The DYCP is underway!

I had a really exciting trip to Chastleton House with my writing partner, composer Chloe Knibbs. We are using the history of the house as inspiration for a new operatic composition as part of my libretto project. The last owners, Barbara and Alan, led absolutely fascinating lives and the house bears many echoes of their time there, held in a state of "romantic decline," as the National Trust puts it.

Over the next two weeks, I'm going to create a working draft of the libretto, ready for Chloe to set to music. This is a completely new venture and I'm massively enjoying the process so far.

Aside from the trip, I've been doing research into existing compositions for the adaptation elements of my DYCP. I'm trying to combine all the libretti under the theme of "faded glamour" and so I've been learning which operas explore this theme and how I might use them to write interesting new texts.