A scratch night with first performances of new music for the stage from young composers Kate Whitley and Mike Christie, a Q and A with Professor Paul Barker and a dj set from composer Isambard Khroustaliov.

Scars – Kate Whitley (music) Stephanie Ndoungo (libretto)

The Miller’s Wife – Mike Christie (music and libretto)

Q and A with Prof. Paul Barker (Central School of Speech and Drama)

Isambard Khroustaliov (dj set)

Mike Christie presents an excerpt from his full length opera The Miller’s Wife, a village tale of forbidden love, long kept secrets and tragedy averted inspired by a discovery Mike made in his own family tree.

Kate Whitley makes a welcome return to rough for opera for a third performance with Scars, a new work for soprano developed from a recent collaboration between the human rights charity Freedom from Torture and its Write to Life creative writing group, opera-club-night Carmen Elektra, and record label ‘Nonclassical’. Scars’ text is based on Write to Life member Stephanie Ndoungo’s Reporting to the Doctor, an account of her experience of having a medical examination of the scars on her body, on the basis of which evidence to support her case for asylum was put together.

Learn more about London operas within the West End.