Essential Opera has announced the digital premiere of their original holiday piece, December. The short film goes live on Monday, December 21 at 8:00 p.m. AST during a hosted YouTube event. CMC Atlantic caught up with composer Monica Pearce about her new one-act opera for three sopranos and string quartet, soprano Erin Bardua and Essential Opera’s Maureen Batt. Cast member Maureen is also a CMC Board member and Vice-Chair of the Atlantic Regional Council. December tells the story of Julia and Natasha, a couple who are preparing to meet Julia’s parents for the first time. Originally conceived to be performed in airports around Atlantic Canada, Essential Opera had to adapt due to the pandemic.
CMC: I’m intrigued by your original plan to perform the opera live at airports – such a cool idea! What was your rationale behind this, and what kind of performance areas were you thinking about, pre-pandemic?
Maureen and Erin: Such a great question; what WERE we thinking?!
Part of the show is set right at airport security, so we were excited about presenting it “on location.” Plus, the story is about travelling, and we were interested in how people would respond to the story when they were in the midst of travel themselves.
Claire Fraser, Camera Operator with Erin Bardua (Julia). Photo by Halley Davies.
Monica: I feel like the idea of an opera about airport travel actually taking place in an airport is totally wild! And I don’t think it’s very often that opera is presented in an airport setting so having the artform in a new space could be a very fun intervention.
Maureen and Erin: We really hope that sometime in the future we will be able to produce the site-specific version of December as well, because the idea is just so fun. However, we’re really happy with what we’ve been able to do with it on film!
CMC: How difficult was it to rehearse and then put together the film version during the pandemic?
Monica: I am so deeply impressed with Essential Opera and how they have pulled this off. Talk about problem-solvers!!
Maureen and Erin: We knew we wanted to make the project work and we were prepared to do whatever it took to make it happen safely. We commissioned this work in 2018, and it’s specific to this season of the year, so waiting another year just didn’t feel like an option. And since we had already done an opera short film in Sept-October, it was easier for us to envision how this opera might take shape in that form – although, also easier for us to imagine what might be extra challenging. Monica’s right about the problem-solving. As is true for so many artists and arts organizations, it’s been a constant turntable of logistical maneuvers. As we sit here typing we honestly still can’t believe that the recording and the filming happened!
We followed all health protocols for any in-person portions of the process. We had a composer workshop that was also our one and only rehearsal. Maureen, Erin, the string quartet and Tara (our conductor) met in Halifax. Then, through the magic of our engineers Ben at Leaf Music in Halifax and Jenn at Swan Studios in NYC, we connected Danielle (NYC) and Monica (Texas) to the audio feed. That was an intense three hours!
Our recording session had a similar setup — connecting our studio in Halifax to the one in NYC. And we’ve only just done our filming days (again, separately in Halifax and NYC).
Like most artists, we have had a lot of feelings about not being able to have what we used to know as a regular opera workshop and rehearsal process. But we found other ways to connect. And now that we’re almost at the finish line, we’re so glad that we are getting to bring this work to life this month!
Maureen Batt & Erin Bardua, sopranos. Dahlia Katz Photography
CMC: It’s interesting that you’ve got a predominantly female cast, crew and instrumentalists, and I think many women can relate to the stress of travelling and meeting new family at any time of year, but especially over the holidays. Can you speak about some of the challenges composers and conductors might still be experiencing as women in 2020?
Monica: I think writing the libretto for December was really fun and cathartic to an extent. I was in a long-distance relationship for over four years before my husband and I lived in the same country, and negotiating holiday travel was always an intricate and slightly stressful endeavor. There is a scene where Julia (Erin) is on hold with a Customer Service Representative (Maureen) from the airline, and it feels incredibly relevant to that feeling of trying to check to-dos off and just getting stuck by inefficiencies.
One side benefit of the format of this opera is that we have a cast and crew that’s spread across two countries and somehow we (i.e., mostly Maureen and Erin) have been able to make something beautiful despite not all being in person. And an added benefit is that this opera will have viewers from Prince Edward Island all the way to McAllen, Texas and lots in between, which is not always possible for a premiere. However, I am very much looking forward to a future where we can enjoy live opera – those beautiful sound waves – directly into our ears, again.
It’s been so incredible to work with an all-female/non-binary team for this project; I really feel like one very lucky composer/librettist. Essential Opera and I have done a number of projects together, and they really go well out of their way to commission and program composers by women and underrepresented artists. I think what makes them special in this regard is that they are really willing to delve deep and research artists, and work hard to deepen the relationships they already have with composers — which, lucky for me, includes Monica Pearce!
Composer Monica Pearce. Photo by Sean Gasser.
Maureen and Erin: We’ve certainly both had our fair share of stressful traveling! In fact, it’s not very often we hear someone talking about a very smooth traveling experience. In this story, there are even more layers of stress because one of the characters is going to meet her partner’s family for the first time, and they are having to travel separately. Fortunately, they have a really great relationship and support each other through the experience despite the distance – something we can also all relate to right now!
Erin Bardua as Julia. Photo by Claire Fraser.
Essential Opera’s mandate includes creating work for women and other underrepresented artists. We are proud to have an all-women/non-binary artistic team for this project, because they often get sidelined in our industry. Recently there was an article (https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/eight-of-100-conductors-are-women-bachtrack-study) pointing out that of the top 100 conductors only eight were women. Except, plot twist, the point was that’s actually a huge improvement over only 1 (one) just a few years ago. So we were thrilled to have Tara on board and she did an incredible job leading the complex ensemble parts, and even cueing Danielle all the way in NYC, who she could see but not hear.
The fact that the Metropolitan Opera produced its first production by a woman since 1903 almost exactly 4 years ago says anything we might need to say about the need to promote the work of brilliant composers like Monica Pearce.
Monica has written a fantastically clever and entertaining piece featuring three delightful women characters. Scoring this opera for a trio of equal soprano voices, both by size of role and by specific type and colour — is a highly unusual choice, as is the fact that none of them are victimized or serve as props for a male character’s story. The instrumental ensemble of chamber strings is unusual, too, compared to piano or a larger orchestra. It has been refreshing and fun to work on, and will be the same for the audience!
Danielle Buonaiuto (Cast). Photo by Aleks Karjaka at Karjaka Studios
We were really excited to work with our dream team of Halley Davies (director, director of photography) and Claire Fraser (editor, camera operator). In fall 2020, Netflix cancelled eight previously greenlit shows, six of which had women in the job of showrunner. Our team also included Anna Shepard (camera operator at the audio recording session), Jenn (recording engineer in NYC), and Elizabeth van Os (NYC videographer). Again, it is obvious that it’s really important to encourage and enable underrepresented people in the arts wherever possible.
Conductor Tara Scott. Photo by Emily Jewer, MJ Photographics
Presenting new works, particularly those by and about people outside the traditional operatic “canon,” has been a constant priority for Essential Opera. This work feels particularly important to us right now. Unusually, December isn’t about the tribulations and trauma of the queer experience. It is hard to find queer representation in art or in mainstream media that shows positive outcomes, happy relationships, and where the conflicts in the story are not tropes connecting the characters’ orientation or gender to unhappiness.
MC: Next plans for Essential Opera?
Essential Opera: This production actually marks the second opera short of our 10th anniversary season. We also produced a Digital Original of Anna Pidgorna’s opera Mirror, Mirror. This can be seen on our YouTube channel here:
Next, we’ll be looking for a moment to just breathe and then start planning our second decade of opera productions, which will feature a new work by Fiona Ryan!
Tickets for December can be purchased here: https://www.tickethalifax.com/events/109547610/essential-opera-presents-december-by-monica-pearce
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