Making Arrangements

chamber opera
2012

Duration 24’
Instrumentation soprano, mezzo, tenor, baritone, flute/piccolo, cor anglais, harp, violin, cello, double bass
First Performance August 2012, Têtê à Têtê Opera Festival; Jennifer France, Katie Grosset, Grant Doyle, Patrick Ashcroft, CHROMA Ensemble conducted by Alice Farnham
Libretto by Kate Kennedy
Directed by Bill Bankes-Jones
Commissioned by Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival

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Further Performances
01.05.26 Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London; Jette Parker Artists directed by Talia Stern and conducted by Peggy Wu more info
03.05.26 Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London; Jette Parker Artists directed by Talia Stern and conducted by Peggy Wu
05.05.26 Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London; Jette Parker Artists directed by Talia Stern and conducted by Peggy Wu
06.05.26 Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London; Jette Parker Artists directed by Talia Stern and conducted by Peggy Wu
08.05.26 Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London; Jette Parker Artists directed by Talia Stern and conducted by Peggy Wu

Making Arrangements was commissioned and produced by Tête à Tête Productions and premiered at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith on 2nd August 2012. Having written a very short children’s opera entitled The Fox and the Crow for Tête à Tête Productions in 2011, I was delighted to undertake a larger project the following year. Librettist Kate Kennedy and I collaborated on both occasions, which were the first opportunities we both had to write for opera. We subsequently wrote Out of the Ruins in 2014, a stage work commissioned by The Royal Opera House for their youth company mezzo-soprano Louise Winter and the orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Tim Murray.

The libretto for Making Arrangements is an adaptation of Elizabeth Bowen’s short story, which was first published in November 1925. Kate conceived the idea, and I agreed that it would make a compelling opera, given the richly developed characters and abundant atmosphere.

Making Arrangements subverts the conventional romance fiction of the time by depicting the dissolution of a marriage. The story is portrayed largely from the perspective of the boringly dependable but abandoned husband, Hewson, whose lack of imagination and flair drove his more mercurial wife, Marjory, into leaving him. We witness his metamorphosis from a stolid businessman to something more akin to a vampiric gothic horror anti-hero as he takes revenge not on his absent wife, but on her dresses, destroying with them the couple’s memories, love, and perhaps even his wife’s identity and soul.