Double bill: At the Statue of Venus and La Voix humaine

Co-produced by Green Opera and Community Jameel, a double-bill of Jake Heggie's 'At the Statue of Venus' and Francis Poulenc's 'La Voix humaine' will be staged at the 16th Grimeborn Opera Festival on 6-9 September 2023.

Green Opera presents a double-bill of monodramas co-produced by Community Jameel exploring female identity in a modern world, where the technology that connects us can leave us feeling more isolated than ever.

At the Statue of Venus

Starring Bocelli-Jameel Scholar Laura Mekhail, a woman waits by a statue of the Goddess of Love to meet a man she has never seen. Her thoughts and emotions are a jumble of hope, uncertainty and self-doubt. Will he like her? Will she like him? Why did she—a proudly successful woman—allow her friends to convince her that she needed a romantic partner to be fulfilled?

Laura was the 2021 recipient of the Andrea Bocelli Foundation - Community Jameel Scholarship, which is awarded annually based on merit and financial need to young musicians to study at the Royal College of Music.

La Voix humaine

A woman talks to her former lover on the telephone. She teases, flirts, promises, lies and pleads. Finally, telling him again and again that she loves him, she drops the receiver…

Green Opera is a charity with a vision for making music and drama in a way that is environmentally sustainable. Through a programme that encompasses a variety of works from both the mainstream operatic repertoire in addition to lesser known or contemporary works, Green Opera hopes to introduce the public who may be unfamiliar with opera as an art-form to the full spectrum of music and drama that it has to offer. Core to Green Opera's mission is to see the arts inspire ownership of the emotions and narrative of climate change, and to encourage spaces where audiences and artists alike can talk openly and listen readily, engaging both practically and imaginatively with the challenges of climate change.