24/11/2019
I've spent much of the last year thinking about and creating a new opera called "Elsewhere" - based on the story of the 1919 Monaghan Asylum Soviet, when the striking staff at my local psychiatric hospital barricaded themselves in, raised a red flag and created an independent commune, radically overhauling the asylum structure and relying upon the cooperation of the resident patients. Research for the piece has taken me far and wide, and opened my mind in ways I couldn't have imagined. I traced the footsteps of St. Davnet/Dympna, patron saint of mental illness, from her legendary birth in Monaghan to her relics in Geel, Belgium (unearthing some devotional chants to her along the way, unsung for almost 1000 years). I stayed at a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland for six weeks, learning from and making music with the residents there, developing a better understanding of the human experience of care within a psychiatric institution, the shadows and pale light. With Annemarie Ní Churreáin and Dylan Coburn Gray, I've slowly unearthed the story beneath the history, the threads that spill from the radical event. Our "Elsewhere" is within the life and mind of a woman named Celine, who decades after the Soviet still remains locked within its moment - one of the alarmingly large number of people who spent much of the last century forgotten in long-term psychiatric care with no clear origin story.
I'm currently working with an army of wonderful artists - including seven stellar opera singers and French contemporary music ensemble Miroirs Étendus, conductor Fiona Monbet, director Tom Creed and a superb creative team - to Iontas Theatre in Castleblayney for two weeks of development on my first draft of the opera, which will have its stage premieres in 2021. At the end of this second week we'll do a performance at St. Maeldoid's Church - a 'first look' at an opera in the making, and the first event produced by my new company, Straymaker. Expect a warm Monaghan welcome.
All made possible through the generous support of Arts Council Ireland, Irish National Opera, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Malévoz Quartier Culturel, CreativeIrl Monaghan CoCo and Abbey Theatre.
