Birmingham Opera Company nominated for ‘Opera Oscar’ for second year running alongside The Royal Ballet and Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera

A city-wide collaboration showing what Birmingham does best

Click here to download the woman.life.song 2025 programme

Birmingham Opera Company has been nominated for the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS) Award for Opera and Music Theatre for the second year in a row, this time alongside Royal Ballet and Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera - placing its work once again among the top three UK's leading opera and music theatre achievements in 2025. 

The nomination recognises Birmingham's reimagining of Dame Judith Weir's woman.life.song - a major city-wide collaboration with Birmingham at the heart of world-class operatic work.

From Birmingham to Carnegie Hall - and back again

woman.life.song began with a surprise phone call in the late 1990s to Birmingham’s Copthorne Hotel. British composer Dame Judith Weir, then Composer in Residence at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, received a call from American superstar soprano Jessye Norman. Norman commissioned a new work featuring texts by Maya Angelou, Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. The original solo version was premiered by Norman at Carnegie Hall in 2000.

In 2023, Dame Judith received another surprise contact, this time from Birmingham Opera Company General Director Richard Willacy, with a proposal to open up the work for new artists and audiences, performed by multiple soloists, chorus, actors and dancers, and to release its latent theatrical life for the first time.

After some development with artists and volunteers in The Lab (an annual opportunity for artists and volunteers to develop their craft), the first version and a new choral arrangement by Lead Artists Gweneth Ann Rand and Allyson Devenish was born.

woman.life.song finally came full circle to Birmingham in 2025, opening at St Martin's in The Bull Ring; not just for soloist and orchestra, but as a large-scale, city-wide collaboration that brought together international artists, over 20 local organisations and the people of Birmingham.

Reflecting on the Birmingham version, Dame Judith Weir said:

“It is the kind of piece that, for practical reasons, comes around once in a blue moon. Therefore it is typically astonishing that Birmingham (specifically Birmingham Opera Company) is about to host six performances over the bank holiday. And typically of BOC, this is a thoroughly imaginative recreation.”

Brum Culture

At the helm were musical leadership from BOC Music Director and Birmingham’s own Alpesh Chauhan OBE, and stage direction by Madeleine Kludje (Deputy Artistic Director, Birmingham Repertory Theatre), alongside Chorus Directors Mariana Rosas and Themba Mvula, Designer Debbie Duru, Movement Director Gabrielle Nimo and Assistant Director/Movement Keiren Hamilton-Amos and BOC Creative Producer Diandra McCalla.

The creative team were joined by instrumentalists who play with the City of Birmingham Symphoony Orchestra and Birmingham Royal Ballet, as well as freelance musicians establishing their careers, many of whom were recent graduates of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and University of Birmingham.

Volunteer Performed Training alongside international artists

True to BOC’s ethos, the project placed participation at its core in its development and production, opening opera-making to local people and demonstrating Birmingham's strength as a creative city and national powerhouse for the artform, audiences and freelance artists. 

Volunteer actors, dancers and chorus members from across Birmingham took part, many encountering opera for the first time. BOC's open-access model means that if you want to be in the production, you can be. Supported by Arts Council England, the company provides the training (3,500+ learning hours), while participants bring the lived experience, energy and diversity of the city to the stage.  

Audience impact and recognition

Audience response to woman.life.song was overwhelmingly positive:

• 79% rated the quality of the production “very good”
  
  

• 98% rated it “good” or “very good”
  
  

In association with Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation (UK)

Produced in association with the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation (UK), and with support from Arts Council England and Birmingham Hippodrome Trust (for audiences to take part in a special film version as part of Birmingham Weekender).

Gillian Newson, Trustee of the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation (UK), said:

"The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation (UK) is delighted to have supported woman.life.song and to see Birmingham getting the recognition it deserves for the role it plays in the musical life of our nation."

What did people say?

“Wonderful piece of work and music - I hope to take part again soon… My ideas about the arts and opera have been life-changing.”
Male, 76, B30

“It’s great that it’s a show that includes the people of Brum! It makes it ‘ours!’ and it’s inspiring.”
Female, 27, B71

“It made me cry.”
Audience member

CREATIVE TEAM: 

DIRECTOR – Madeleine Kludje
CONDUCTOR – Alpesh Chauhan OBE 
DESIGNER – Debbie Duru
MOVEMENT DIRECTOR – Gabrielle Nimo
CHORUS DIRECTOR – Mariana Rosas
CHORUS DIRECTOR – Themba Mvula 
CHORAL ARRANGEMENT – Allyson Devenish and Gweneth Ann Rand

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR & ASSOCIATE MOVEMENT DIRECTOR – Keiren Hamilton-Amos
ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR – Rosina Flueckiger

FEATURING:

ROSE - Gweneth Ann Rand
VIOLET - Madison Nonoa

Alongside the awesome Birmingham Opera Company Orchestra, Chorus and Actors