How do you become a librettist?
The short answer is: I have no idea. You write some lyrics and then you’re audacious enough to share them publicly and, if you’re lucky, a composer sees what you’ve done and commissions work. Volia! You’re a librettist.
For me, it was luck. I used to write songs when I was child and perform them for my mother, but that was the extent of my song-writing experience. In 2012, I was procrastinating drafting my novel chapter and scrolling on Twitter when I ran across Neil Gaiman’s tweet-call for entries into the English National Opera Miniopera contest, which he and Jeremy Sams judged.
In the surprise of the century, I won. You can read about my adventure here on my now-retired blogger site.
Once I won, several composers wrote to me to ask for a libretto for their work. On another old Blogger post, you can read about one opera scene that I wrote for the talented Charlie McCarron. It was performed live by the Opera on Tap singers in Minneapolis, and later performed by the stunning opera singers at SMU.
I worked with another composer shortly after that. Évariste, a short original opera about the 19th century mathematician Évariste Galois, debuted in London’s Courtauld Gallery in July 2015. Two more performances were part of London’s Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival. The composer, Helgi Ingavarrson, currently resides in Iceland:
“Évariste, composed by Helgi R. Ingvarsson, is a re-enactment of the life of French mathematics genius Évariste Galois. It depicts his struggles with love interest Stéphanie and his failed examination at the Polytechnique institute. Choral scholar Jonathan Hyde gives a heart-breaking performance as the vulnerable and obsessive Évariste with soaring mezzo-soprano Freya Jacklin as the selfish Stéphanie. Three examiners [ Callie Swarbrick, Claire Bournez and Christian Valle] sing operatically and move like dancers, and, together [with] a small ensemble, produce a highly dramatic opera that grabs the audience’s attention with touching music that captures the intensity and tragedy taking place on stage.”
–Mary Grace Nguyen at LDNcard.com
Now, I’m finishing up a song cycle with the prolific composer, W. Brent Sawyer.
Writing lyrics and creating worlds for operatic or classical pieces taps a different part of my brain than does writing fiction. When one part of the brain is unwilling, the other leaps at the chance to create.
