You don’t always think of opera and children’s entertainment as a natural pair. But Madame Chandelier’s Grand Theft Opera, Delea Shand’s newest show, gathers opera’s fiercest heroines for an epic video game battle when the Queen of the Night kidnaps Madame Chandelier’s daughter!
In her youth, Shand dreamed of performing on Broadway. Her voice teacher encouraged her but also taught classical German and French songs. Delea’s voice suited this repertoire, and she studied opera and contemporary performance in London, Canada, and New York. During her Masters course at the Manhattan School of Music, she sang with the group Opera on Tap. “Their mission was opera in unusual places – bars, playgrounds, schools, street corners, everywhere,” she says. “I loved taking opera out of the opera house.”
When she and her family moved to London, she struggled to get auditions with regional companies. One day she saw an advertisement for Opera North’s schools’ tour, featuring an accordionist and a singer, and a lightbulb went off. “I got an accordion and taught myself how to play,” she says. “On a whim I took a standup comedy course. The teacher asked if we had skills, and I said I sang opera. He was like, ‘yes, do you play any instruments?’ And I told him I had an accordion but didn’t really know how to play. He said, ‘Perfect, you don’t want to be too good at it.’” That was all the encouragement she needed to head out on the comedy circuit; people did not always know what to make of Shand’s act when she started eight years ago, but “they kept laughing, so I kept coming back.”
To fine-tune Grand Theft Opera, Shand turned to director, librettist, and author P Burton-Morgan. The pair spent nine weeks creating the show from Shand’s ideas, creating a real story arc. Shand picked her cast of characters because they are familiar in popular culture – even featuring in advertisements for washing up liquid. “Carmen, Tosca, and Madam Butterfly are icons – their operas are named after them!” she says. “If this is the first time kids learn about opera, it’s good to start with something they might recognise.”
“Because I developed my work to be accessible, I aim for people to get wider references about opera and what makes it funny,” she says. “[My work introduces] operas but also point[s] out problematic plots where the women are always killed” – something subverted, through kid-friendly video gaming, in Grand Theft Opera.
“Doing this taught me a lot about what people think of opera,” she says. “More people like opera than I thought. Young people like opera. They think it’s cool. They don’t have this baggage.” Perhaps Timothée Chalamet needs to spend more time at the club.
Encountering opera in unusual places is a thrilling way to interact with the unique art form. “Opera singers spend so much time learning how to create vibrations and resonance with your body. Sound waves move through the air in a completely different way to amplified music.” She tested out a previous show on Year 5 primary pupils and recalls they were “amazed” at close quarters.
“I hope kids come out feeling like opera is their art form,” Delea says. Many UK opera companies are publicly funded. “We are paying for the Royal Opera. It’s our house, it’s for everyone.” This ownership is not just in enjoyment but in creation. “People email me after the show to tell me their children are out in the garden singing the songs, remembering the characters, and making up their own operas,” she says. “I love that.”
Madame Chandelier’s Grand Theft Opera, Pleasance Courtyard, 5-16 August, 12:15pm