BY ELEANOR VILLFORTH:  Opera is pompous: smug, portly tenors, sky-high ticket prices, yawning stretches between audiences and the speck of prima donna on stage, and although cheap tickets can often be found last minute and for those under 30, opera has unfortunately settled into the domain of the wealthy elderly. At one of Berlin's three big opera houses, once in a while a voice shines through to enthrall a larger public, a Netrebko or a Dessay … However, budget cuts have led to a scale back of what is already considered by many
to be a hopelessly stodgy art.

But Berlin is a city of upstarts and do-it-yourself mavericks, and a new opera company is diving into the wide gap that looms between the high art of opera and the low-budget, passion-fueled creativity that fuels Berlin's particular grit. Frustrated by budget cutbacks and lusting for the roles otherwise difficult to land in Berlin, a group of young
singers bucked convention and started an unusual venture: in-your-face opera.

That sounds terrible, you may think. Why would anyone want to get closer to those high C's? But pause, reconsider: Opera is, after all, drama. Intense drama with fabulous storremove of distance and haughty reputation, those high C's thrill, not to mention vibrate, your body. Berlin International Opera, with its rallying cry of 'raw opera, without barriers and artifice' is shooting a vein of immediacy and fresh energy into Berlin's crowded - but not saturated - opera scene.
The players (from 12 countries) take conventional opera and spin it in unconventional venues, where the drama unfolds five, not 55, metres away, plunging the audience into the characters' worlds.
'I want to make opera an experience, to touch people, involve them, present characters people can relate to today,' says Anke Rauthmann, artistic director of Le Nozze di Figaro. 'After all, these are
human beings, with their own agendas. It is food for thought, but it should also be a real pleasure for the audience.'

The idea was first hatched in 2006 over turkey at a Berlin Thanksgiving dinner, by a group of professional singers who knew one another from work in Australia. Their goal: to put on a more intimate and direct production, creating roles for singers based in Berlin. The strength of their 'pioneer spirit' drew directors with formidable resumes, like Rauthmann(of, among others, Komische Oper), Jean-Ronald LaFond, and musical director Kanako Nakagawa, an internationally acclaimed pianist. Thus far, singers - many who work with the International Opera on top of roles on regular stages - are not paid (and many make their own costumes), musical
accompaniment is limited to guitar and piano, and the company relies on the venues' generosity and props on loan from the Komische Oper to stage the productions.

Part of Berlin International Opera's appeal is the choice of venues that complement the particular pieces. After last March's low-budget Don Giovanni- by necessity minimalist, with black-and-white staging and costumes, put on in a church in Friedenau - the volunteer artist community staged the more complex comic opera Figarolast fall at
Löwenpalais, a graceful villa in Grunewald. Audiences literally sat in the drawing room; Cherubino actually jumped out the window, Antonio burst in with a bellow from the garden.

Figaro, a tale of artists dependent on patrons with, ahem, other interests (namely young women), although hugely complex, is a fitting low-budget production. 'Mozart's heart was with the simple
people,' explains Rauthmann, 'who set themselves free from hypocritical patronage.' Berlin International Opera is similarly unencumbered: Its small size and lack of funds in a sense provides the freedom for intensely fruitful collaboration between the
players; directors, singers and musicians all have creative input.

Figaro is being revived in Saalbau Neukölln, a theatre whose trappings will be reworked to avoid the static conventional formula of singer bleating at audience, with a catwalk and singers planted in the
crowd to create a more immediate and theatrical experience. Yet, 'It's important to go beyond Mozart,' says founding member and soprano
Karen Stellar, so their next effort is next month's dark and dramatic staging of Verdi's Macbeth, at the HomeBase Lounge near Potsdamer Platz. The space for film and media get-togethers will augment the gruesome tale, enabling digital projections on a 360-degree screen.

Don Giovanni and Figaro, with their innovative settings and relatively affordable ticket prices, draw both traditional opera lovers and opera neophytes. Audiences' wildly enthusiastic response is proof
that Berlin International Opera's concept of (almost) full opera in a chamber setting strikes a nerve, and opens opera to new audiences. Although they started out with no real plans to form a company, the future involves probable funding and bigger budgets. With the cushion of cash, can they keep it raw? Let's hope so.