Things We Throw Away

Various locations 

Things We Throw Away by Wide open Opera  was a series of five short operas by Brian Irvine (music) and John McIlduff (text). These operas were performed as ‘pop up’ operas in locations around Dublin over two days. The performers sang live and were accompanied by a specially recorded soundtrack, performed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and conducted by Fergus Sheil. Each of the five operas was inspired by the lives of real people in the city, and one involved a community choir.  The operas’ names were drawn from the inspiration for each opera, short moments in the city that would normally go unnoticed, or discarded items thrown away on the street. The idea was to capture the life and the poetry behind these almost inconsequential episodes.  The titles for the five operas were: Suck it In, Wake Up Son, Ironing Board, Banana Woman and Drive By Shooting. 

The operas were performed in public places as ‘pop up’ events in Dublin on Friday July 4th and Saturday 5th 2014 with a finale where all five were performed on Dame Court. It is estimated that over 2,000 people attended the various performances. 

The operas were so successful that they were restaged in April 2015. One of the operas Drive By Shooting was converted into an animation film and has been screened in Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Pars and other cities. The set of five operas were performed in Weimar, Germany in 2021 as part of a festival in that city. 

Commissioned in 2014 by Dublin City Council under Strand 2 of the first Dublin City Public Art Programme with funding from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the Per Cent for Art Scheme.

The Operas:

Suck it In: A group (chorus & principal singers) of smokers outside a building relish the 5-minutes of calm in the middle of crazy lives that the cigarettes give. Although they know it’s bad for their health, they celebrate the sense of community among smokers.

It’s Your Round: A father sings to his passed-out son sitting outside a pub. The father remembers carrying the boy as a child, savouring this memory, although he knows there will be trouble when he gets home to his wife.

Drive By Shooting: Two old women with zimmer frames pursue an old man with a zimmer frame who has been unfaithful to one of them. The women have a gun and are prepared to shoot him.

Banana Lady: The song of the woman who sells bananas from her pram on Capel Street

Ironing Board: A discarded ironing board and iron. The board (brought to life by a puppeteer) sings to the iron about better days in the past when they were the centre of life in a busy house, and had a passionate relationship. Now their best days are behind them.