One of the highlights of this year’s Wanstead Fringe is All Rest, an immersive opera set and staged in the graveyard at St Mary’s Church. Here, the opera’s composer Simone Spagnolo explains what to expect
The opera All Rest is an original, immersive opera experience portraying a fictional dreamscape about the people dwelling in St Mary’s graveyard. Six characters and a chorus of ghosts lead the audience on a journey through the grounds, offering a glimpse of past and future stories.
The stories featured include some of Wanstead’s well-known historical characters, including Astronomer Royal James Pound, Admiral Robert Pamplin and Jessie Nutter, one of the sisters who bequeathed much to the people of Wanstead. As ghosts who still inhabit the premises of St Mary’s, these characters narrate precious memories of their lives, eventually reuniting in a final, poignant choral moment to bridge their reminiscences with the audience’s presence.
The opera features solo voices, a choir, flute, violin, portable speakers and St Mary’s historic organ. It was premiered earlier this year at the St Mary’s Music Festival, which originally commissioned it, but the Fringe has arranged this second opportunity to experience this unique, site-specific work.
Aside from reflecting on the history of Wanstead and St Mary’s, this performance piece draws inspiration from the aesthetics of promenade and immersive theatre, which enables the spectator to be within the scene and a common location to become a theatrical setting. Serena Braida – who wrote the text – and I shared an aim to join this peculiar format with that of the number opera, so as to allow the magic of the music to further complement the immersive experience.
Having the possibility to put in action such a stimulating, interdisciplinary exchange certainly prompted our interest and curiosity. Possibly, the most fascinating thing about All Rest is that it gave us the opportunity to create a piece in which reality and representation cross and blur each other in a spectacularly inspiring location. Ghosts, graves, characters from the past, operatic singing, nature walking, portable radios, choral chanting: everything fades into the current moment, subtly offering a spiritual touch. I guess this is what we tried to achieve, a brief spiritual moment in which art and nature meet.
We hope visitors and audiences will enjoy our work, in its apparent simplicity, and we wholeheartedly thank all those who have contributed to this imaginative performance piece.
For more information on Wanstead Fringe events, visit wnstd.com/fringe
