The Operas of Thomas Adès

In the past several decades, the field of opera studies has developed numerous methodological approaches for the analysis and interpretation of the diverse signifying systems to be found within an operatic performance. Nevertheless, these approaches are frequently felt to be incompatible, leading to scholarly engagement that privileges certain aspects of the operatic design over others. The proposed research in this Fellowship is innovative, for it moves beyond the word-music relationships to be found in the score (an approach typical of much traditional opera analysis) to consider theoretically the relationship between the constituent categories of words, music and production. As such, the research acknowledges recent trends in opera studies to give greater weight to opera as event, but goes further by offering innovative readings incorporating all three categories, thereby offering the potential to transform existing academic and public conceptions of operatic meaning construction and its interpretation.

In order to demonstrate the theory, the Fellowship will examine the stage works by the British composer Thomas Adès (born 1971). Adès's operatic aesthetic foregrounds the dynamic interaction of operatic media: he has spoken approvingly of the 'mysterious thing that happens when you set actions to music: a third shape that emerges when something non-visual like a musical score is acted out by people moving on a stage'. This mystery has perhaps discouraged scholarly enquiry into Adès's three operas ('Powder Her Face' (1995), 'The Tempest' (2004), and 'The Exterminating Angel' (2015)): to date, the literature has focused primarily on his instrumental music. The international critical and commercial success of the operas sets the lack of scholarly engagement into sharp relief. This lacuna is problematic, given the artistic and contextual significance of the operas, for in them Adès transcends the technical and expressive preoccupations of his non-texted outputs, reaching out to comment critically on wider social, cultural and historical issues.

Nevertheless, the range of connections between Adès's operatic and non-operatic music, both in content and in artistic ambitions, requires that the former is considered in conjunction with the latter. An understanding of Adès's works for the stage thus necessitates consideration of what links them to his broader output, as well as what makes them distinctive. Adès's approaching fiftieth birthday (2021) makes such a sustained enquiry into his music especially timely. This Fellowship thus situates the operas as a central component of Adès work, as part of a broader reframing and re-evaluation of his music and its reception.

The Principal Investigator has united an international team of experts from the UK and North America - the two territories in which Adès's music has had most success - to explore the Fellowship's key questions from diverse perspectives. He will lead collaborations that will culminate in a significant new essay collection that explores the range of Adès's music, exploring issues around analysis, performance, voice, musical meaning, and cultural implications. Doing so will not only open up Adès scholarship to a significantly wider range of works than have hitherto been discussed, but offer revisionary and novel readings of more familiar pieces. This work will therefore provide a rich and thought provoking contribution to Adès studies (and contemporary music studies more generally), transforming perceptions of the composer, and offering a background against which to pursue more sustained research into the operas themselves.

The long term aim of this research is to have a transformative effect on ways of thinking about meaning construction in opera, with the potential during the Fellowship to benefit three distinct groups outside of academia: audiences; producers and promoters of music (primarily opera); and performers and composers.

An initial objective of this work is to understand better the factors contributing to musical meaning in opera - the ways in which music, text and production combine to produce contingent, contextual and emergent meanings in performance. Audiences and opera producers and promoters will be the immediate beneficiaries here. These parties stand to gain from a more nuanced understanding of how musical and operatic meaning arise. For audiences, this knowledge can heighten engagement with performance and facilitate critical evaluation of different productions. For opera producers and promoters, this work allows for a more structured, theoretical framework to help inform production decisions and to reflect upon such decisions. (For overviews of the types of decision making that go on, see Hampe 2016 and McKechnie 2014.)

The Pathways to Impact document describes how the PI will pilot activities with Opera North in order to reach both of these groups in the North of England. In doing so, the PI will support Opera North's strategic aims concerning the facilitation of dialogue between staff working within and across the organisation, the development of new modes of audience engagement with patrons, and the showcasing of archival material to attract a wider audience interested in contemporary opera. By extending the impact of this work through the dissemination of the feedback from these events to a global audience, these activities will also serve to advance Opera North's internationalisation strategy.

The proposed research also addresses gaps in our understanding of contemporary music. Thomas Adès's music has reached a large global audience, yet scholarly study of this music - how it is structured, how it engages with society and culture, how it relates to musical tradition and so on - has pursued relatively narrow trajectories (see 'Research Context'). Expanding the research frame of reference, and bringing these findings to listeners and performers, provides the opportunity for these groups to rethink and reframe their engagement, understanding, and appreciation of Adès's music. With Adès's fiftieth birthday approaching in 2021, it is reasonable to predict that, building on prior impact activities involving, or organised by, the PI (including pre-concert talks, articles for programme books and brochures, broadcast appearances, and public symposiums), that opportunities will arise for further direct impact of the specific research into Adès's music on beneficiaries beyond academia. In particular, the publication of an edited volume and a monograph on Adès's music will provide the stimulus for considerable public engagement in this area, communicating the transformative findings of this research into Adès's music to audiences, performers and other composers.

The proposed research is also urgent in that it builds on burgeoning scholarship that considers opera in performance (see research context), but transforms this work to take into account contemporary opera. The provision of mechanisms for audiences and opera producers/promoters to consider the relationship of media and how they contribute to opera as experienced is of value to the understanding of Adès's broader compositional achievements, and in thinking more broadly about opera today. The final impact activity of the Fellowship will be to run a public event around contemporary opera in conjunction with Opera North, allowing audiences and those involved in the creation and performance of operas to come together to examine these issues together.