A theatre company in Belfast is creating an opera about the trial of disgraced film director Harvey Weinstein.
Conor Mitchell, director of the Belfast Ensemble which will stage the opera production, hopes to bring the performance overseas to New York.
Speaking to the New York Post Mitchel said, “I think New York City would be its natural home.”
The performance, which will be titled "The Trial of Harvey Weinstein: An Opera", will take the libretto directly from the six women who testified against Weinstein during his 2020 New York City trial.
Weinstein, a former film producer, was convicted of rape in March 2020 and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Despite what you would expect from the title of the opera, there will be no actor playing the Weinstein role.
Described as "text becoming music," the performance will be six sopranos on stage surrounded by multi-media.
“This is about taking the words — fragments of the statements, without creating named characters, or representing a person on stage," explained Mitchell.
“In a way, I don’t care about him. I care about the effect of his actions on other people,” Mitchell said of Weinstein. “The ability of music to express that. One of the main arguments of the piece is ‘Where can music express what is not said here?'”
“It’s not a representation of court case, but a piece of art that responds to [the women’s] statements. It’s not a physical recreation of events,” he added.
“I think one of the big theatrical experiments is what happens when Harvey Weinstein’s self impact statement is sung by the women who are impacted by his behavior.”
The opera is due to be ready in time for the Belfast International Arts Festival in October. Rehearsals are scheduled to begin in September.
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