Friday, 28 June 2019

Fedora Prize for Education awarded to the Greek National Opera for the educational/social project Co-OPERAtive

A major international success for the Greek National Opera, acknowledging its Educational and Social work that is carried out with a donation from the SNF. The GNO’s Educational and Social Activities project Co-OPERAtive: An intercultural and collaborative opera hub for young people won the 2019 Fedora Prize for Education.

After the second phase of the competition, the public’s voting, in February 2019, Co-OPERAtive: An intercultural and collaborative opera hub for young people was shortlisted for the final selection, competing for the prize with projects of organizations such as the Parisian Théâtre de la Ville, the English National Ballet and Opéra de Lille.
On the award ceremony, held on Friday 28 June 2019 in the packed hall of La Fenice theatre in Venice, representatives of the GNO received the prize from the President of the Fedora Prize Jury and Director of Opera Europa, Mr Nicholas Payne.
The Fedora Prize for Education was first established this year with the goal of supporting projects of new and promising artistic teams aiming at expanding Opera and Ballet audiences. The prize corresponds to the amount of 50.000 euros, which will cover part of the total budget for the project’s implementation.

A few words about the project
The Co-OPERAtive project is an opera hub for a mixed group of 60 young Athenians and unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors aged 15-17 from across Attica. The project is inspired by opera, which is a common language for creating the first intercultural youth opera hub in Europe. Co-OPERAtive aims to expand opera’s appeal and make it more known to youth audiences, while bringing out cultural diversity and social cohesion. Foregrounding opera’s cooperative nature, the Co-OPERAtive project places collaboration at the heart of its design and implementation, building strong alliances with three partner-organizations, ARSIS, The HOME Project and Melissa Network.

The project will be implemented from January to June 2020 in the Greek National Opera’s venues at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. Detailed information about the project and the participation process will be announced in September 2019 on the GNO webpage.
The Co-OPERAtive project brings out three of opera’s basic disciplines: music, theatre and dance. The music section includes instrumental music composition, vocal and improvisation workshops. The theatre section includes creative writing, acting, and directing workshops, and the dance section ballet, contemporary dance, and choreography classes. Alongside the artistic team, the GNO’s professional personnel will contribute in the areas of lighting design, stage management, sound engineering, etc.

Artistic Team
Director: Themelis Glynatsis
Music supervision/ Conductor: Andys Skordis
Music workshop Leaders: Evi Nakou, Ann-Kristin Sofroniou
Theatre workshop Leaders: Panagiotis Exarcheas, Eleni Moleski
Movement coach: Edgen Lame
Dance workshop Leaders: Edgen Lame & Katerina Gevetzi
Sets & Costumes: Christina Spanou

Fedora Platform
The Fedora Platform is a European Organization established to support the revival of opera and ballet. Its network of supporters consists of people and companies in Europe, wishing to support the genre of Opera and expand its audience on a global level through their philanthropic work.

Opera Europe
Opera Europa is the largest network of opera houses and Opera and Ballet professionals in Europe. Its main office is in Brussels. It currently serves over 200 member organizations from 43 different countries across Europe. The GNO is an active member of Opera Europa and participates in all its activities on a yearly basis.

winner