Following its world premiere at LSO St Luke’s in September, The Lowry will be the second venue to host the world’s first mindfulness opera Lost in Thought. The interactive event comes to The Lowry Sun 18 – Mon 19 Oct and is co-produced by Mahogany Opera Group and the Barbican.
Directed by Frederic Wake-Walker and with music and concept by Rolf Hind, Lost in Thought is a ground-breaking new work which is based on the classic structure of an extended meditation, exploring the points of contact between sound and silence.
During this immersive musical four-hour performance, audiences will go on an inner journey of mindfulness, with periods of meditation, rest, communal eating and a gentle yoga session guided by mezzo-soprano and meditation leader Lore Lixenberg and seven musicians.
Created for an intimate setting, boundaries between performers and audiences are set to blur in this genre-bending reconceptualisation of opera. Music and meditation combine, bringing a new intensity to every sensation – the inner drama of mindfulness.
Composer Rolf Hind introduced mindfulness meditation practice at the Guildhall School, and continues to play a leading part in the School’s pioneering development and research on mindfulness and its relationship to the arts and performing artists. Lost in Thought emerges from that work as the culmination of Hind’s interest in combining music and mindfulness meditation into a dramatic form.
Rolf Hind said: “This project is based on my fundamental beliefs and questions about human experience. How do we humans interact with moments of experience and sound? Can we do that in each moment, with a deep and real response? And can music help us?”
Lost in Thought has been created collaboratively with Mahogany Opera Group’s artistic director Frederic Wake-Walker and Professor Paul Chadwick (Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London). It encapsulates Mahogany Opera Group’s commitment to creating new opera in new ways, and extending the possibilities of how it can be experienced.
Frederic Wake-Walker said: “I believe that in any piece of theatre, the true drama exists in the imaginations of the audience. Everything that I put on stage, therefore, must act as a trigger for the audience’s internal yet shared experience.”
Speaking of her experiences with the Lost in Thought project, singer and meditation leader Lore Lixenberg said: “For people who already meditate, it will deepen that experience – for people doing this for the first time, the music helps to form a kind of bridge to explore meditation and mindfulness.”
LISTINGS
Lost in Thought: A Mindfulness Opera
Dates: Sun 18 – Mon 19 October
Times: Sun 18 Oct at 4pm. Mon 19 Oct at 6pm.
Venue: The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, Greater Manchester, M50 3AZ.
Tickets: £30 – £35 including booking fee
