SOAP would like to thank....

Jonathan Lo, Muscial Director

...all of the volunteers and performers who put in the hard work and trust to make the project such a success.

We would also like to thank all of the people involved in the planning and delivery of the project: Neil Alexander and all of the staff at Contact, Dominic Gray, Danny Fahey, David Fraser and The Broughton Trust, Kate Pattison and the Royal Northern College of Music, Carole Foster and Salford Youth Service, Richard Milton and Salford Music and Performing Arts Service, Rebecca Walsh and Opera North, Martin Maris and Charlotte Speirs at BBC Philharmonic Education, and countless other personal thanks...

...and of course our generous funders and private sponsors The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, O2 Think Big, Vera Wilde and Muriel McLean.

SOAP The Wedding Feast: Let us live in happiness so that all men may envy us...

Dancers Hester Glock, Susannah Dirckze-Taylor, Laura Broome and Elly Beamen-Brinklow "A swan neck'd maiden in the sea was bathing, washing there her Sunday dress"

In the fourth scene the wedding celebrations are in full swing as the bride is handed over to the bridegroom’s family. The wedding guests are full of advice for the young couple: ‘you must feed her and clothe her and bid her work’ and ‘shake her like a pear tree and love her’.

The dancers have played with the balance between control and support within a relationship, exploring the traditional roles of male and female in society.

Laura Broome and Elly Beamen-Brinklow

The opera ends as the married couple go off to the bed which has been warmed for them by two of the wedding guests, with the final words spoken by the young husband to his wife: “Let us live in happiness so that all men may envy us”.

SOAP authors...

Andrew Beaton performs True Love Ways

Two of SOAP's volunteers created their own monologue based on their response to the opera: The Reluctant Bride written by Marion Redmond and True Love Ways written by Andrew Beaton. These were performed in between the scenes of the opera.

SOAP The Bride's Departure: As the hops entwine together...

Just as the bride’s family and friends discuss their hopes and fears for the marriage in the third scene, we explored our own hopes and fears for the community of Broughton, particularly the issues of division and unity.

An area that has seen a rapid change in its cultural make-up, with large Czech and Polish communities moving into what has been a predominantly White working class neighbourhood, there has been much tension and hostility. Our community volunteers expressed a wish for people to see past their differences and to work together to create a better place for all to live…

…on stage we see a mother and a daughter, a father and a son, both families from different cultural backgrounds. The young couple are clearly reaching out for each other, but are held back by their parents’ strong sense of cultural identity and desire to see their children grow up in their own mould. The ribbons entwine together to create a shared sense of hope for the future…

Kirsty Leigh, Andrew Beaton, Marion Redmund, Kirsty Kilkelly (Community Volunteers)

…in the final section of this scene the mothers are left alone on stage as they are not allowed to attend the wedding ceremony. This is represented by a solo dance choreographed by Elly Beamen-Brinklow exploring feelings of emptiness and fear.

SOAP The Bride Groom: Proudly goes against the strong wall of stone to break it down...

Dancers and actors (community volunteers) perform the sequence 'Drills for Life'

In the second scene we meet the bridegroom as he oils his locks and prepares to become a husband.

We thought about the advice that we would want to pass on to young men growing up in the local area and created our own sequence of movement: learn from your mistakes; create your own opportunities; have a dream and respect yourself...

...intrigued by the pull of the army cadets that so many young men and women from the local area are part of, we developed our movements into a drill sequence or 'drills for life' to performed in waves - just as an army would progress across the stage.

SOAP The Bride: Cruel, heartless came the match maker...

Andrew Beaton, Marion Redmund and Mark Lucas

(Community Volunteers)

In the opening scene of the opera the bride is distraught. She must have her hair torn from two plaits into one in preparation for the wedding, and so losing the symbol of her virginity.

We explored stories where hair is at the centre of a ritual or a tradition...

...each sequence of movement, action and freeze tells the story of a parade of characters: the prisoner who must forcibly have his head shaved (symbol of identity), the reluctant bride who refuses to have her hair done for her wedding (symbol of rebellion), the young girlfriend who tortures herself to look like the images in a magazine (symbol of obsession), the young man who proudly shaves his head in order to be accepted into the society around him (symbol of conformity)...

...the society around us has so many pressures, traditions and rituals, and we are faced with a myriad of decisions about the way in which we will interact with them. The way we wear our hair can be symbolic of our attitudes and choices, and was certainly a fantastic starting point for some fascinating discussions about the experience of living in today's society.

SOAP on stage...

We had our performance of The Wedding on Wednesday 1st December at Manchester's Contact theatre.

The sense of achievement and sheer joy was somewhat increased by the fact that our original performance date was cancelled: a power cut struck at the venue one hour before we were due to go on. Thank you so much to Contact and all of the performers for rallying together to reschedule.

The actors assure me that all went to plan, although I am yet to watch the footage as I was singing in the choir, so I am going to take their word for it! More photos to follow....