwell Opera has garnered regular accolades, including an RBS Herald Angel Award, as well as receiving consistent critical acclaim in the national press.

it certainly cuts to the violent heart of Kafka’s story; suddenly we’re not talking about the idea of torture so much as torture itself, a dramatic sleight-of-hand that’s elegantly handled. The New Statesman.

Our aims are:

• To provoke new audiences with socially and politically engaged opera that speaks to a contemporary sensibility.

• To enrich the operatic canon by focussing exclusively on recent works that, after their premiere, deserve to be heard again;

• To give the best young singers opportunities to work in challenging modern repertoire.

“At Shadwell Opera, we believe in the relevance of opera to the twenty-first century; we believe in the power of the art form to inspire and move young people; we are convinced that opera cannot be marketed to younger generations on false pretexts; that the quality of the theatrical experience is the only true selling point; that the link between high quality opera and expensive tickets can and should be broken. At Shadwell Opera, we believe in affordable, accessible opera…in English.” - Jack Furness, Shadwell Opera’s Artistic Director.