Celebrate International Women’s Day 2022 with the Royal Opera House and join us for free performances, behind the scenes tours and a live streamed event designed to celebrate the work of female artists, creatives, and industry leaders who have helped shape the history of opera and ballet.
On Tuesday 8 March 2022, from 11am to 6pm, commuters can enjoy Lost and Found – seven free, newly commissioned micro-operas performed in St. Pancras International Station, created by female composer and librettist teams following an open call from the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artists Programme (JPYA). The works include Georgia Barnes and Olivia Bell’s Everything you carry, and Rose Hall and Katie Colombus’ It’s The Little Things at the Eurostar Terminal; Laura Reid and Oge Nwosu’s Detritus at the National Rail Service departure boards; and Sarah Lianne Lewis and Sophia Chapadjiev’s The Parting Place, Joanna Taylor and Kerry Priest’s I just wanna be (in Center Parcs), Anna Braithwaite and Kerry Priest’s The Hardest Journey, and Victoria Bernath and Teresa Howard’s Mini Break beneath the station’s iconic statue ‘The Meeting Place.’
Lost and Found is part of the Europalia Arts Festival, and is here presented in collaboration with Curated Place, improving the visibility of female creatives, and offering London’s commuters and long-haul travelers the chance to pause and enjoy a moment of reflection in an unlikely space. Several individuals working on the project are alumni of JPYA Women Conductors courses and training programmes, and a number have been mentored by award-winning composer Laura Bowler, whose new work The Blue Woman premieres this summer in ROH’s Linbury Theatre.
That same evening, a free, live-streamed ROH Insight – Interrogating the Ballerina – will examine society’s perception of the female ballet dancer, taking the image of the 19th century dancer as the starting point for a wider discussion about preconceptions, prejudices and shifting representations of women in ballet up to the present day. Former Director of The Royal Ballet Dame Monica Mason will be joined by current Principal Sarah Lamb, Curator of Dance at the V&A Jane Pritchard, and dramaturg Uzma Hameed, who worked on Wayne McGregor’s trailblazing The Dante Project. The event will be hosted by TV presenter Brenda Emmanus and will run from 7:45pm – 9pm. Tickets to watch in person in the Royal Opera House’s Clore Studio are available to buy on our website, and the event will be broadcast on the ROH YouTube Channel for free.
Across the day, for those looking for more insight into the rich contributions made by women in the arts, a suite of content will be available on the Royal Opera House’s social platforms too, celebrating ballet and opera heroines, classic and contemporary.
Later that week, the Royal Opera House will launch its brand new HerStory tour, shining a much-needed light on some of the talented and innovative women who have directed, worked on, and performed in productions at Covent Garden. The tours – drawing attention to war-time leaders, pioneering choreographers, and composers defying gender conventions – will run on select dates from Saturday 12 March 2022 and last 75 minutes. Tickets are available on the ROH website.
And, over the next year, The Royal Opera’s Engender Network will continue to amplify the achievements of women and non-binary people in opera, collectively working to transform gender representation on and off our stages. Looking forward, The Royal Opera, in collaboration with Hosking Houses Trust, will offer residencies to women and non-binary writers who are in the mid-late stages of their careers, providing the writers with time and space to start, work on or complete a libretto, supported by a bursary, mentoring and training.
The next phase of opera-in-progress research and development commissions, presented at the Engender Festival (8–11 July 2022) and offered in partnership with the British Council and Shubbak Festival, will connect women and non-binary artists from the UK, South Africa, North Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia and support them as they take their first steps creating new digital operas. Women Conductors courses, mentoring programmes and online workshops will help explore and expand the opportunities for women and non-binary people both as artists and backstage, in production, administration and planning. More information will be announced in the coming months.
International Women’s Day is designed to celebrate women’s achievements, increase visibility, call out inequality, and help in the fight for a world more diverse, equitable and inclusive.
