Awakening Shadow - Sydney

It’s a strange and rare thing that is happening this month. My most recent opera, Awakening Shadow, is having it’s second production. This is the first time an opera of mine has had a second production, so it is a really different experience for me. I haven’t been present throughout the rehearsal process, but I will be joining the team is Sydney later this week. For the first time with one of my operas there is an existing context and performance history to reference in creating this new production, which gives myself and the whole team a starting point which is much more tangible than a premiere where you don’t really see/hear/feel the new work till opening night.

At the time of composing the opera, which was commissioned jointly by the Cheltenham and Presteign Festivals and premiered in 2021, I knew there was going to be this second production, but it was delayed because of Covid (so that is another strange thing, to have so many works in Australia this year, largely because they have been covid delayed from 2021). That meant that I could actively learn from the first production and look to make necessary changes for this second production. I have done this. I have added a significant amount of violin music to the first scene and I have made the vocal ensemble writing in my final two scenes stranger and more akin to their style of singing in the beginning of the opera, whilst still transitioning them (albeit more gradually) to a different style of ensemble singing by the end of the opera.

This is a real joy and a privilege to be able to make these changes and feel that I am truly refining the work. It is one of my toughest operas in a way, because it has no narrative or characters. This means the theatricality of the work is invested differently in the music and text (and of course staging, but that element is not explicitly in the score) and I would say as a composer I need to work harder to craft the drama in this work, without character/narrative, than when these elements are present. So having two chances to refine the opera is not only a great way for the work to gain a wider audience but it is a rare but essential chance for me to work the music and drama into a tight and enlivened form.

Working with Sydney Chamber Opera and the director Imara Savage has been amazing. They have brought fantastic ideas and very high production vales to the opera. Nothing beats being in the room with people and I will join rehearsals on Saturday to start hearing the opera and seeing what looks like a mesmerizing and original production.

To read an interview with me and one with Imara check out the Sydney Chamber Opera booking site.

A nice surprise while I’m in Australia is the inclusion of my Percussion Trio as part of the BOOM International Festival of Percussion. I wrote the piece whilst a student of Wolfgang Rihm’s in Karlsruhe/Germany and it’s a work I am very fond of. It hasn’t been performed since my student days and I can’t wait to hear the musicians in Sydney give it a new lease of life.