A new opera dedicated to environmental sustainability. A project of the Teatro Comunale di Modena with a consortium of European theatres and partners.
After the conclusion in June 2022 of CrossOpera, a European project realised together with the Theatres of Linz and Novi Sad, the Teatro Comunale di Modena is the winner of the new call for tenders of Europa Creativa for international cooperation with the proposal of an opera dedicated to environmental sustainability. A larger project than the previous one, with a European prize of one million euro, that the Teatro Comunale di Modena will realise through a consortium of European theatres and partners from Poland, Germany, Finland and Belgium.
The objective of the BUTTERFLY project, (acronym of Boosting opera Theatres to Environmental Renaissance Fostering creative writing with Young Students), will be to go through all stages of creation, production and touring of an opera performance in order to experiment with new practices of environmental sustainability and make it a model of European interest.
The project started and developed in close relationship with the Agency for Energy and Sustainable Development (AESS) in Modena, a partner that will coordinate the work of two other environmental agencies located in Poland and Finland. The Municipality of Modena participates as an associate partner in the project, involved, together with Linz in Austria, as a UNESCO creative city for media arts.
The work will combine three acts of thirty minutes each (one for each country), made up of three stories dedicated to an environmental theme: water, earth, air. The co-production will involve three composers (and librettists) from the project's three partner opera houses. Environmental agencies coordinated by Aess and associated with each of the partner theatres will organise and moderate a series of online webinars for high school students. The students will generate the ideas and stories behind each play. The environmental agencies will guide the students through the co-creation of the three stories behind the work.
A second series of webinars will be moderated by the opera's literary authors who will guide the students in writing a story to be adapted into a libretto. Numerous other activities will be aimed at international exchanges between students, theatre staff and artists on the theme of the environment. A comprehensive communication project aimed at the public and the theatre sector will also be developed around the opera.
There are two stated priorities of the project: sustainability and new technologies. The work will have to contribute to the European Green Deal by encouraging the European cultural and creative sectors to co-create, adopt and disseminate more environmentally friendly practices and to raise awareness of sustainable development through their cultural activities. The project should also exploit and test new technologies to help the European cultural and creative sectors improve their competitiveness and accelerate their digital transition.
The other partners in the project, in addition to the Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena (leader) and AESS are Opera Box from Helsinki, Opera Baltica from Gdansk, Heimspiel GmbH from Augsburg, a video production company specialised in 3D filming and virtual reality, and Cumediae from Brussels, an agency specialised in international communication in the European creative sector. Associated partners are GARR, the ultra-wideband network dedicated to the education and research community, which will support musicians' remote rehearsals, Ars Electronica in Linz, one of Europe's leading centres dedicated to media arts and new technologies.
Opera Europa, the European network of over two hundred opera houses, will be involved in the dissemination of sustainability results. The project will start in April 2023 and end in March 2026.
The Teatro Comunale di Modena is currently also a partner in another Creative Europe project, dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach, entitled European Music Trails 2022-2024: Bach - The Art of Movement and realised together with the Notenspur association in Leipzig and the baroque orchestra Le Concert de l'Hostel Dieu in Lyon.
Baltic Opera in Gdansk,
Alexder Theatre in Helsinki and
the Municipal Theatre of Modena
