1/ What can you tell us about the premise of your opera?

Sara: Our opera came about after Will, the composer, and I had exchanged several ideas for pitches that touched on our shared interest several themes. These included loss, memory and identity and archetypal themes that resonate across cultures and therefore the stories of real people that ring true through those archetypes. Will found two fables, one from China and one from Grimm’s Tales, that told of parents losing their children and their subsequent terrible grief and emptiness. I mapped this on to a real life tragedy, a fishing accident that happened near where I live in Sussex, and then imagined a family affected by this loss, and how the tensions between them before the accident shape the way they try to  manage the loss, embodied in the spirit of the son returning. The story therefore becomes an allegory for grief and forgiveness.

2/ What have been the highlights and lowlights of writing it?

Sara: I come from a theatre background and have written quite a few plays – but this was the first time I had ventured into the form, and I have found it exciting and challenging in equal measure. I usually work quite methodically and create a structure which guides me through the writing of the script – but opera is a far more collaborative process, and although I have co-created work with community groups, it was an eye opener to have Will start the music with the ending, then jump to the middle and then create musical motifs and ideas. The music is beautiful and so the other highlight has been learning how the music can complement the text and can tell us so much about how the characters are feeling, running underneath their actual words.

3/ Does it have special significance or meaning to you personally?

Sara: Grief and loss is something most of us have suffered at some point, and I feel it is the writer’s job to tell a shared story that resonates with everyone in the audience on some level, regardless of the detail. Sadly, one of my friends suffered a terrible loss during the creation of the opera which, of course, has added another layer of meaning to the piece for me, and I hope I can bear witness to that through our work. It is a very sad story, but with the combination of words and music that opera can offer giving us an emotional arc to redemption and acceptance.

The 2023/24 cohort of the Guildhall Opera Maker's MA course

4/ How have you managed the collaborative process of the Opera Makers course? Is it easier writing in isolation?

Will: It’s been an interesting learning curve; I’m used to collaborating with librettists, singers and conductors, but I find it easiest to write at my own irregular pace, whereas the course with its weekly tutorials demands a more consistent one. Adapting to this has been tricky at times, but also incredibly rewarding. Another interesting facet of the course has been the production side. In my previous operas, I have sung in and produced the performances, so handing it over to a team and letting them interpret it has been a new experience for me. Whilst it at first felt slightly bizarre, I also have enjoyed not dealing with the stress of sourcing instrumentalists and rehearsal locations, performance venues, and dealing with marketing!

5/ What does your new work bring to the opera world?

Will: I believe that that dramaturgy of Time and Tide draws from both the traditions of the operatic canon (based on a fairy tale or fable), whilst also drawing upon newer strands (archetypal characters and timeless settings). Similarly, in a musical context, the word setting is inspired by Britten, and utilises a broadly tonal sound world, but also makes use of contemporary composition techniques, such as microtonality, to create a work that renders the familiar somewhat uncanny. I hope that this combination of the old and new will endear audiences who are potential skeptical of new work, whilst also providing a genuinely new theatrical experience.

6/ What are you hoping an audience will take from the work?

Will: I’m first and foremost hoping that the audience will be profoundly moved - this is something that is incredibly important to me and also the most rewarding aspect of my previous operas. I find that contemporary theatre (opera or otherwise) sometimes feels somewhat cold, and wants to be more cerebral than emotional. I always want my music to be visceral rather than intellectual; to appeal to the senses. I’m also hopeful that an audience will see how engaging new opera can be - that it can be beautiful as well as having an engaging and gripping plot, as opposed to its unfortunate but sometimes fair stereotype of being pretty but stale and boring, or riveting but ugly.

Time and Tide by Will Gardner and Sara Clifford is at Milton Court Studio Theatre from 20 - 25 June | gsmd.ac.uk