After a 4 year wait, she’s fnally here ‘OCDiva’ Comes to Lismore

A new opera by Eve Klein | Libretto by Yasmin Arkinstall/Sharna Galvin/Sarah Penicka-Smith Think you don’t like opera? Think again

Fresh from featuring in British comedian Bill Bailey’s 2023 tour, Yasmin Arkinstall returns to the stage in ‘OCDiva’, a new autobiographical opera about one woman’s struggle to do life, art and mental health.

Following a sell-out preview performance at the Arts and Cultural Exchange Parramatta, a regional tour to Wagga Wagga and Narrandera, and shows in Lawson and Blackheath, audiences are raving about ‘OCDiva’ and its star, Yasmin Arkinstall. Described by one audience member as ‘quirky, worthy, moving, silly, joyful, ‘OCDiva’, this new opera, plays in Lismore in November. This will be your last chance to see OCDiva in 2023.

The twenty-somethingyear-old opera singer, TikTok dancer and Western Sydney girl has her life turned upsidedown by her search for diagnosis and treatment for sensorimotor OCD.

Combining R&B, a dash of music theatre, a TikTok dance, and a whole lot of delicious, defant, and occasionally heartbreaking opera, ‘OCDiva’ follows Arkinstall on her journey through various therapies and therapists.

Arkinstall says, ’To share my lived experience of how OCD has affected my life through song is a dream come true to me. I feel like I am merging two of my biggest life goals: to perform on stage, and to spread true awareness about a condition that has debilitated me since I was a child.’

‘This project means the world to me, especially as an artist with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder because it’s a condition that is often misrepresented and at times mocked in the media. OCD was listed in the top

10 most disabling conditions by The World Health Organisation and yet there is little representation of it being a serious anxiety disorder that can leave sufferers housebound, jobless and even suicidal.’

Conceived in 2019, and awarded an Australia Council grant in 2020 to commission Dr Eve Klein’s composition of the score, ‘OCDiva’ has been in development for nearly fve years. The opera is technology-enabled to allow Arkinstall, who lives with signifcant disability, full control of each performance, including what she sings, and when.

According to Music Director Sarah PenickaSmith, who conceived the project after seeing Arkinstall in an audition, ‘the creative team has created a work which leans into the uncertainties of, and risks in, performing with a disability, and made the artist’s ability to choose a ground-breaking structural element of the work.’

But tailoring the opera is not just about what the audience sees; it’s been a theme running through the project from the start. The creative team has worked to ensure that there is true representation of Arkinstall’s lived experience in the music and libretto. And on a more practical level, rehearsals and recording sessions remained fexible in a bid to reduce feelings of overwhelm or triggering.

‘This has allowed me to put forward my best self artistically,’ says Arkinstall.

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The opera’s all-female, all Australian, creative team, many of whom have lived experience of chronic illness or disability, challenge ideas of what opera can be, how it can be presented, and who can participate. With Arkinstall as the sole performer, ‘OCDiva’ features a sumptuous and eclectic new score by award-winning composer and sound artist Dr Eve Klein, setting a libretto co-written by Arkinstall, Sarah Penicka-Smith, and theatre director Sharna Galvin, who was also part of the show’s original project development team. Movement Direction is by celebrated dancer and choreographer Jana Castillo, and Design is by emerging Brisbane-

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