What We Learned

Rather than there being a lack of women who want to write libretti, the research suggested that there are plenty of women writing libretti, but a lower chance that they will be commissioned, for a range of reasons.

The research focused on two areas: the challenges librettists can face in building and maintaining a career, and the challenges that women may face in creative roles in opera. By over-laying these two areas, and understanding how they intersect, we could gain a perspective on female librettists’ experiences.

Those interviewed commented on the following challenges facing librettists

• There are few formal routes in to writing libretti and, in comparison to many other artistic roles, fewer artist/career development opportunities. Even for established librettists there aren’t that many paid commissions, reflecting the relatively low number of new operas being commissioned in the UK annually. Writing a libretto can be a lengthy and highly involved process, and the fee given may not reflect this.
• In a conventional writing relationship, the librettist is generally junior to the composer who has final say over which parts of the text are used and how. Consequently librettists have lower status in the creative process and limited autonomy over how their words are used in the final production.
• There are currently few opportunities through which librettists and composers can get to know one another, or test out working relationships outside of being commissioned. So composers may choose to repeatedly work with librettists they already know or who appear to them to be ‘safe’, or familiar.
• Unlike many theatres with dedicated Literary departments, there is generally little resource within opera houses for anyone on the creative staff to be responsible for getting to know writers or their work. Consequently it can be hard for librettists to get a foot in the door or onto the radar of an opera house.
• While the music for a new opera may be given proper resourcing in terms of its development, this is less likely to be the case for the text. Consequently librettists’ work may not be given the development time or attention it needs. Yet having a ‘flop’ attached to them is something which, in the risk-adverse context of opera, is difficult for a librettist – especially a less established one – to recover from.

Challenges for woman in creative roles in opera

• The research suggested there are complex issues in regards to how women are viewed in the opera world generally. In particular whether they are taken seriously as creators.
• Overwhelmingly ‘gatekeepers’ in the opera world, including those involved in the commissioning of new opera, are male and relatively homogenous in terms of age, ethnicity, and class background. This means the bulk of artistic decisions about what work gets made in UK opera and by who is taken by a relatively narrow group.
• In addition to this, the majority of people in training and working professionally as composers are male.
• It was felt that the lack of resource given to development of texts (as noted above) can mean less traditional modes of storytelling (and in particular, storytelling about women that doesn’t adhere to classic ‘tropes’ of femininity) is not given the time or space to be developed, understood or appreciated by other people involved in the commissioning, development, and staging of a new opera.
• The opera world can be ‘risk adverse’ and protective of its heritage. This heritage is one in which women aren’t particularly visible as creators. This can mean women are, either consciously or unconsciously, perceived as being risky if placed in a creative role, because they don’t resemble the people who, historically, have undertaken these roles.

While the research that Tonic conducted was initiated by our question about female librettists, it exploded our thinking into many more areas than we had initially expected. We’re now thinking about how we work with women across all creative roles and also what Mahogany Opera Group’s role, as an organisation that stretches the boundaries of what opera can be and who it is for, can be in addressing some of the challenges the research identified.