Noye's Fludde is an international project which brings together children and young people from different communities in an exciting high-level exchange.

Benjamin Britten's charming children's opera tells the story of Noah's Ark and the Great Flood. He composed the orchestral music of Noye's Fludde for a unique combination of adult professional musicians with children's ensembles. A string quintet, a percussionist, and two pianists join with child string-players, a bugle ensemble, young percussionists and recorder ensemble.

The Cape Festival's production is based around a Primary School choir from Khayeltisha, a previously disadvantaged community on the outskirts of Cape Town, and the Hout Bay Strings Project in the informal settlement of Imizamo Yethu. German stage director Joachim Schlömer, British designer Isabel Robson, South African choirmaster Bonisile Tembele, the Trondheim Soloists from Norway and Dutch conductor Jurjen Hempel join forces to create a strong new staging of Britten's community opera.

Austria's Festspielhaus St Pölten, the Cape Festival's partner in developing this production, hosts the Strings Exchange of January 2010 under the guidance of Swiss artist-in-residence Etienne Abelin. Eight students from lower Austria will travel to Cape Town to live and work with the children of the Hout Bay Strings Project.

Noye's Fludde, with its ultimate message of hope, is a story that is relevant to audiences today throughout the world. Europe meets the Rainbow Nation in this contemporary retelling with a uniquely African twist.