Opera and the Ocean

Welcome to Tuning in to Opera, 2023!

Why start our year with a term whose theme is not an opera composer or a cultural focus or a period in operatic style, but the water that covers 71 percent of the Earth's surface?

Here are some answers, from our own Martin Buzacott. ‘The ocean embodies all the moods that inspire composers in their symphonies, tone poems, operas and ballets—the tempestuous storms, the blissful calms, the surging waves, and the rippling, glistening, undulating textures emerging from the ever-changing whims of the weather.’

Shimmering sea (of LED lights) carries the troubadour to strange music towards his unknown love - the Met's L'Amour de Loin.

Of course, the same could be said of many other possible themes – romantic love, for example, or masquerading identity. But here’s a difference: across the history of opera, the ocean reappears as a force, a dominating power, an agency - a character - in plots and productions that drive the story.

Meet the Pearl Fishers - divers into danger to the sweet strains of Bizet’s overture - LA Opera.

Telling the terror of a tempest or the sweet immensity of the moving sea is central to the director’s task in so many operas, as is facing the technical challenge for imagery, lighting, scene change. And for the composer, often, the ocean is a leading character, whose voice we hear not in arias or explanatory recitative, but in some, even all, of their music.

Sailors vs the towering ocean - and the whale: Moby Dick at SFO

We’re going to start with three recent composers whose works are starring the ocean, (Jake Heggie, Thomas Adès and Kaija Saariaho.) Then we plan to work our way back in time, revisiting the great seafaring works of Britten, Bizet, then Wagner and finally Mozart, who created the only operatic role for the Ocean, a terrifying bass part for the (voice of) god Neptune.

It’s Neptune, deus ex machina arriving just in time to resolve the plot! Idomeneo by Mozart at the Metropolitan Opera, 2017.