How Garsington Opera’s Learning & Participation department went digital

Through its Learning & Participation department, led by Creative Director Karen Gillingham, Garsington Opera works with local communities, schools, charities and health organisations to demystify opera and make it accessible to ever-wider audiences. In 2020, like many other arts organisations across the world, the company was obliged to take its community work online, which turned out to be the beginning of an exciting digital journey.

Working digitally as a small organisation

“Before the pandemic,  we were quite resistant to the idea of digital replacing in-person contact,” Karen explains, “We thought digital activities could take away from in-person contact with communities. What’s more, larger organisations with huge digital departments were already doing amazing work in the field”. Shortly before the beginning of the health crisis, Garsington Opera had launched AppRa, a small-scale project in which an artistic team worked with young people to create short films intended as an extension exercise to in-person work. The department worked with a focus group of participants to look at the content and adapt the format to their needs.

But when the UK went into lockdown in March 2020, all in-person activities had to come to a halt. “We very quickly said, well, we've got to do something for all these people we're supposed to be working with who are all stuck at home, adults and children. So we decided to create a live workshop format,” Karen says. Within 10 days, the first Monday Motivation workshop went live on YouTube and Facebook.

Length is something that needs to be taken into consideration when working digitally in order to avoid “zoom fatigue”, or the psychological and physical impact of spending too much time on digital platforms. “It’s a constant challenge - everyone tells you things should be 30 seconds,” Karen says. The Garsington team came up with the idea of putting out pre-recorded “Design Challenge” videos on Fridays that invited viewers to create small opera sets in their own time. Another challenge of Monday Motivation was its broad target audience: “It was supposed to be for absolutely everybody, which is very hard to achieve. You have to pitch to the youngest and to the oldest participants at the same time, but in the end, we had people of all ages taking part. I would say, keep your target audience in mind but also be open about appealing to different kinds of people.”

Navigating the challenges of working online

Garsington’s relatively small size turned out to be an advantage. “​​The fact that we're a small organisation means we can react and get decisions made very quickly. It’s much harder when you are bigger, because decisions have to go through so many departments,” Karen remarks. 

Throughout both lockdowns, Garsington worked with members of its Youth and Adult companies to produce short-form video content based on footage created by participants on their own devices following Zoom rehearsals. “We provided people with short step-by-step guides that enabled them to record their contributions and send them in”, Karen explains. The clips were then edited together by the Garsington team. In the short film Our Haven, young singers spoke of their “havens” during lockdown, while in a short trailer for the 2021 Youth Company production The Selfish Giant, they explored the story behind the opera. 

The process needed to be adapted for I Look For The Think, a partnership with the arts rehabilitation charity Rosetta Life and NHS England in which stroke survivors collaborated with community singers and healthcare professionals to create a short opera film based on Beethoven’s Fidelio. “It was a more difficult journey with some of those participants, and also with some of our older, retired Adult Company participants who were less tech-savvy,” Karen says. Project staff went to participants’ homes and guided them through the filming process from behind a window. “It really challenged us in the way we approached digital projects. In the past, we would have thought, oh, we can’t possibly work with those participants in that way. But suddenly we didn’t have a choice, so we had to make it happen.”

Using digital to bring people to the opera in person 

As UK cultural institutions gradually reopen, the Garsington team is using these experiences to explore ways to make including people who aren't in the same vicinity a meaningful experience for all involved. Dalia, a community opera co-created and performed by 180 amateur and professional participants, will feature pre-recorded video clips from Syrian and Palestinian choirs, who will join rehearsals remotely to bring their perspective to the story, that of a refugee girl finding her voice. 

At the same time, the company has built on their early experience with AppRa to develop GO Create, a YouTube magazine-style programme that takes young people behind the scenes of the opera to discover stage management, composition, warm-up and dramatic intention, among others. The videos can be viewed individually or used by teachers as part of lesson plans. “During our focus groups with young learners, we discovered that YouTube is the place they go if they want to learn how to sing, play an instrument or deliver a monologue, for example,” Karen says. 

The company is currently building a new facility for learning and participation work with built in digital resources that is set to open in 2023 and since the pandemic, has taken on a full-time digital manager. “We’ve had several new members come to our Adult Company as a result of the work we produced online, but one really interesting thing about digital work is the visibility it gives education within the organisation itself,” Karen says, “Education work can feel very separated from the rest of the company, but when you start producing online, the people you work with are much more aware of what you’re doing”. 

“This whole experience has taught us that it’s possible to reach so many different people and enable them to experience creativity in a way that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to,” Karen concludes, “We’re looking forward to seeing where it will lead us next.”

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