Excerpts from  

 Bread and Circuses: The Wrestling Opera 

 An Opera in Two Acts and a Wrestling Show 

 

Created with a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship  and in collaboration with Ravensbourne University  

   

 

Cast and Creative Team  

Music by Liam Wade Words by Charles Ogilvie 

From an original concept by Mark Johnston With additional development by Julia Mintzer 

Produced by Eleanor Benson  

Music Director: Mark Johnston Stage Director: Julia Mintzer 

Assistant Director: Eleanor Burke Production Manager: Ryan Wilce 

 Shaunie Flynn: Camilla Kerslake 

Ada Vance: Grainne Gilllis Voice of Vince Flynn: John Packard 

Voice of the MC: Liam Wade Piano: Mark Johnston 

Percussion: Darren Berry  

Video Game developed by Ravensbourne University Led by Dev Bye-a-Jee 

Animated by Philip Kakala, Sam Galloway, Jez Fermor, Sebastian Winnett In consultation with Charles Ogilvie and Sebastian Winnett 

  

The Program:  

The Twist and the Snap Johnny Vance: voice of John Packard, baritone 

Percussion: Darren Berry (21, 22, 23 September)  

STOP! Ada Vance: Grainne Gillis, contralto 

Shaunie Flynn: Camilla Kerslake, soprano  

The Squared Circle Mark Johnston, piano 

 Blading and Bleeding 

Shaunie Flynn: Camilla Kerslake, soprano  

 

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 Bread and Circuses takes the cameo appearance of Donald Trump on a 2007 televised                           wrestling event as a starting point for the libretto of a new opera exploring political rhetoric                               and America's cultural crisis through the lens of professional wrestling.   In 2007, the now-President of the United States appeared in Wrestlemania XXIII, a huge,                           televised, stadium-based wrestling event. Trump, or the 'character' he was playing, gets                       caught up in a dispute with a successful wrestling promoter in what was billed as the 'Battle of                                   the Billionaires'. Trump gets out of his ringside seat, body-slams the promoter and then pins                             him to a chair with the help of another wrestler. Then Trump proceeds to buzz cut and wet                                   shave the character’s head in front of a stadium of over 80,000 screaming fans. Another 1.2                               million watched via pay-per-view.   This would not have been remarkable for a self-promoting property mogul with a soft spot for                               publicity were it not for what has followed. It is intriguing to consider that in this moment of                                   scripted melodrama, and in seeing the crowd’s ecstatic response, Trump may have begun to                           shape his electoral strategy.   The show explores how kayfabe—the portrayal of staged events within the industry of                         professional wrestling as 'real' or 'true'—might define an era. It isn’t about factual verifiability:                           it’s about emotional fidelity. As conspiracy theorist Alex Jones admitted to the New York                           Times, kayfabe 'rests on the assumption that feelings are inherently more trustworthy than                         facts.' This could sum up the theater of wrestling, notable recent electoral campaigns, and                           much of the western operatic canon.  The work was born from a conversation about how thoroughly operatic American professional                         wrestling is: the scripted shows of the mainstream professional wrestling world use music,                         lighting, and special effects to showcase skilled professionals enacting complex melodramas of                       courage, ambition, love, and jealousy. Just as in opera, the disguises, deceits, asides, and grand                             rhetoric let the audience ignore logical inconsistencies on the way to an outcome they likely                             already know, whilst making abundantly clear who the heroes and villains are.  Bread and Circuses: The Wrestling Opera runs 90 minutes in full.    It has a cast of 6 singers, 1 actor, and 2 wrestlers. It is currently scored for piano, and could be orchestrated for anything from a trio to a 70 piece orchestra.   This showcase will provide a glimpse into the world of the piece and the lives of its characters.  You can read the full libretto here.    

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Composer Liam Wade was the recipient of the Wagner Society of                     Northern California William O. Cord Memorial Grant Fund in 2015.                   Wade’s one act opera, The Stranger The Better, co-written by                   librettist Vynnie Meli, won the 2016 Audience Prize at The Atlanta                     Opera’s 24-Hour Opera Project, and has subsequently been               performed in Hartford, Austin, St. Louis, Berkeley, and San                 Francisco. His chamber opera collaboration with librettist John               Grimmett, Part of the Act, was commissioned by Washington                 National Opera and premiered at the Kennedy Center on their                   2012-13 season. His music has been heard on concerts at the La Jolla                         Music Society, ProQuartet France, Toronto Music Garden, One               Ounce Opera (Austin, TX), Hartford Opera Theater, St. Louis Opera                   Collective, West Edge Opera, Academy of Vocal Arts, and                 Semperoper Dresden. In October 2017, an excerpt from his operatic                   

scene, Rosies, with libretto by Caitlin Vincent, was performed at the Semperoper Dresden.                         Since 2018 the Wade/Meli operetta Boy Loses Girl (in the Beer Tent) has become the annual                               Oktoberfest tradition on its Semper Zwei/Semper Bar series. Wade will return to the                         Semperoper in September 2021. Wade studied composition with Philip Lasser, Howard Frazin,                       Kurt Rohde, Ross Bauer, and Jake Heggie. He holds degrees from The Longy School of Music of                                 Bard College and the University of California, Davis. www.liamwade.com 

 

Librettist Charles Ogilvie has made projects in             sculpture and art film at the Victoria and Albert                 Museum, Gloucester Cathedral, The Max Planck           Institute (Dresden), the Ashmolean Museum, and the             Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. His work                   has been shown by the Saatchi Gallery and has been                   shortlisted for the New Sensations and Red Mansion               prizes. He graduated with distinction from the Royal               College of Art in Sculpture and with first class honors                   from Oxford University, from which he also holds a                 Ph.D. by practice in Fine Art. He was the production                   designer for Gothic Opera’s Der Vampyr, nominated             for an Off West End Award for Best Opera Production.                   

He designed and co-authored a new translation for MassOpera’s all-female La Bohème. In                         order to write the libretto to Bread and Circuses he received a Bogliasco Foundation                           Fellowship in 2017. He worked as a director and cameraman in Baghdad during the second                             Gulf War and has art directed in commercial advertising and narrative film.                       www.charlesogilvie.art 

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Winner of the National Opera Association’s 2017 Directing               Fellowship, Julia Mintzer's Der Vampyr for Gothic Opera was                 nominated for an Off West End Award for Best Opera                   Production. Her interactive theatre piece Pizza Parlance was               listed in Nombre Art Magazine’s '5 Must-Sees of Venice Biennale'                   and revived for the NWR-Forum Düsseldorf, STORE             Contemporary (Dresden), and Toronto Museum of           Contemporary Art. Julia directed Savitri for Hampstead Garden               Opera, the first staged opera to return to London since the                     pandemic, to critical acclaim. She has developed and directed                 new work for the Helsinki Festival and Cornell University,                 directed the first full staging of Beethoven’s Fidelio with                 historical instruments in America, and led an all-female cast of                   La Bohème for MassOpera, hailed by The Theater Times as 'a                     fascinating, high-energy production'. She has made short films               for The Pleiades Project and Ensemble Plus Ultra, and                 

collaborated on art animations featured in Ambit Magazine. As a mezzo-soprano, Julia has                         performed leading roles at Washington National Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, and The                       Glimmerglass Festival. She made her UK debut this spring as Carmen with Welsh National                           Opera. She is the recipient of a UK Tier-1 Exceptional Talent visa. www.juliamintzer.com 

After a bachelor's degree in Toronto and master's degrees in Stuttgart in                       violin, composition, and conducting, Mark Johnston worked as a house                   pianist and opera conductor in Hildesheim, Zwickau, and Brunswick in                   addition to as a guest at the opera houses of Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart,                         and at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival and Berlin Philharmonic. He has                     pursued a career as a concert violinist in parallel, performing a staged version                         of Kurtág's Kafka Fragments in 2017 and the complete Bach sonatas and                       partitas in one concert in 2020. Mark originated the core idea for Bread and                           Circuses in a series of late-night musings on wrestling and opera, and has                         served as dramaturg and guru throughout its development, in addition to                     coaching, music directing, and conducting. markjohnston.de   

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Soprano Camilla Kerslake is a BRIT-nominated English opera               singer who was the first act to be signed to Gary Barlow’s                       Universal label Future Records, in 2009. She has gone on to                     receive international acclaim as a best-selling English Royal               soprano, performing in arenas and stadiums all over the world.                   Camilla continues to diversify the uses of her enchanting voice,                   having recently provided her vocals to an Oscar- and                 BAFTA-nominated motion picture as well as being the National                 Football League anthem singer during their London games for                 four years in a row. Kerslake has released two studio albums, her                       debut self-titled album in 2009 and Moments, released in 2011, as                     well as singles: You Raise Me Up was released in 2014 and Little                         Red in 2016. With a refreshing honesty, her work explores the                     reality of love and loneliness in the 21st century as well as many of                           the frustrations that young women face. Thanks to Camilla’s                 

talent for writing and the appeal she has gained throughout her career, she now writes a blog                                 for Harper’s Bazaar.  Camilla also boasts an impressive collection of press clippings, including the front pages of                           YOU Magazine, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, The Daily Express, Mail On Sunday, Daily                         Mail and HELLO Magazine. Alongside the writing and recording of her albums Kerslake has                           completed several arena tours, including one at the O2 arena alongside classical superstar                         Andrea Bocelli and internationally acclaimed Il Divo. Kerslake has given numerous                     performances of the National Anthem at various sporting events across the UK, including at                           Twickenham, Wembley and the Millennium stadium. These include the Rugby League                     Challenge Cup Final, the Rugby League World Cup Opening Ceremony, the Carling Cup Final                           and the Epsom Derby. In addition to these Camilla has also had the great honour of                               performing in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Family at Buckingham                             Palace, Windsor Castle, The Houses of Parliament, and the Royal Albert Hall. As a celebrated                             musician Kerslake has used her success to promote several charities. In 2010 she was                           nominated for NS&I Album of the Year, and her live performance from the ceremony was                             chosen to become the first ever charity single release from the awards. She has also supported                               the Breast Cancer Campaign and last year worked with cancer charity Future Dreams for a                             performance at the London Palladium which raised over £750,000. 

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Hailed by the Observer as a voice with 'rich, dramatic potential',                     Gráinne Gillis is an Irish-American opera singer, actress and                 voiceover artist. She read Music at University College Cork and                   graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. In 2018/19 she                     sang Flora in the Olivier award-winning King’s Head Theatre’s                 production of La Traviata and opened the London Song Festival.                   Other highlights include her one-woman show Mezzo Sings The                 Bard, Hélène in Faust et Hélène, the Old Woman in Candide and                       La zia principessa in Suor Angelica at the Llangollen                 International Eisteddfod 2018. In 2019/20 she sang Zia               principessa in Suor Angelica, Lucia in Cavalleria rusticana and                 Aksinya in Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk. She also made her Irish                     debut as Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance at Cork Opera House,                       and Vampyrmeister/Suse in Der Vampyr for Gothic Opera               (nominated for an Offie). COVID cancellations in 2020 included a                   national tour of Ireland with 'Sea Trilogy' as well as 1st Magd in                         Elektra. During the pandemic, Gráinne has been involved in                 

online projects No Room No Room No Room for Opera Harmony, which was aired on                             Operavision. She also appeared in Edward Lambert’s short opera 'Last Party on Earth' on film                             and at Tête-à-Tête 2020. She is thankful to be supported this season by Help Musicians UK.                               www.grainnegillis.com 

 Darren Berry was born in London in 1974. Trained at                   the Royal Ballet School, his formative years saw him                 performing as a dancer in operas and ballets in                 theatres all over the world. He is a               multi-instrumentalist and vocalist and has written           and released records on major labels with bands and                 also as a solo artist. He scores music for television,                   film, and plays. His work includes the HBO series                 Art-land, Channel 4’s The Turner Prize, along with               installations at the Tate Modern. He writes songs with                 

and for other artists, winning a Grammy for the eponymously titled 'La Roux' album, and is                               variously employed as a session musician, musical director, orchestral arranger and                     composer.       

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  Opera Magazine wrote of American singer John Packard               that his is 'a seamless voice, with character and                 gleaming upper register'. As a baritone, John Packard               garnered international prominence and performed         leading roles in opera houses from San Francisco to                 Venice to Tel Aviv, and has worked with as many                   prominent directors. John created the role of Joseph de                 Rocher for San Francisco Opera’s world premiere of               Jake Heggie’s highly acclaimed Dead Man Walking. He               has performed the role more than 50 times in Europe                   and the USA and is featured in a live recording on Erato                       Disques. He debuted Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Hawaii               Opera Theater in 2006 and has since performed the role                   for Shreveport Opera, Teatro Lirico d’Europa, and, in               

June 2010, Buffalo’s Nickel City Opera. John has performed Rossini’s Barber of Seville more                           than 50 times, most recently with Nickel City Opera. ('John Packard is the best Figaro I have                                 ever seen, his singing is lusty, on the mark, and marvelously expressive. He even accompanies                             himself on the guitar.' --The Buffalo News) Of his performance as Billy in Billy Budd, The                               Kansas City Star reviewer wrote, 'everything about this 50th anniversary production sparkled,                       especially John Packard.' Among the outstanding directors John has had the good fortune to                           work with are as follows: David Alden (Faust), Leonard Foglia (Dead Man Walking, The End of                               the Affair), Joe Mantello (Dead Man Walking), Paolo Micciche (Madama Butterfly) and Franco                         Zeffirelli (La Boheme), Stefano Vizioli (Madama Butterfly, La Fenice) and Nikolaus Lehnhoff                       (Dead Man Walking, Theater an der Wien). John is the recipient of a Robert Jacobson grant                               from the Richard Tucker Foundation, and has been a winner of the Puccini, Loren Zachary,                             MacAllister, and Liederkranz competitions.                

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         In the rehearsal room: Assistant Director Eleanor Burke and Music Director Mark Johnston plotting lighting at The Playground Theatre 

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