From The Cutting Room To The Opera Hall
Best-selling author Louise Welsh finds collaborating on operas inspires her novel writing – but she’d still rather be a poet!
SCOTTISH author Louise Welsh is famed for her ability to write gripping, gothic tales. From the 2002 literary detective novel The Cutting Room to her dystopian Plague Times trilogy, her books captivate and entrance.
This January the Glasgow-based writer’s latest opera Anthropocene hits the stage. The collaboration with Scottish composer Stuart Macrae is set in the frozen Arctic wastelands.
Louise says that despite the white landscape, the production has some dark and troubling themes.
“Anthropocene opens just as an expedition to the Arctic is about to leave for home. The party includes a financier, an artist and a journalist. The crew discover something in the frozen ice and suddenly they’re trapped. The opera is filled with thrills and tension. Each character has their own reasons for being on the expedition, slowly revealed as the opera moves along.”
Opening at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, on January 24, Anthropocene is the fourth operatic production Louise and Stuart have collaborated on for Scottish Opera. Their first was a mini-opera, Remembrance Day, created for the Five:15 Operas Made in Scotland series.
“My friend and author Ron Butlin had a piece in the very first Five: 15 series that Scottish Opera ran. I went to watch and I was just completely jealous! I thought,
I want to do that! So, when Stuart got the invitation to take part and extended it to me, I was really pleased.
“Scottish Opera has been so generous to us. They’ve given us a real education. They send us tickets to all their shows. So, for the last 10 years I think I’ve more or less seen every show Scottish Opera have put on – as well as going to see operas elsewhere.”
After meeting at a writing residency in Bamberg, Germany, Stuart and Louise were keen to work together on a project. Although she admits collaborating doesn’t necessarily make the creative process quicker, Louise says it can be great fun.
“When you’re writing a novel, you have to work it all out for yourself, but during a collaboration there can be moments when you’re just bouncing off each other and things seem to move very, very quickly.
“Of course, there are also still moments when you get stuck and you have to go away and really think about it all. Collaborating doesn’t make it faster but it’s just very enjoyable, especially if you’re collaborating with the right person – and Stuart and I do get on well.”
Neither Louise or Stuart has visited the Arctic, but they both find the frozen wastelands fascinating. “A lot of the inspiration for the opera came from Stuart and me just talking. We talk, talk, talk all the time. We also spent a lot of time looking at beautiful photographs of the Arctic. It’s a strange landscape that’s got an audio world of its own.
“I wanted to create something that featured extreme jeopardy and the idea of being trapped in some place like the Arctic is really quite terrifying. When we are in