The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The BASCA-nominated Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a 3-act site-specific opera for large ensemble, SATB choir, and children’s chorus involving multi-staged performance and video projection, performed in the University of Edinburgh’s Old College Quad and Playfair Library.A collaborative project by composer Dee Isaacs, writer Gerda Stevenson, theatre director John Bett, and film-maker Ian Dodds, the project was conceived and produced as part of the University of Edinburgh’s Music in the Community programme in collaboration with teachers and pupils of Leith Walk Primary School and two professional musicians from West Africa, Gibril Camara and Aboubacar Sylla. Isaacs and Stevenson retell the story of Coleridge’s epic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for our times. The opera explores the issues raised by the current refugee crisis in partnership with 25 university music students and 60 school children in a multi-lingual primary school with a high proportion of immigrants in an area of deprivation within the City of Edinburgh. In this multi-cultural environment, the participants’ experiences became an integral part of the production process, allowing a complex of interactions to arise through the media of music and theatre. The video and scenic components were devised to immerse both audience and participants in contemporary experiences of flight and diaspora. The production process was monitored and a final evaluation report was produced, allowing the stake-holders to assess the social and educational impacts of the project.