The Sound Voice Project is a collaboration between people with lived experience of voice loss, opera singers Roderick Williams and Lucy Crowe, composer Hannah Conway, librettist Hazel Gould and professionals from across the biomedical research, technology and healthcare sectors, with video design by Luke Halls and sound design by David Sheppard.
The installation is comprised of three works: Paul, I Left My Voice Behind, and Tanja. Paul Jameson performs a dual aria with baritone Roderick Williams in which both men sing from Paul’s perspective: Paul using his current voice and Roderick representing his imagined voice. The piece explores what ‘voice’ means to Paul as he loses his speech to motor neurone disease; the performance becomes a love song to Paul’s wife, Jess.
I Left My Voice Behind is a collaboration with the Shout at Cancer choir, directed by Dr Thomas Moors, an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist with an interest in voice rehabilitation. I Left My Voice Behind explores identity, transformation and the birth of new vocal identities. The work features synthetic voices, digitally transformed voices and is performed by singers who have had laryngectomies (their voice box removed).
Tanja Bage explores how voice loss impacts her daily life as mother of two young children, her relationships, and the stigmas attached to being a woman with a laryngectomy, in a dual aria performed by her and soprano Lucy Crowe.
Unique to the Linbury Theatre, the installation will feature a soundscape of voices created from digital recordings submitted to The Sound Voice Project, giving audiences the chance to participate in the project and to reflect on what their voice means for their own identity. Anyone can record themselves saying the phrase ‘this is my voice’, and recordings submitted to Sound Voice before 1 October will be used as part of the soundscape at the Royal Opera House. The link for submission is available here.
The Sound Voice Project will also take over the Linbury Foyer with a free exhibition open to the public, featuring additional images and music from the project. It will also feature extracts from the BBC Radio 4 documentary Hear My Voice, recorded by Hannah Conway and performers from The Sound Voice Project.
Hannah Conway, Artistic Director of Sound Voice and composer of The Sound Voice Project, said, “I am thrilled to bring The Sound Voice Project to the Royal Opera House and to platform voices and stories that are rarely given the stage. Important too in such an iconic building to ask – what does it mean to have a voice?”
Sarah Crabtree, Creative Producer for The Royal Opera, said, “I remember vividly the moment I first heard The Sound Voice Project. It was Tanja’s aria and it completely floored me, reminding me of the power opera has, above all other forms of artistic expressions, to tell human stories and reach emotional depths. It is a privilege to be able to able to bring it to the Linbury Theatre, embracing the flexibility of the theatre and its beautiful acoustics to bring audiences something so direct, so powerful and so unexpected.”
Alongside the performances on 14 November, Sound Voice and The Royal Opera will come together to present Insights: The Sound Voice Project. This special insight will bring together medical experts, creatives and cast from The Sound Voice Project, alongside performers from the works.
