Interview with Emily Howard, MOP Artistic Director

Charlotte & Grace
Q. Where did the idea for the MOP opera project come from?
 
Emily
A. It came from noticing a need.  I am a singer and have had quite a few close associations with current composers.  Except for a very lucky few, most composers are forced to work in a lonely vacuum because there aren’t enough opportunities to hear their pieces performed.  With opera and vocal work, this becomes a particular problem, because the composer really needs to hear and see these kinds of works at least partially on their feet in order to make final decisions.  Anything to do with voice or drama is going to alter pretty radically from page to performance.  I wanted to create some sort of organisation where composers could actually hear chunks of an opera performed as they are being developed.  And I also wanted to produce whole versions of shorter vocal works, so that we get some full productions that hopefully are portable enough to take to festivals.  This is partially the goal with Mysterious 44.
 
Charlotte & Grace
Q. What exactly is mop opera project?
 
Emily
A. MOP is an organisation currently in its baby stages, but the larger vision is to create something as described above.  There is a wonderful organisation in Brooklyn, NY called American Opera Projects that does something similar to what I am envisioning.  They have a roster of composers who are working on very interesting operas and they help them develop them over a number of years.  They also present scenes from the operas at regular intervals to an enthusiastic committed audience base.  I’m taking inspiration from what they do and taking it even a bit further by committing to commissioning and producing some shorter works. This year, MOP is launching itself with a full production of Mysterious 44, which is a short, chamber opera for 4 singers with an electronic backing.  Next year, I want to begin with the presentation of scenes of larger, developing works while also commissioning and presenting another shorter work. And we’ll take it from there! We are currently building a roster of interested composers and singers.  And of course, we are hoping to build a massive audience base.
 
Charlotte & Grace
Q. Have you been involved in a similar production before?
 
Emily
A. I have.  First of all, I have sung hundreds of new pieces and have worked closely with certain composers for years so I have a good idea of how to work with and help composers. Secondly, I was the director of Ensemble Youkali in New York, which was an organisation dedicated to presenting opera and vocal works in unconventional formats and staging.  We did a version of the Rake’s Progress that was set in a series of five installations created for the production by NY and Boston based artists.  We had a bead garden, a pop up house, a cemetery made of cards, a stained glass bordello installation and a wonderful installation of this gorgeous cracked door with projected light that represented the asylum.   These were the various scenes in the opera and the players travelled around to them while the audience sat cabaret style in the middle. It turned out to be very effective.  We also did a cabaret piece for four singers, that was a series of orchestrated arts song, that we arranged purely by key.  This is in turn formed its own narrative, so we made a set and took it from there and added Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes in between sets of songs as sort of a commentary.  I would love to try some similar ideas with MOP in our full productions of short works.  For example, Mysterious 44 will feature an installation by Onome Ekeh, a New York based video artist.  I think it is important and also serious fun to incorporate as much new artistic media as is possible with every new presentation.  I love playing matchmaker with artists in different media.   Kevin Malone and Onome Ekeh and I already worked on a presentation of Kevin’s piece A Clockwork Operetta, which we presented at the PEN International Voices Festival in New York in 2012.

Charlotte & Grace
Q. What kind of legacy would you like MOP to leave?
 
Emily
A. I really want MOP to turn into a creative opera lab where new musical ideas, technological ideas and dramatic themes can be patiently developed.  And I very much want MOP to turn into an organisational resource for the UK composer community. And Manchester is the place to do it! Manchester is already such a fantastic city for composition; there is a very rich new music community here.  I want to put a little focus specifically on the development of new opera within this existing community.   I also want to create a space where composers and audience can interact freely.  I want an intelligent, excited audience to be a crucial part of the development of the new pieces.  Lastly, I hope that it can be a resource for larger UK and international opera companies to come and see some the larger developing operas as they are being presented, so that they can find operas that they might be interested in producing themselves.
 
Charlotte & Grace
Q. We are singers, is there any way we could get involved, in the future, in mop opera project?
 
Emily
A. Absolutely!  Just contact us through the website.  We are looking to build a roster of interested singers so we want to hear everybody.  Even if we don’t have an opera that is suitable for your voice or type at the moment, we certainly might in the future.




Charlotte Dyce & Grace Gladston and students at Manchester University and are working as interns at MOP