Some thoughts about opera:

Opera is the natural place for me to combine my love of theater, singing, storytelling, and acting like batsh*t absurdism is perfectly normal and we should all just dive in. But opera as it exists now—a genre, an industry, a tradition—has never quite felt natural to me.

So, I’m working on creating and collaborating to build what I want to exist:

I want opera that explores the full range of human experiences…and non-human experiences. We often think opera is for telling large, sweeping, dramatic, and tragic stories—and it is! But our gifts can also be used to show exquisite joy, victory, playfulness, and more. We can explore the emotional lives of animals and the fantasies of creatures of lore. We can claim silliness for what it is — a complete and total freedom — and not pretend it is something lesser or relegate it to only children.

I want us to stop asking some of our players to embody trauma and sacrifice over and over and over again. While my work focuses on women, all marginalized voices are more than their traumas. Their strength is in more than resisting or out-maneuvering the people who would manipulate or crush them. Their heroic arcs on and off stage go beyond proving their full humanity to those who pull the strings.

I want opera to be gender balanced. If most of us are sopranos, then let’s have exciting roles, scenes, and full operas for mostly sopranos.

I want to recognize our absurdity. Non-opera types think we’re screaming, we’re over the top, we’re hard to understand, we’re stuffy. What wonderful things to have fun with. And if we don’t want to lean into those things, then we can remember that opera is just music plus stories, and we can use whatever techniques, styles, and devices we want to suit the specific story we want to tell.

I want opera to be short. Stories should be the length they need to be, no more.

I want opera to be fun. Funny, spooky, silly, playful, etc. When I watch an opera, I want to be able to easily see the stage, sit in a comfortable seat, and keep my budget in tact. I want to think the acting was good and that the people in the front row aren’t looking down on me for wearing jeans and that I haven’t had to drag anyone along.

I want that young singer to see a wide range of experiences waiting for them, now and in the future. I work with aspiring singers, and they are overwhelmingly sopranos. Many of them are women, and some don’t fall into traditional gender roles. As such, many of them beginning to peer into the universe of opera see a future of asking their bodies and minds to commit to playing out tragedy—and often assault, sickness, and abuse—again and again. To have to find their artistic voices in those modes, again and again. To portray women by reproducing the words and music of men, again and again. That, or they might get to occasionally play a bird-person of secondary importance. Or, they might see little representation of themselves at all. What if we made a world where they could see an opportunity full of being pirates and puppy dogs and geniuses and dashing heroes and formidable villains and ghosts and ghouls? If younger me, whose voice was starting to grow into something workable, had seen this future, what might have happened?

About my works:

At some level, all of my completed and in-progress works are about exploring who gets to walk freely through this world and who does not. I’m interested in making short, chamber works meant for smaller spaces that an be done in full-out staging, as concert works, or anything in between. As a singer, I write by singing. I’ve developed a practice of drafting both the text and music simultaneously. Instead of first finding a libretto and then writing music, I’m not finalizing either until I’m writing the actual score. This way, the music and text are dictating to and informing each other in what hopefully comes across as a natural flow. They can adapt to each other in the moment of writing to make honest statements for the character and piece. I love to explore animals, fairytales, and legends. I plan to avoid writing traumatic scenes for women performers, as best I can, and instead give opportunities to feel power and have fun while making full use of the marvelous instruments they’ve developed.

If you are interested in collaborating or performing, please reach out!

The Angel in the House (I Did My Best to Kill Her)

A woman sits down to work, but is interrupted by the the Angel in the House, a phantasm made entirely of repressive ideals of womanhood. The specter reminds her not to be too harsh, to smile, to remember her duties, to be sweet and caring and submissive. The woman resists, and the conflict escalates to a battle to the death. A comic opera. Inspired by “Professions for Women” by Virginia Woolf and a terrible old poem by Coventry Patmore.

For two sopranos and chamber ensemble

A woman: Soprano
The Angel in the House: Soprano

One act

In progress; open for collaborators and commissions

Finalist: MassOpera New Opera Workshop 8

Music and libretto by Ashi Day.