My most popular short piece was written in an hour. In the early days of Tapestry’s Composer-Librettist Laboratory (fondly known as the LIBLAB), everyone had a 24-hour deadline. . . librettists, and then composers, in a relay of utter madness, capped off by a mini-concert from our amazing musicians. Since my brilliant composer was an already-sleep-deprived new father who was finding it challenging to complete his scores within the allotted time, I decided to give him the best possible chance of success by gifting him 23 of my hours.

Urbane and cynical Gen X-ers as Craig and I both are, I wanted to challenge us both to create something original, heartfelt, and unironic about love. I wanted to showcase our wonderful women, Jessie Lloyd and Carla Huhtanen, in an unusual way. Furthermore, it seems pretty obvious to me that queer love should be seen and celebrated, yet I had stumped our knowledgeable dramaturg Michael Albano by asking him to name a lesbian love duet in the operatic canon… so I decided to write one. The additional challenge I unwittingly set up for Craig was to create the sound of women laughing… because, as he informed me, “It’s hard not to go straight to “The Queen of the Night!” In the end, I thought he knocked it out of the park and into the next county. I still remember how it felt to hear Jessie and Carla's glorious voices tearing into Craig’s sumptuous music, 48 hours after I had written those words. Goosebumps.

- Leanna Brodie