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Deloitte Ignite is a five year relationship between the accountancy giant and the Royal Opera House, established in 2007, that brings together both organisations' appetite for innovation, desire to challenge audience preconceptions and engage with young professionals. The Twitter Opera, which was one element of the 2009 three day festival, perfectly summed up these objectives.

Chris Goode, an artist performing in the festival, initially suggested writing an opera based on a game of Consequences. The idea was further expanded by the Royal Opera House Digital Team and its contemporary programming arm ROH2, who drew upon the power of Twitter to reach and engage audiences across the globe, inviting them to write - in no more than 140 characters - the next plot line or libretto suggestion for an ever-evolving opera.

Targeting the Royal Opera House's existing audience through its website, Facebook and Twitter, the opera's director, John Lloyd Davies, started the creative process with one tweet and a supporting blog in July 2009. The tweet read: One morning, very early, a man and a woman were standing, arm in arm, in London's Covent Garden. The man turned to the woman and he sang... The end goal was to achieve an opera plot and libretto substantial enough to perform at regular intervals throughout Deloitte Ignite.

The contributions were managed on a daily basis, while a weekly blog - a move welcomed by the judges - helped to filter the tweets and give a sense of the libretto as it developed. As contributions built up, Royal Opera House started to involve the world's media. This sparked a debate among cultural commentators that spread to newspapers, blogs, television and radio news.

The final plot centred around Helga running off with Hans, who actually preferred William, who was rescued from a tower after a tip from a talking cat named Tobermory. Despite initial scepticism, many reviews were actually positive with Igor Toronyi-Lalic, opera critic at The Daily Telegraph  describing the opera as 'actually watchable, listenable and rather funny'.

More than 2,000 people contributed to the plotline over its month-long development, while 4,950 viewed the Twitter Opera Film Preview and 3,730 watched the final performance. Described by the judges as 'a great idea, well executed and with lots of audience participation', the Twitter Opera generated more than 300 news stories in 30 countries. More than 7,300 people attended the Deloitte Ignite festival; 70 per cent of whom had never previously booked any event or performance at the Royal Opera House. 'I loved it,' said one judge. 'It was highly creative.'

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Shortlisted entries:

Fishburn Hedges - The Twinge

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