Bringing Baroque Opera to the 21st Century.
Passion. Creativity. Accessibility.
Ensemble OrQuesta was founded in 2013 by Marcio da Silva. The core company is dedicated to performing 17th and 18th century opera in all its richness and diversity to the highest of standards with period instruments. Ensemble OrQuesta currently takes professional baroque opera productions to the Grimeborn Opera Festival at the Arcola Theatre, Hackney, and to the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone.
From 2024 we will take our dynamic and creative productions to other Off West End venues, such as the Jacksons Lane Theatre.
We are passionate about presenting creative and musically authentic interpretations of both well-loved and lesser-known 17th and 18th century operas, making opera accessible to as wide an audience as possible by offering tickets at reasonable prices and free tickets to students and under 18s.
We offer opportunities for young singers and early career specialist instrumentalists to develop their skills and collaborate to deliver opera performances and recitals of the highest artistic quality. We look for ways to share our work interactively with children and young people, and with amateur musicians in local communities by developing outreach initiatives.
Academy.
Ensemble OrQuesta Opera Academy is dedicated to the training of the new generation of opera singers. Opera academies, which are held in a number of places in the UK across the year, give many talented young singers from all over the world the opportunity to perform complete roles in fully staged productions, in the original language, with professional ensemble accompaniment.
Many of the singers who now perform in Ensemble OrQuesta's professional productions received their early training in stagecraft during an opera academy, and many of our new productions underwent the first stage of their development during these intensive courses.
Outreach.
Our charitable aim is to share our love of opera with as wide and diverse an audience as possible, making our high-quality performances appealing and accessible, and offering free tickets to under 18s and students. We also aim to engage children, young people, and adults in varied, dynamic, and interactive workshops and opera performance opportunities.
Our programme demonstrates our commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion by developing relevant and appropriate strategies for sharing and facilitating access to our work, builds meaningful connections between our performers and community organisations by offering free of charge open workshops and relaxed performance opportunities and enhances cultural engagement and fosters inter-age community partnerships and collaborations by developing multi-art form opera projects which include elements such as movement, dance, and physical theatre, puppetry, and instrument playing.
Meet the team.
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Marcio da Silva, Artistic Director
In the past nine years Marcio has conducted and directed over 30 fully staged opera productions, ranging from less regularly performed works such as Lully's Armide and Cavalli's La Calisto (which received multiple ★★★★ reviews and secured an OFFIE nomination for opera performance for the lead soprano), to very popular works such as Bizet's Carmen, Mozart's The Magic Flute, and Puccini's La bohème.
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EO Company of Singers
Ensemble OrQuesta aims to present two professional baroque opera productions each year. Singers are carefully selected by Marcio da Silva for specific roles in individual productions. Lead roles in the productions are usually double cast in order to ensure that singers are not placed under undue vocal strain during a production run which may take place over five days or more.
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EO Ensemble of Musicians
The Ensemble OrQuesta Ensemble of Musicians is dedicated to performing 17th and 18th century opera in all its richness and diversity to the highest of standards with period instruments. Find out more about the talented musicians that support our professional productions, recitals, academies and outreach activities.
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EO Production Team
Our productions simply wouldn’t happen without our talented and hard-working Production Team. Meet the backstage heroes who support with Ensemble OrQuesta’s production management, direction, administration, technology, music production, music publicity and media.
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Board of Trustees
We have worked hard to build strong foundations and an effective infrastructure to enable us to grow with confidence. In 2020 we registered Ensemble OrQuesta as a limited company, and in 2021 we became a registered charity. Charitable status has widened our access to funding and enabled up to build a growing Board of passionate and experienced Trustees.
New Opera Editions.
We regularly undertake our own editions of baroque operas, making these available to the public by publishing them online on IMSLP, the International Music Score Project. We also intend to make these editions freely available on our website.
Financial reports.
Find links below to our available financial statements.