“Call centres are extraordinarily hideous places to work in”
July 7, 2008 Music Post a comment
Now I’m not the one who’s saying these words and I never worked in a call centre either. I was just doing some reading about opera and I came across an article that describes Brian Irvine’s latest opera.
This is no common opera - it’s not set in a palace, a village or a church. It’s set in a call centre. I must say, if the aim behind this opera was to attract a younger audience, this idea was ingenious. I wish I could have come up with it myself.
Think about it: people who work in a call centre are likely to be curious about this opera and might even go to see it. Therefore, in sales and marketing terms, setting the opera in a call centre is an intelligent move, especially when considering the demographics and social background of the people who are likely to be employed at call centres. The call centre might indeed be hideous, but at least people who work there earn a wage and they can afford to go to the theatre to watch this opera.
I have no idea what the opera sounds like, but based on the little I read it combines jingles, corporate tunes and ringtones all capped by a cabaret style. And if this is not enough, the people who work at the call centres are vampires! In an interview to www.walesonline.co.uk, the composer Brian Irvine says:
In many ways the piece is about vampires, but it’s more to do with our consumerist society. People are getting their very life-blood sucked out of them. Society today is all-consuming, a big machine that thrives on human gluttony.
It’s the quote above that caught my attention today but I’ll spare all the philosophical thoughts from my classical music and opera blog.
Back to the opera, the name of the opera is The Calling of Maisy Day and the librettist is John Binias. If (unlike me) you happen to be around Wales, the opera is on at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, from July 11 to 14, 2008.