IntoOpera was founded in Norfolk in 2017 by stage director Genevieve Raghu with a belief that opera should not be defined by tradition, buildings or who has historically had access to it.
IntoOpera creates immersive opera experiences built around the people and places they happen in. A barn, a school hall, an aircraft hangar or somewhere entirely unexpected can become the setting. The audience is brought inside the story rather than kept at a distance.
Today, IntoOpera is Norfolk’s only professional opera company and the UK’s only opera company dedicated specifically to audience and participant development.
Opera does not have to happen in an opera house.
IntoOpera is curious rather than purist about how people first connect with music and stories. Sometimes that pathway begins with opera; sometimes it begins with folk music, an exhibition, a workshop, a concert or something nobody has tried before.
What matters is creating an experience that feels immediate, personal and worth remembering.
IntoOpera combines professional artistic work with education, participation and long-term cultural development, creating different ways for people to discover and become part of the arts.
Productions and concerts that place audiences close to the artists and bring opera into unexpected spaces.
Long-term creative work that gives children and young people opportunities to participate, create and develop their confidence.
Helping schools and businesses build creativity into their culture rather than treating it as a one-off experience.
Founded in Norfolk by stage director Genevieve Raghu with a different idea of what an opera company could be.
Anguish’s Education Foundation awarded IntoOpera £200,000, the largest grant in the Foundation’s history, to establish a long-term residency within three Norfolk primary schools.
The residency was evaluated by Durham University alongside the team behind Arts Council England’s Durham Commission, helping IntoOpera understand and evidence the impact of sustained creative work.
IntoOpera launched a free network for Norfolk primary teachers and school leaders. Since September 2025, it has reached 54 teachers across 25 schools, with more continuing to join.
Across its first nine years, IntoOpera has worked with more than 10,000 children in Norfolk.
IntoOpera responds to barriers around access and participation by combining professional artistry, creative education and meaningful opportunities for people to experience opera in new ways.
Opera is storytelling through words, music, design, movement and live performance.
IntoOpera believes those experiences should belong to everyone. The barriers surrounding opera, including money, geography, time and assumption, are habits rather than rules.
The work starts by removing those barriers and giving more people the chance to experience what live art can offer.
IntoOpera builds experiences rather than simply presenting performances.
Each project is shaped around the people, place and story involved, with audiences encouraged to feel part of what is happening rather than watching from a distance.
That approach extends beyond productions into schools, communities, young artist development and cultural strategy.
Evaluation of IntoOpera’s education work repeatedly identifies six outcomes:
These outcomes have emerged through sustained work with schools and young people, including the residency evaluated by Durham University.
IntoOpera’s future work includes Flight, planned for April 2027 with Saxon Air, alongside Songs of Flight, the Nightingale project, Key Change and the continued growth of the Primary Arts Network.
The ambition remains the same: create extraordinary artistic experiences while opening more routes into creativity for children, young artists and audiences across Norfolk.
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