The Quest: London Youth Opera’s commission for 2024

Stuart Hancock: Pandora’s Box – London Youth Opera at Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Royal Academy of Music, 2023 (Photo: Nina Swann)

Last December, London Youth Opera (LYO) presented Stuart Hancock and Donald Sturrock’s Pandora’s Box at the Royal Academy of Music’s Susie Sainsbury Theatre [see my review].  Charlie Swann, who sang Prometheus, has accepted a scholarship at Royal Academy of Music to study Opera there full-time from this September. LYO is following this with a new commission for 2024, The Quest by composer Nathan Williamson and libretto by singer-songwriter Megg Nicol. 

Williamson is a composer and pianist, and as a pianist he has gained kudos for his three-volume recording project for SOMM Recordings, 100 Years of British Song, with tenor James Gilchrist, as well as founding The Art of British Song project. As a composer, Williamson’s song-cycle, Grey and Green are all my Light, was premiered last year by baritone Jonathan Eyers. His opera, Machine Dream, a children’s opera commissioned by Mahogany Opera Group for their ground-breaking Snappy Operas project, has been performed by numerous primary schools across the UK.  

In The Quest, a group of brilliant young scientists believe they are on the cusp of solving the world’s environmental problems and saving the planet – but will they stick to their quest and fulfil their promise to humanity, or have their heads turned by the fame and fortune offered to them by the alluring but corrupt politicians? Further details from LYO’s website.

The company currently has a funding appeal to raise money for the company’s plans, do visit this LYO Match Funding Appeal page to support them.