What is Quarantine Opera?
We are an online platform that was founded by opera singer Marika Schultze and conductor Fergus McAlpine just after all cultural events were canceled and the entire industry was shut down because of the Covid-19 World Pandemic. The initiative - the first of its kind - consisted of connecting classical freelance musicians in quarantine across the globe to create full-orchestral, choral and solo ensemble productions of well-known opera pieces, which has already yielded overwhelming results. The first two productions "Habanera" and "Brindisi" with over 100 musicians from 40 countries around the world, have reached over 1 million views on social media platforms. At the end of June, the third production "Toreador" will premiere, and while that work is in full swing, Quarantine Opera is planning for the entire season of 2020, and beyond.
In these dark times, with music we have created an international community that spreads light into people's homes across the globe - and this is just the beginning of the adventure!
Marika Schultze - CEO & Founder
Funding
Our goal is to be independent, but as a start up we have naturally been relying heavily on donations and government grants. However, we have now started to work towards forming partnerships and gathering other sources of income.
In June 2020, the Norway Culture department offered grants for projects they considered to have contributed in creating new solutions for artistic activities to reach out, during the pandemic lockdown - and Quarantine Opera was chosen as one of them. We greatly appreciate the Arts Council Norway and the Cultural Fund for making it possible for us to continue working on our goal of bringing musicians from all over the world to play together and spread light into everyone's homes in times of darkness and suffering.
We welcome any kind of support, and if you believe you can donate, please follow the link below, or contact us if you have any partnerships in mind.
Global, Regional & Local Goals
We are essentially an international opera platform, with a reach spreading digitally across the globe. Nevertheless, our headquarters are in large part based in Oslo, Norway. Of the team members (current and former), the majority are affiliated with Oslo and its surroundings. Naturally, the base of both musicians and the audience has grown in a global scale.
Because of our digital nature, we differentiate ourselves quite a lot from traditional opera houses and orchestras; we reach higher numbers of audience and we reach people that did not have an interest in opera before. This has been confirmed through interactions with followers of our platforms. This, we believe, will have a positive impact on getting a new and young audience to opera houses around the world when we are able to hold performances again. In addition, the digital format also allows us to reach to professional musicians in all corners of the world, who could many times have been hiding their talent and musicianship behind a lack of opportunity.
As we grow, our visibility, both in Norway and internationally, will grow. Musicians and singers who would otherwise not have had the opportunity to play together, through this will have a unique opportunity to play together, across borders both in Norway and internationally. In this way, we contribute to value creation in local communities for both the musicians and the singers who get to play together in a new way, as well as for the audience who get to experience the music regardless of where they live. Therefore, we hope to have chapters all over the world and grow our network and audience more and more everyday.