CENTRAL ROLES
Jessica Duchen charts her experience as the librettist of a brand new opera
MOZART AND DA PONTE. Strauss and Hoffmansthal. And now Panufnik and muggins? Creating an opera is like driving a lorry across a continent – as I discovered recently, working with Roxanna Panufnik on
Silver Birch for Garsington Opera – and the composer-librettist team is its engine.
For Silver Birch, a ‘People’s Opera’, we had just two-and-a-half years from initial team meeting to premiere. Everyone had a say: Garsington wanted Siegfried Sassoon to be central; and our director, Karen Gillingham, who is experienced in working with community and youth companies, was our guiding light. The process involved continual emails, consultations, try-outs, modifications and cuts, cuts and more cuts.
If you’re wondering which comes first, words or music, it’s words. More or less. Give and take is everything. I suggested writing a chorus akin to a folk song (the ‘Silver Birch Song’). Roxanna wanted to base a whole scene on ‘O Soldier, Soldier, Won’t You Marry Me’, which I then worked into the text. She would ask me to provide a solo focal point for each character; I might ask her if she could combine the ‘Silver Birch Song’ with Sassoon’s ‘Everyone Sang’, and she would then ask me to put some bird imagery into the ‘Silver Birch Song’ poem. Moreover, the give and take is not only between composer and librettist, but also involves director, singers, conductor, designer – and one might tweak details right up to opening night.
The better the teamwork, the smoother the ride, and like any team, a good librettistcomposer mix needs trust, mutual respect, humility, reliability, a sense of shared purpose and a lot of slog. The whole has to work, and it has to work for everybody.
A libretto is skeleton to the music’s muscle, clothes hanger to its designer dress, or pitchfork to prod the composer up to the heights. Get it right and the opera becomes more than the sum of its parts and acquires a life of its own. It no longer belongs to you, but, rightly, to its performers and audience.