Pimlico Opera is an opera company and registered charity founded in 1987 by Wasfi Kani. The company aims to use participation in opera to advance personal developmentparticularly with younger people and to engender a sense of community. The most recent production from Pimlico Opera was Sweet Charity staged in HMP Bronzefield in November 2018. Olivier award-nominated actress Laura Pitt-Pulford played the leading role of Charity Hope Valentine.
History
Though its focus today is solely in prisons and primary schools, Pimlico Opera was known for 19 years as an Arts Council-funded small-scale touring company. In those years, repertoire included the Da Ponte trilogy, Cenerentola, Falstaff, Pagliacci, Turn of the Screw, Rigoletto, Gianni Schicchi and the company travelled from Berwick-upon-Tweed to Padstow in Cornwall. Pimlico Opera staged the European première of Shostakovich's musical comedyCheryomushki at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on 20 October 1994. A translation was commissioned David Pountney and composer Gerard McBurney to create a reduced orchestration. A documentary was made by the BBC "Another Bite of the Cherry".
In prison
Pimlico Opera has been staging productions in prisons since 1991. In 1993, BBC Wales filmed the three month process involved in putting on a show inside a prison. This was made into a documentary called Guys, Dolls and D-Wing that was aired on BBC2. Prison projects since 1991: 1991: HMP Wormwood Scrubs' 1992: HMP WandsworthWest Side Story 1993: HMP Wandsworth Guys & Dolls 1995: HMP Wandsworth West Side Story 1996: Mountjoy Prison Dublin West Side Story 1997: HMP Bullingdon, OxfordshireWest Side Story 1999: HMP Downview Threepenny opera. 2001: HMP WinchesterThreepenny Opera 2002: HMP Winchester West Side Story 2003: HMP Wormwood ScrubsGuys & Dolls 2004 HMP Ashwell, Leicestershire Assassins 2005: HMP Coldingley, Surrey Assassins 2006: HMP Bronzefield Middlesex Chicago 2007: HMP Wandsworth Les Miserables 2008: HMP Kingston' 2009: HMP Wandsworth West Side Story 2010: HMP Wandsworth Carmen - The Musical 2011: HMP Send, Surrey Sugar 2012: HMP Erlestoke, Wiltshire Les Miserables 2013: HMP Erlestoke, Wiltshire West Side Story 2014: HMP Bronzefield Sister Act 2015: HMP ISISOur House 2017: HMP High DownLes Miserables 2018: HMP Bronzefield Sweet Charity
In primary schools
Every week of the school year, Pimlico Opera gives 2,000 primary children a half hour singing class. Schools are selected in which there is little or no music provision, with KS2 results below the national average and a high percentage of free school meals. The project takes place in Hampshire, Surrey, Durham, Newcastle, and Nottingham.
