In a new partnership announced on 12th June 2025, Jerwood Foundation has awarded Mahogany Opera a total grant of £40,000 over two years to support their Jerwood Opera Designers Award.
Mahogany Opera is a leading commissioner and producer of new opera and music theatre, working across the UK and internationally. The company’s vision of opera as an inclusive, collaborative, and dynamic artform informs their aim to stretch the boundaries of what opera can be and who it’s for.
Jerwood Foundation funding will enable Mahogany Opera to support three exceptional design teams in creating the sets, costumes, lighting, video, and projections for three opera commissions. The Jerwood Opera Designers Award will enable the company to collaborate with these teams in a bold, boundary-pushing environment, helping them develop their practice while advancing Mahogany Opera’s own distinct design aesthetic.
The three productions will be: Nwando Ebizie’s Ordo Virtutum, In the Belly of the Beast based on cantatas by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Errollyn Wallen’s A Christmas Miracle.
For each production a lead designer will be appointed and an emerging designer recruited by open call in autumn 2025.
Frederic Wake-Walker, Artistic Director Mahogany Opera said:
“The Jerwood Opera Designers Award will have a huge long-term impact on Mahogany Opera. It will enable us to commit fully to our aims of creating new opera that is truly inclusive, sustainable and diverse. It will introduce us to exciting talent and allow us to develop the careers of promising designers. It will support us to make an extraordinary visual impact with our work (complementing the music from three such distinct and special composers) and lead to transformative experiences for participants and audiences alike.”
Lara Wardle, Executive Director and Trustee Jerwood Foundation said:
“I am delighted that Jerwood Foundation will be funding the Jerwood Opera Designers Award and enabling Mahogany Opera to develop the practice of three teams of multi-disciplinary designers. This two-year support for early career stage designers underlines Jerwood’s ongoing commitment to emerging talent in the arts in the UK.”
