Harpist Elizabeth Bass on playing a new opera

Playing in an opera production is always an exciting undertaking, and even more so if you’re dealing with an opera that’s brand new. Elizabeth Bass has kindly shared her experiences of preparing for and playing Jonathan Dove’s Itch last year at Opera Holland Park and discloses why playing new opera can be an especially gratifying experience.

Being invited to play for a brand-new opera naturally conjures a mixture of emotions: excitement at being a part of something entirely new; apprehension of what the music may be like – how long it might take to learn, whether it will be suitable for the instrument; hope that there will be enough rehearsal time for a work that will be new for everyone; and then ultimately, the compelling desire for a challenge propels us to dive in! 

One of the things that drew me to playing for Itch was the small ensemble for which it was written, with only twelve players in total. Though very challenging and exposed, it’s so rewarding to play in small ensembles like this as everyone has such a vital role to play and each of us must communicate so directly when we’re playing. It’s thrilling. I also knew that this would mean the harp part would likely take on many guises, which is something I love about playing the harp. Sometimes, we are accompanying a beautiful melody, sometimes we are playing a more percussive part and providing pure rhythm and drive, sometimes we’re bringing texture and colour – perhaps with aggressive or jarring sounds or those ethereal, magical sounds so closely associated with the harp. There are so many musical and sonic possibilities to exploit with the harp and in a small ensemble it’s likely we’ll get to explore even more of them than usual! 

I was very happy and relieved when I received the part for Itch because even though there were a lot (!) of notes to learn and many challenging moments, it was clearly written by a fantastic composer (the amazing Jonathan Dove) who understood my instrument and had really taken the time to create an effective and satisfying part. I was excited to find out how my part was going to interact with everyone else’s and bring this music to life for the first time. 

It’s totally different preparing something brand new to something that has been played many times before. In the first instance, we probably read the scores much more closely with new music as we have no preconceptions of how the music should sound, thus relying on every detail and piece of information on the page to give us clues about the character, style, and role of each musical passage. With famous works in the canon we have many recordings to listen to and may have played the piece before, so we’re aware of the specific challenges of each moment; perhaps a certain passage is very exposed or we’re playing with another instrument and need to follow them or play exactly together. If we’ve played it before we will also know which moments are most technically difficult to play or when we need to have our ears in certain places, meaning we can immediately organise our practice according to this information as well as mentally preparing ourselves. Specifically for harpists there is also a lot of extra time that needs to be spent on a brand-new part before we even begin to play it because we need to mark in the pedals and fingerings for the first time. Perhaps the most freeing thing about playing a new work is that we don’t already have a preconception of the style of the music and therefore haven’t adopted certain trends of playing. It’s so easy to play famous works in the way that we’ve grown up hearing them and think we know how it ‘should’ sound, but the liberating thing about playing new music is that we can only begin with a fresh, open mind.

This all equates to rather a lot of preparation before the first rehearsal, but in the case of Itch, all of the preparation felt entirely worth it as we immediately knew that something really exciting was coming together. Of course we had an absolute stellar line up of musicians, but it was also an incredibly satisfying experience to feel and hear this expertly crafted score come together, and begin to see how it related to the story. At OHP we are so lucky to be able to see so much of the action because of the position of the pit, so it was thrilling to be truly immersed in the action and to feel the evolution of the music alongside the plot. 

With well-known operas, we know the audience are going to love certain moments and the music is most likely already well loved, but with a brand-new opera we have no idea how it will be received. This is both liberating and scary! It’s amazing to be able to play without any preconceptions or pressure to deliver well-loved arias perfectly, but it also feels like a huge responsibility to be bringing something new to the audience and desperately wanting to do it justice. In the case of Itch, the apprehension quickly developed into a completely thrilling and heart-warming experience because the audiences responded so positively to all aspects of the production, and it felt completely thrilling to be a part of something new that was also genuinely amazing. It felt extra special to be a part of something totally new, original and of such unbelievable quality in 2023, after years of difficult funding cuts in the arts and a pandemic which hit our industry so hard. It gave me so much hope for the future: it reminded me of the incredible skill and talent across the arts in this country, of how powerful and necessary it is to keep creating art that is thought provoking and timely, and it renewed my faith in the genuine curiosity, generosity, and receptiveness of our wonderful audiences. People love new music, untold stories, and live performance! There is a hunger for it and it was a genuine highlight of my career to be a part of something which delivered this with such brilliance. Thank you, Itch!