When the pandemic arrived my amateur/semi-pro opera company in Coastal Norfolk, North Sea Opera, was about to perform the tour of the première of my opera ARTEMISIA. Three years later, I overcame the ramifications of many of the cast moving away and re-presented it last week with three performances, two in village halls and one in the local arts centre's theatre. My aim with North Sea Opera, the community arm of my professional company Selfmade Music, is to challenge the way opera is conceived, composed and created. At the core of the company's value is the empowerment of performers in concert with discerning what will work for amateur/semi-pro singers. The focus is on building community and how they will enjoy doing it.
"Imagine living in a tiny town in North Norfolk and being able to wander out and and see a newly composed opera about the 17th Century artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Bravi tutti North Sea Opera, what an amazing piece. Thank you Susie Self, it was exquisite."
Joss Bundy, audience member at Wells Maltings
Susannah and The Elders, Artemisia Gentileschi
Developing New Opera
Ever since I undertook my academic research, I have made it my business to investigate and invent new opera practice. For Artemisia in particular, I wanted to find methods whereby amateur/semi-pro singers could shine at their best. It would be fair to observe that singing standard operatic repertoire is often disappointing for them as the vocal expertise is not always within their grasp. It must be acknowledged that it is highly competitive to get into a conservatoire to train and then make it in the profession, this fact needs to be taken into account when discerning levels of vocality. When I conducted a local amateur opera company for 7 years I found the repertoire that suited their voices best, despite the complexity of the music, was Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten. Moving on, for my own company, North Sea Opera, I want to contradict prejudice and clichés in traditional opera and instead create opera that is appealing to the singers and audiences of today.To do this I need to develop my powers of freeness and spontaneity. As the leader of the company I need to be reliable (people singing for love do not always turn up whereas I always do) and I also need to be responsive to their needs. For example learning off the book is a big issue, so for this production I suggested we didn't need to learn the music. This took the pressure off and all the singers learnt their music beautifully. Reverse psychology works! I also played piano with some playback so that I could follow the singers if needs be. To include an ensemble of instrumental players would have been impractical with the dimensions of the venues, it would be much more costly and most importantly make a lot more stress for the singers. Only conservative trained singers have the ability to securely count, therefore accompanying the singers on piano gives them full reign to enjoy and express themselves with allowances. Especially as the composer playing, I can do this. As a consequence of such low stress they sang mostly in good time. I also suggested to the ensemble that we create the stage action together which leads to the term SINGER LED OPERA, a phrase which will come as sweet music to many singers' ears.
Serving The Community
To serve my community of singers in North Norfolk in particular, where the gender make-up of singers is 80% women to 20% men, I reflected this in the roles. In ARTEMISIA there are six equally weighted roles, one is for a man, 5 for women. The cast can expand to 7 women and 2 men bringing it up to 9. This makes the opera very usable by small low-funded touring companies and conservatoires. The roles are crafted to be singable with good tunes to enjoy. This opera is also very suited to underdeveloped voices.
A ten minute taster of the performance from The Wells Maltings, Norfolk June 2024
https://vimeo.com/963649124?share=copy
Changing Female Stereotypes in Opera
Artemisia’s inspiring story is of becoming a successful painter in the face of adversity after a #MeToo situation she encountered when she was 16. Artemisia’s character reflects my commitment as a composer to move away from presenting female stereotypes that Catherine Clément refers to in Opera, or, The Undoing of Women as ‘the role of jewel, a decorative object... on the opera stage women perpetually sing their eternal undoing.’ Surprisingly the majority of female characters in new operas rarely pass the Bechdel test as established by Alison Bechdel in Dykes to Watch Out For (1986). To comply, two women must talk about something other than a love interest. I believe that the 21st Century needs an alternative operatic paradigm in which female characters are defined by their actions rather than their gendered identity. This shift will in turn help contribute to developing the dramatic scope of male and non-binary roles. However, my chosen focus is to address the way in which 50% of the earth’s population is under-represented. I seek to transform Christopher Small’s observation in Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening that ‘it is rare on the opera stage to meet a heroine who is permitted to be strong and independent, which means not depending on male support, and get away with it’ (Small, 1998).
The Background to Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1652) was one of the foremost painters of the early 1600s. She created intensely powerful interpretations of biblical stories such as Susannah and the Elders. Artemisia moved in the courts of Rome, Naples, Florence and Venice. The opera takes a fictional perspective informed by historical research. In particular Artemisia’s residence in Venice coincides with the rise of convents as documented in Jonathan Glixon in Mirrors of Heaven or Worldly Theaters? Venetian Nunneries and their Music (2018). Even though Artemisia was subsequently forgotten by art history she was admired in her time and her gender was no bar to her acceptance as an artist. This may have been aided by the situation in which many cultured women in Venice were forced by circumstances to become nuns. Convents re-invented themselves as refuges from the patriarchy so that women embraced an unprecedented freedom. They dressed in their own clothes, commissioned artists and created operas which were accompanied by lavish feasts. In Artemisia the artist receives a commission from St. Catherine’s Convent to create a portrait. The National Gallery has just purchased Artemisia’s painting of St. Catherine as a Self-portrait.
Making a story and libretto for the opera
As the opera develops the nuns devise an opera within an opera based on the historically documented rape trial heard by the Pope in which Tassi, Artemisia’s fiancé, was convicted of rape. History shows that Artemisia’s response to this attack was to literally roll up her sleeves and become the artist that she was destined to be. Running parallel to Artemisia’s story is that of Artless, a modern painter. Artless struggles with her practice that seeks to convey art with no meaning. She falters in confidence until she discovers Artemisia’s work. Courageously she re-names herself from Alice to Artless by re-ordering the syllables of Artemisia Gentileschi, which reflect ‘less gentle art’, as in Artemisia’s Judith Decapitating Holofernes which was painted in three versions after the trial.
There is a Conversation
Opera director Phyllida Lloyd says there is a conversation ‘that is being had amongst women in the theatre, about the dearth of great roles for women over a certain age, and also [how] job opportunities are much narrower for women who are of unconventional size, shape, accent, ethnic origin, whatever.’ (Saner, 2016: The Guardian). Artemisia directly addresses this issue.
ARTEMISIA promotes 4 dynamic contemporary issues in a way that traditional opera does not.
They are:
1. A female character can fashion her own destiny towards a positive outcome despite a traumatic event.
2. Women artists deserve parity of representation.
3. Art does not always need to convey a meaning.
4. Ethically, new operas need to feature a higher percentage of female parts so as to reflect the current proportionality of singers available.
To conclude, many elements of story-telling embodied in Artemisia reflect recent shifts in some opera companies especially in Scandinavia, North Germany and the Americas. At Creation: Opera Europa’s 2019 conference in Antwerp I could see that the tide is turning towards areas in which my research has led me. In particular, creating new work that relates to contemporary issues and that features empowered women. However, in discussion with some of the main publishers and opera house intendants at Creation, I discovered that they remain invested in promoting new operas which often feature a proliferation of male protagonists such as in Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur (2008), George Benjamin’s Written on Skin (2012), Lessons in Love and Violence (2018), Hector Parra’s Les Bienveillantes (2019) and Wolfgang Rihm’s Jacob Lenz (2015). Even if a new opera features a lead woman such as in Mark Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole (2010) she is defined by her ability to ensnare a rich man with her sexuality which again references the traditional model. While I personally enjoy these operas for their astounding compositional dexterity, my response as a composer is to suggest that there is also room for women of action to take centre stage.
