A BRIDPORT-based company has taken its new contemporary chamber opera to New York.

Opera Circus, run by Tina Ellen Lee from Dottery, is one of only a handful of global groups of artists to be chosen by the International Society for Performing Arts to present their work at the ISPA’s 66th Congress last month.

The new opera, entitled Naciketa, composed by Nigel Osborne and palywright Ariel Dorfman has been a work in progress since 2010.

The opera’s gestation took it from London to Leeds to Edinburgh to London’s Royal Opera House and India.

Artistic director and producer Tina said: “We decided we needed to go to India to explore the possibilities of working with an Indian director, choreographer and designer and possibly a mixture of artists.

“We have grown more and more capable of creating not only a beautiful work of art, the chamber opera, but also to find ways of using music with children and young people.”

The company did this working with, among others, street children, children with special needs, children’s homes and a home for the blind in Mumbai.

Tina’s husband, international photographer Robert Golden, who has made a short film documenting part of the Indian journey, said: “They were seeking to find ways of sharing their knowledge with Indian schools and other institutions.”

Naciketa was performed in New York in front of more than 400 producers and representatives of festivals and venues from around the world.

Tina said: “This gave us the opportunity to ‘pitch’ Naciketa to everyone present and develop creative networks to encourage co-productions and touring for the future.”

The opera will be presented at a small number of concerts this year before a full production in 2015/2016.

Tina has had a life-long love of opera after seeing a life-changing Maria Callas concert when she was 11.

She trained privately as an opera singer and it was Federico Davia and David Pearl who inspired the start of Opera Circus in 1990.

Tina and her husband are involved in Bridport project providing film, photography, art and cookery workshops at the Children’s Centre, next to St. Mary’s and at Sir John Colfox School.

The work produced will be part of an exhibition at Bridport Art’s Centre in May 2014 as part of its 40th year celebrations.