MICRO OPERAS MADE IN A TIME OF MACRO ANXIETY
On the heels of the pandemic’s one-year anniversary, timely stories of perseverance and persistence will grace the virtual opera stage.
Beginning March 22, Houstonbased librettist Kendra Preston Leonard and Portland, Ore., composer Lisa Neher will present the One Voice Project Virtual Micro Opera Festival, expanding upon the minimally available repertoire for unaccompanied voice and further increasing the genre’s accessibility to all.
Over the course of five days, a handful of world premieres, each lasting approximately five minutes, will be released via YouTube. The films will feature five acclaimed opera singers from across the country — soprano Audrey Yoder, tenors Hugo Vera and Zach Finkelstein, and mezzo-sopranos Margaret O’Connell and Neher — each of whom recorded themselves with some form of cinematic motion that fittingly translates the story within their respective text into a dynamic visual experience. The pay-what-you-can series — donations from which will support the artists involved — will culminate with an online talk-back and reception, hosted by Gina Morgano of the “Practice Parlour” podcast.
“The arts, in general, are really important at all times, but especially for us right now because they allow us to imagine other kinds of worlds,” says Leonard, who trained as a cellist through graduate school before the debilitating pain of lupus caused her to transition into her now 20-plusyear career as a musicologist. “They allow us to understand the experiences of other people. They give us insight into how the world works, how it’s worked in the past and where we hope we’re going in the future.”
About seven years ago, Leonard felt pulled to become more creatively involved in new music, which she had previously specialized in as a performer, so she reached out to composer Jessica Rudman, with whom she created a song cycle from a set of poems she wrote about Lady Macbeth, as well as an opera libretto on the life of Marie Curie. In doing so, her various passions coalesced, and she was hooked, later meeting Neher within the active new music community on Twitter. Given the geographical distance between them, the women have fully embraced the new normal of virtual collaboration, even conducting rehearsals with the singers over Zoom.
Although each of their five micro operas tell stand-alone narratives, they are tied together by an overarching theme of resilience in the face of adversity. Three of them, in particular, include messages of social justice and female empowerment, detailing obstacles faced by real-life heroines in history, such as Alberte-Barbe d’Ernécourt, a noblewoman who defied gender norms and took up arms to defend her property during the Thirty Years’ War.
“Par for the Course” and “Momentum,” on the other hand, recount the impact of two female sports icons — Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, an athletic marvel and founding member of the LPGA for whom a Beaumont museum is dedicated, and Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon, respectively.
These three micro operas are bookended by two pandemicrelated works, the first of which follows a teacher who moves to a new city in the midst of the COVID-19 restrictions. The other portrays a singer mourning the loss of performance, and while the storylines differ, they will both take the audience on an emotional and relatable journey of finding hope and optimism in a time of anxiety and despair.
“We are telling stories about everyday people and people that I think a lot of audiences can relate with,” Leonard says. “I really believe that, as an artist, I have a responsibility to try to leave the world a better place than it was when I came into it, and I think that by creating opera and by addressing the concerns that people have right now can be part of that.”