Work
Lanternfish
a chamber opera
About
María is a marine biologist specialising in a species of the Mesopelagic Zone known as myctophids, otherwise known as lanternfish - a small bioluminescent species of the deep ocean increasingly at risk of human impact.
Having just returned to her work following a year's absence, María and her team have embarked on a research expedition to the Southern Ocean, where she learns that in her absence, the world has shifted around her. As she begins to navigate a life irrevocably changed by a recent experience, she is brought face-to-face with the conflicts and contradictions of her personal and professional lives, and finds herself increasingly torn between the worlds of the rational and irrational, the living and the dead, as her personal and ecological grief melt into one another.
The première run of LANTERNFISH was performed by the following musicians:
María - Shana Moron-Caravel Ulric - Alaric Green Isabel - Ana Carmen Balestra Robert - Jonah Halton Lanternfish I (Quicksilver) - Yolisa Ngwexana Lanternfish II (BlueRay) - Emyr Jones
Conducted by Dominic Wheeler
Commissioned note
Commissioned by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in conjunction with the MA in Opera-Making and Writing, and in association with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.