To See The Invisible

Emily Howard music Words by Selma Dimitrijevic after a short story by Robert Silverberg Richard Baker conductor Dan Ayling director Ana Ines Jabares-Pita designer Sally Ferguson lighting designer Birmingham Contemporary Music Group Nicholas Morris The Invisible Anna Dennis The Other Invisible Anne Mason Mother / Judge Peter Savidge Father / Brothel Owner Caryl Hughes Sister Daniel Norman Guard Nathan Vale Guard Condemned for a ‘crime of coldness’ by an authoritarian regime, The Invisible is cast adrift from society. All human interaction is outlawed. This life of isolation leads to strange, vicarious thrills and painful inner torment. Yet, as the lonely exile draws to a close, it is not coldness but perilous empathy with a fellow Invisible that risks the cycle of exclusion beginning all over again… Emily Howard’s new opera, based on a short story by renowned American sci-fi writer Robert Silverberg, is a claustrophobic study of isolation; a dark satire on social conventions; and a stark reminder of our cruelty to outsiders. Howard’s music embraces extremes – the eerie beauty of The Invisible’s secluded psychological spaces set against the perpetual motion of the World of Warmth. Britten Studio, Snape