I met Vancouver writer Camyar Chai during the 2003 Tapestry Composer Librettist Lab. We took a stroll in a nearby ravine, tossing around story ideas. It was the hottest day of summer, and we walked slowly, pausing often, wet with sweat. Out of that came the final duet, where Hector tries to reach Isabelle emotionally, finally getting her to say the name of their daughter, to acknowledge their loss and their pain.

Tapestry asked us to expand the duet into a complete 12-minute opera. It was challenging to be concise—so often we imagine opera as big and expansive, a novel rather than a short story—but Camyar found a way to weave in just enough of their story to let us get to know these people, and to lead into their cathartic final duet. The operatic feel was helped by the characters having so much at stake, and by their voices—soprano and tenor, high voices bringing the high notes—being archetypes which call to mind so many passionate classic operatic scenes.

- James Rolfe

We manage to get through most of our days without needing to sing, without needing the accompaniment of an orchestra. Opera isn’t about most days. It is drawn to extreme situations where a marriage, a reputation, a fortune, or life itself is at stake. Our voices rise with distress or excitement; we shout, we yell, we curse. In opera, we sing.

What made Rosa a natural opera subject? The characters are fighting to survive. They must plead, persuade, speak up for themselves, struggle with forces much larger than them, react to cruel and unpredictable turns of fate. Most of us will lead less eventful lives, and be the happier for it. Yet we also realize that pure chance can visit death or misfortune upon us, without warning, without rhyme or reason. Opera can bring alive the excitement of these extremes without their actual danger.

Opera music must have magical powers. The music snakes through every twist and turn of the plot, swings up and down with the mood, and brings to life each character: their desires and delusions, their pride, their grief. All these must be wrestled into an coherent piece of music that lasts two or more hours. And the audience, while being deluged with music, must still be able to hear enough words to understand what’s happening.

- James Rolfe