Two striking chamber operas premiere in a double bill that brings us face-to-face with the climate crisis. After My Breath, a love letter to Greta Thunberg, is a bold new chamber opera for solo soprano, drawn from moments in the life of climate activist Greta Thunberg. In their new chamber opera Eden 2.0, librettist Alexia Peniguel and composer William Gardner take the Garden of Eden as their starting point and ask: what if creation could be rebooted, but this time the tree of knowledge was sanctioned and freely accessible?
Eleanor, Green Opera was founded with a clear environmental mission. How does directing a work like Eden 2.0: A Double Bill sit differently for you than a more conventional commission, and what particular responsibilities does that bring to the staging?
Firstly, I should say that I’m directing Eden 2.0 rather than the full double bill. One of the most exciting aspects of the project has been continuing the sustainable ways of working that I’ve developed through Green Opera and finding them so enthusiastically embraced at the Arcola and Grimeborn. This is my seventh production at Grimeborn, and it has been wonderful to see the festival continue to support and champion environmentally conscious ways of making opera. It’s inspiring to collaborate with artists who share a commitment to creating work responsibly.
Eden 2.0 is uniquely concerned with the environment, asking how we might build an ideal society while exploring the inevitable tensions between theory and practice. That feels particularly resonant today, as we all grapple with the realities of creating more sustainable ways of living. Those same questions arise in the rehearsal room: how do we balance ambition with responsibility? Designer Emily Cave and I are using second-hand and upcycled materials throughout, ensuring that the production process reflects the values at the heart of the piece. It has been a joy to work with William and Alexia on a new opera that places environmental questions at its centre, and to see a new generation of opera-makers engaging so imaginatively and urgently with these issues.
Lisa, you came to composition relatively late, after careers in both opera direction and media law. How did those earlier lives shape the way you approach writing opera, and do you think the show could only have been made by someone with that particular combination of experience?
Many of my operas including a few in development have biographical themes and include living people. My media lawyer career has involved handling defamation advice on Panorama and Dispatches higher risk programming. So I know how to tread carefully, what counts as truthful facts or comments which are lower risk. I also know who to go to for script clearances. I think others could also do so but my background gives me expertise where I’m confident to do so. Previous work included getting the same clearances for my opera about Princess Diana with mentions of King Charles and our then living Queen.
The double bill places two very different imaginative approaches to the climate crisis in conversation. Eleanor, how did you approach finding a coherent theatrical language across both works, and where did you find the points of connection?
As I’m directing Eden 2.0 rather than both pieces, I can’t speak in detail about the theatrical language of After My Breath. What has been exciting, though, is the opportunity to place these two very different responses to the climate crisis in dialogue with one another. Although they approach environmental questions from distinct perspectives, both works ask fundamentally human questions about responsibility, legacy and the consequences of our choices.
In approaching Eden 2.0, I have been particularly interested in the tension between idealism and reality: how visions of a better future collide with the practicalities of human behaviour. I think that creates a fascinating conversation with After My Breath, as audiences are invited to encounter two contrasting imaginative worlds and reflect on the many different ways opera can engage with the climate crisis. Rather than offering simple answers, the evening opens up a space for discussion, which feels both artistically and politically important.
Lisa, After My Breath weaves Thunberg’s story with echoes of Mozart, Puccini and Bizet what were the risks and rewards of borrowing from that operatic canon, and how did you navigate writing music that honours those influences without being overwhelmed by them?
We just flash into those musical memories and back out again, like flashbacks. So I was able to compose a score and orchestration that still feels truly my own in all other moments. It was harder to move into and out of those excerpts so it took more work musically and dramatically to find ways and reasons to do so. When you see the piece each homage is there for different dramatic reasons eg Puccini’s Tosca we go from a musical memory Greta might have had in childhood of “Love and music” Vissi d’arte (I lived for art, I lived for love), which is a desperate, heartbreaking prayer where the title character laments her fate, to Greta proclaiming no this is a ‘living song.’ This is a direct reference to opera too often having dying female characters and Greta’s living mission. Greta is very much alive and I am sure the world has only just begun to see her influence. Yes there are risks yet for such intense serious subject matter, I also thought it would add a playfulness and give some lighter relief. I admit I took some poetic licence re: songs her mother might have sung because she’s a mezzo and I wanted to get some soprano word references in at times! So the audience might need to imagine she was in a rehearsal room or simply attended the opera. I’ve taken my kids to loads of operas so it still feels authentic.
Lisa, the refrain at the heart of After My Breath “I am one voice. I was never meant to be the only one” sits in interesting tension with the solo soprano form. Was that tension intentional, and how does the staging handle it?
It’s a call to the audience to be the other voices, a call to action so yes it’s intentional and I think heightens the need for us all to join her. In addition, throughout the piece the orchestra reflects two choruses, firstly the school children who joined her on Fridays to protest and ‘became a chorus’, and secondly the politicians and world leaders who are against her. In the orchestration there are repeated motifs which in my mind are the words being constantly repeated to dismiss her. Those antagonistic forces represent the most dissonant music.
Both works ultimately ask whether knowledge, art, or individual voice can actually change anything. Do either of you have an honest answer to that question or does the uncertainty feel like part of the point?
Eleanor: It would be disingenuous to suggest there is a single, settled answer to the question. In many ways, the uncertainty is the point of both works. They are not seeking to resolve whether knowledge, art, or individual voice can effect change, but to hold that question under pressure and see what emerges.
William Gardener’s work feels rooted in difficult, human questions where certainty is impossible. I also directed his opera The Prisoner, set on death row, which explored ideas of goodness and moral judgement in extremis, staying unflinchingly with what resists resolution. He is drawn to the grey areas of behaviour and motivation, and that comes through in the music itself. It never turns sentimental, and it doesn’t lead the audience towards easy answers, but trusts them to sit with the complexity.
In Eden 2.0, I am interested in what happens when ideals of a better society meet lived reality. The piece keeps circling the gap between theory and practice, and the way systems, compromise and human behaviour complicate even the most well-intentioned visions of change. That tension resists any simple claim for art’s power, without diminishing it.
Music, and William’s in particular, can articulate what words cannot. The relationship between libretto and score allows ambiguity to stay alive rather than be resolved, and in Eden 2.0 the orchestra also feels like a kind of observing presence on the experiment itself.
Placed alongside After My Breath, the two works don’t answer the question so much as hold it open from different angles. What remains is a shared space of inquiry where contradiction isn’t solved but lived with, which feels at the heart of why we make this work at all.
Lisa: I am always searching for very recent, contemporary subject matter and strong female characters to justify bringing new operatic work to life. Such relevant stories have the potential, with powerful music, to resonate with audiences in ways that news articles may not. Yet I’m alive to it being harder to use opera/music to bring about change. I think sometimes it’s part of many ways collectively to change.