Go to Come Back

GNO Learning & Participation Major Donor

Co-OPERAtive, the first intercultural youth opera hub in Europe completes its third year of implementation and presents the music theatre performance Go to Come Back, on Friday 19 May 2023 at 20.30, on the Greek National Opera Alternative Stage at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.

Go to Come Back to music by Nikoleta Hatzopoulou, with texts and dramaturgy by Eleni Moleski, and directed and choreographed by Christos Strinopoulos is a reflection on the coming-of-age process and the quest for personal identity. Its plot transports us to a place that is familiar to all of us, the adventurous process that makes us understand ourselves by going after our dreams, expectations and talents. The sets and costumes are by Pavlos Thanopoulos and the lighting by Marietta Pavlaki. The creative team comes complete with performer Nikos Ziaziaris. The performance is presented with the participation a mixed group of Athenian teenagers and unaccompanied minor asylum seekers who have been involved in the making of the work. Accompanying on the piano is Christos Karavasilis.

Awarded with the Education Prize by the European Organisation FEDORA in 2019, the educational programme Co-OPERAtive strives to bring opera closer to young audiences while foregrounding the intercultural diversity of modern-day Athens and the significance of social cohesion. In the context of the programme, a group of young Athenian teenagers and unaccompanied minor asylum seekers held meetings on a weekly basis under the guidance of artists and educators from the fields of music, theatre and opera and created their own music theatre performance.

Co-OPERAtive was realised in close collaboration with the organisations Kinoniko EKAV, Evropaiki Ekfrasi and ZEUXIS. 

A few words about the process from the educational and creative team

The fundamental goal of these workshops was to give participants a strongly active role in the preparation of a music theatre performance, from the conception of the initial idea stage to its transformation into a finished work. The instruments used to develop the original raw material, the storyline of the performance, but also the twists and flow of the action were improvisation, theatrical games, and free writing exercises. Moreover, the music games, vocal improvisations and the formation in a chorus structure helped children familiarise themselves quickly with different ways of musical creation. At the same time, graphic scores in combination with vocal techniques inspired by screaming choirs and experimentations with the movement of sound in the space were also employed to create on the spot compositions and soundscapes that would accompany the theatrical action. We strived so that the result we would bring onto the stage would be the pure product of the children’s participation in Co-OPERAtive. Close collaboration and constant exchange of ideas among the members of the creative team have been central to achieving this goal.

A few words about the performance from the creative team

A group of young people meet up somehow unexpectedly and magically in a spooky building’s reception hall. Soon they discover that this building must be a very weird school. A strange creature appears, the School Principal, who explains to them that they are there to find out more about themselves and answer the questions that all of them are afraid of: “What is their passion? What is their dream about the future?” Then he asks them to seek the answers by opening mysterious doors that lead to even stranger rooms. There they will come face to face with everything they are afraid of and must overcome. After this adventure is over, they end up in the big hall of miracles, where, putting together the clues they have collected on their trajectory, they realise something extremely important about life itself that makes this weird school seem no longer threatening.

A few words about Co-OPERAtive

This is the third consecutive year of implementation of Co-OPERAtive, the educational programme that aims at bringing opera closer to young audiences, while foregrounding the intercultural diversity of modern-day Athens and the significance of social cohesion. A mixed group of young Athenian teenagers and unaccompanied minor asylum seekers held meetings on a weekly basis under the guidance of artists and educators from the fields of music, theatre and opera and created their own music theatre performance.

Co-OPERAtive was implemented in close collaboration with Kinoniko EKAV, Evropaiki Ekfrasi and ZEUXIS, and with the support of METAdrasi.

In 2019 it was awarded the Education Prize by the European Organisation FEDORA, which is awarded to innovative projects encouraging the involvement of new and wider audiences while fostering social integration amongst the participants.

Quote from FEDORA:

“Co-OPERAtive is a very strong project in many aspects that convinced our expert jury chaired by Bernard Foccroulle. The innovative elements that compose the project, both from the social and the creative perspective, will have an impact on the future of the young Athenians and unaccompanied refugees involved in the programme and on the future of opera. CoOPERAtive is a concrete example of an artistic project that is capable of promoting social integration and mutual understanding in today’s society.”

• Edilia Gänz, Director of FEDORA

In collaboration with

With the kind support of