librettist
Olivia recently graduated with distinction from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Opera Makers MA, where she studied with scholarship in collaboration with the Royal Opera House. She is a Junior Fellow at the conservatoire 2023-24.
Her chamber opera Lost Property, written with the composer Anna Disley-SImpson, was performed by the Guildhall's opera studio and nominated for an RPS award. A keen writer of song and poetry. her poem 'Fall', set for soprano, piano and violin by Ben Pease Barton, will premiere in Carnegie Hall in January 2024.
Scarlet, an opera for five principals and a chorus, plus a 12-part band, with the composer Georgia Barnes, premiered at Blackheath Halls in London in May. It is a retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale with an Imperialist slant, with colonisers pillaging Scarlet’s home, a recently- discovered island. The eyes of Colonel Wolf and his men are firmly fixed on the treasures at Grandmother’s House, which they will attempt to seize at any cost.
She was commissioned to write a Christmas carol for the London Mozart Players with the composer Georgia Barnes (2021), Let the Carols Ring, and a micro-opera commission from the Royal Opera House and Casco Phil with Barnes, Everything You Carry, which premiered at St Pancras Station for International Women’s Day in 2022 and is concerned with the metaphorical and physical things we carry with us every day.
Works in progress include The Machine Stops, a chamber opera for two singers and 15-piece band with the composer Sam Meredith. A short 20 minute version premiered at the Guildhall in July: a longer version (75 minutes) will take place this year. It is based on the EM Forster novel of the same name, set in a dystopian future where humanity lives isolated underground from each other, with ‘the machine’ guiding all daily tasks – but it is not infallible.
Other works include The Hollow After [composer: Dominic Veall], which premiered at the Polish Hearth Club 2021 in association with Greenwich Museums], with a narrative based around the shell of a Hermann’s tortoise among the Greenwich museum’s collections and concerning themes of migration, trauma, alienation and the treatment of refugees.
Lost Property | composer: Anna Disley-Simpson
Guildhall School of Music Opera Studio, July '23
25 minute chamber opera for three voices, 12 instruments
A TRAVELLER stumbles into a lost property office in search of a bag left behind on a train the previous evening. Greeted by an eccentric and enthusiastic ATTENDANT, she quickly finds that all is not what it seems, and she is confronted with everything she has ever lost — from bags to books, bracelets to woolly hats, and even her beloved stuffed bunny. But her initial joy is tempered by the realisation that collecting these objects comes at a price, and she is forced to make decisions beyond her wildest dreams.
The Machine Stops | composer: Sam Meredith
Guildhall School of Music, Milton Court Band, July 23
~ 25 minute opera for two singers and orchestra
~ 75 minute opera for two singers, orchestra and electronics
Based on the EM Forster novel of the same name, set in a dystopian future where humanity lives isolated underground from each other, with ‘the machine’ guiding all daily tasks – but it is not infallible.
Scarlet | composer: Georgia Barnes
Blackheath Halls, June 23
45 minute opera for four soloists, chorus and orchestra
A retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale with an Imperialist slant, with colonisers pillaging Scarlet’s home, a recently- discovered island. The eyes of Colonel Wolf and his men are firmly fixed on the treasures at Grandmother’s House, which they will attempt to seize at any cost.
The Hollow After | composer: Dominic Veall
Polish Hearth Club, February 2022
10 minute piece for baritone, SAT chorus, cello and piano
A narrative based around the shell of a Hermann’s tortoise among the Greenwich museum’s collections concerns themes of migration, trauma, alienation and the treatment of refugees.
Everything you Carry | composer: Georgia Barnes
Royal Opera House and Casco Phil, St Pancras Station, March 2022
10 minute piece for baritone, piano, flute and violin
As part of the Lost & Found festival, the microopera is concerned with the metaphorical and physical things we carry with us every day.
The Queue | composer: Anna Disley-Simpson
Guildhall School of Music and Drama, July 2023
Micro-opera for solo mezzo
In the Queue to view the Queen lying in state, a woman remembers waiting for her own loved one to die