The Danish-British composer revisits the genesis of her chamber opera Screenshot, a feminist score on objectification and post-traumatic recovery. Premiered at Stoller Hall in Manchester.
In this interview, composer Emily Pedersen discusses her chamber opera Screenshot, a work dedicated to exploring contemporary themes.
In what context did you compose your chamber opera Screenshot?
Screenshot was born in the post-covid digital context that saw image-based sexual abuse skyrocket. The music industry still has a way to go to achieve gender parity, and the technological age we live in has changed the way these challenges manifest themselves. As a young woman in the industry, it can be discouraging and disempowering to hear about these problems, but not see them represented in the art we consume — almost like they should be either swept under the rug, or accepted as part of the industry. Screenshot was my way of bringing an issue from the industry and wider society into the spotlight as a human issue, rather than a women's issue, to allow us to connect with the problem and feel empowered to be part of real change.
Your opera "addresses sexual abuse through images, as well as the themes of sexualization, objectification, and post-traumatic healing," as stated on your website. Why did you choose this theme?
I chose to address image-based sexual abuse after the digitisation of society due to the Covid-19 Pandemic saw case numbers increase. Sexual violence is often portrayed in opera but rarely portrayed well or in a modern context. Coupled with this, I spent lockdown reading feminist theory for the first time, and I was especially taken by Fredrickson and Roberts' Objectification Theory from 1979 and the implications it has for the younger generations of women who now have another lens to objectify themselves in — social media.
Finally what was important to me in Screenshot was for it to be a safe, empathic and educational space. Too often, sexual violence is portrayed onstage with no hope going forward. I believe that to create real, lasting change we need to show that change, redemption and growth is possible and abuse isn't the end.
Did you also write the libretto for the opera? How did you convey the complexity and difficulty of the themes addressed by the text and music?
I began work on the libretto by reading survivors' testimonies and stories, and, where possible, speaking with those who were happy to share their stories with me. I isolated the recurring themes and thoughts, and found they linked to the feminist theory and objectification theory I was reading as background information on the subject. These core themes began to form the basis of the libretto, and I then spent time trying to empathise with the character and the survivors whose stories I got to know to "flesh out" the world I was creating. I was massively influenced by Mary Oliver's writing, especially the way she writes about the ordinary world. I wanted to include touchstones of reality in the libretto to ground the listener in the reality of the story they're watching unfold.
As a young composer, is it important for you to engage with these social issues?
It was important for me to engage with this issue because it was a story I felt needed to exist and didn't yet, so I needed to make it. I also felt like so many portrayals of sexual abuse in opera become about the trauma or the abuse, rather than the human reality of it and the possibility of redemption and growth afterwards. I am tired of engaging with art that leaves me disconnected and hopeless by the end, and I wanted to tell a story with a different ending.
The themes you address in Screenshot are not common in the music industry. How did the audience react?
I would argue that the themes are common in the industry, they are just not portrayed in a human way. There are countless depictions of women being abused onstage in opera, but what is uncommon in Screenshot is that the abuse is never presented as the woman's fault, and she is able to grow despite the experience and continue to be an autonomous human being. There were uncomfortable moments for the audience, but the overall reaction was that people felt connected to the story, the character and the wider issue.
Emily Pedersen's chamber opera Screenshot is published by XXI Music Publishing.
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