About Us

OperaMachine is a highly regarded guerilla opera company. Following a successful career in
theatre, including training actors at UK Universities, drama schools and the National
Theatre, former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Uganda, Egypt, Gaza, Greece, Paris, Finland, Japan and
the Ukraine, artistic director and founder Stephen was invited by Graz Arts University Opera
Department to run workshops for its opera singers. Recognising opera’s power and
universality of themes, Stephen decided to build on his experience of producing site-specific
theatre to introduce opera to new audiences. His first production, Menotti’s opera, The
Consul, a ‘genuinely exciting and imaginative Kafkaesque production’ mirrored its subject
matter of seeking asylum with a refugee chorus and younger singers from diverse migrant
backgrounds, including Ukraine, Japan, East Germany and Latvia. Its success in attracting
audiences who had never been to opera previously led to Arts Council funding to continue
the work.

Committed to challenging opera stereotypes, Stephen followed this with a version of
Madame Butterfly, Finding Butterfly, ‘a stunningly visceral performance’ updated to Japan
post World War Two. The production was invited to a festival in Japan where Stephen
worked with a Japanese community chorus alongside Chinese and Japanese professional
singers. Co-productions with Kent Opera toured Othello the play back to-back with the
opera Otello and, as part of the company’s commitment to working with more marginalised
groups, included workshops and performances with prisoners at Swaleside Prison, Kent.

Stephen is currently working on a music theatre version of Riddley Walker with the author’s
son, musician Wieland Hoban. Opera Machine was funded by the British Council to lead
theatre training workshops for Palestinian theatre makers from Gaza and Egyptian theatre-
makers as part of the Contemporary Downtown Festival in Cairo in 2022.