SNACK had the joy of chatting with Scottish composer extraordinaire Karen MacIver about her latest project, RED, written with Jane Davidson for Scottish Opera Young Company – and it was anything but Grimm! (I went there, and I’m not sorry.)
Karen, what can you tell us about RED?
It tells the four ages of women through the Brothers Grimm stories, using magical realism. What we have made is a small four-act opera: the acts only last fifteen minutes and each one is dedicated to the ‘four ages’ of women, so child, youth, woman and crone.
It’s personified by act one being Red Riding Hood, act two is Rapunzel, act three is Snow White and act four is Hansel and Gretel.
However, the through line is that one female character is all of these people, so Red Riding Hood becomes Rapunzel, who becomes the stepmother in Snow White, who then stumbles across the witch in Hansel and Gretel – she isn’t actually the witch, because she needs to redeem herself!
I still love the Grimm stories, even at my current age
They’re fabulous, aren’t they, in their origination?
They are dark, and we haven’t Disney-fied these stories.
Were there any Grimm stories that you considered using but ultimately had to drop, or was it always going to be those four?
What we really wanted was the storyline itself. We started massive research on the Grimm books and, gosh, there were so many options. Weirdly we could not find one crone character for act four that was really right for the story. I mean, we could have made her the witch from Hansel and Gretel but that didn’t justify [the transition] from act three; she needed to be redeemed. So what we did was take the essence of the crone that appears in so many of these stories and complete her journey.
How long did the process take between conception and the finished opera?
This has been a long process, but that’s because when we were working with Scottish Opera Young Company, we wanted to introduce the young singers to a short extract of fairly complex music that would be one of the supporting pieces of theatre that we’d use in training each year. So Red Riding was written, oh, two years ago, Rapunzel was last year and the last two we put together for this year.
RED is being performed by Scottish Opera Young Company, so what is the age range for the cast?
They’re all aged between seventeen and about twenty-two. You know, they’re great. Some of them are just beginning their full-time training and others are just finishing and starting to find their way in their own singing lives. It’s really funny because in opera, age twenty-three is still a really young voice.
I’ve also worked a lot with dance and Scottish Ballet, and by twenty-three you’re already a very mature dancer! They’re going into the arts from the athletic side so it can be quite a short career, whereas when you’re a singer, in this case a classical singer, you’re only just reaching your maturity so it’s a very different game.
These young performers must be very excited and inspired to be working with you – is it true you learned to play piano by ear?
Yes, I played by ear when I was a really tiny kid and then I was sent to lessons because it was always regarded as a sin to be playing by ear, like ‘no, you must learn to read [music]’ as if that was the correct way to play an instrument. I cannot tell you what an asset it has been to my professional life.
I call myself a classical music improviser because I don’t always feel bound to reading, and so what’s lovely, especially with dance, is that I do a lot of improvisation there and I teach that to young piano players who are coming up now.
So which composers inspired you when writing the music for RED?
I really wanted to channel Bernard Herrmann and Stephen Sondheim.
Can you tell us more about the music in RED?
It’s a funny thing, in classical music you would call them the ensemble or the orchestra, but I’ve taken to calling us musicians the band. There’s five of us and all are playing both acoustic and electronic instruments in the show, because I kind of wanted RED to sound like a film score so I wrote it as electronic and acoustic with a soundtrack of effects running through it. I want to be able to write indoor and outdoor music, if that makes sense?
I’ve known everyone in the band from different parts of my musical life and they’re all super talented in so many genres. Our guitarist, Ross Milligan, works in the jazz world and he’s come in as a very great reader even though jazz is filled with a lot of improvisors. It’s been a huge challenge for me to write for guitar and a huge challenge for him to come and work in an orchestra.
I can’t not ask this, given the opera – what is your favourite fairy tale?
Ooh, I’d say for RED that my favourite would be Snow White – it has something a bit different. I’ve always loved the story and this works so well on the stage.
RED will play 18th till 21st July, Scottish Opera Production Studios, Glasgow
