I GIVE YOU MY HOME is a site-specific chamber opera inspired by Rose Standish Nichols and the Nichols House Museum in Boston MA that premiered June 3, 2022. This elegant new opera paints a portrait of Rose, a professional Bostonian woman, and highlights her professional work as a landscape architect as well as her efforts to affect change through activism in the Women’s Peace Movement and Women’s Suffrage. Soprano Aliana de la Guardia portrays Rose in this opera, and is joined by saxophonist Philipp A. Stäudlin and percussionist Mike Williams.
Today, Aliana is our featured artist in “The Inside Story,” a blog series exploring the inner workings and personalities of our composers and performers. Read on to learn about her preparation for the role of Rose, and the upcoming productions she has planned with Guerilla Opera…
How did you prepare for your role as Rose? Are there any little-known pieces of information about Rose that you learned while researching her?
Our take on it was a little different from iteration to iteration. In the live performance, I was a very modern interpretation of Rose. In the film, the concept was that I was a young woman discovering Rose and imagining myself in her shoes and in her life, much like how one would identify with a character from a book. It was so helpful to have the representatives from the museum around, Linda and Barbara, who were so knowledgeable about Rose’s life. When I’m building a character, I rely on the libretto a lot. I wasn’t really interested in trying to interpret who Rose really was, but just who she was to me, and why that matters.
What is the most compelling aspect of Rose’s story in your eyes, and how does it relate to the modern day?
I think everyone can relate to her persistence. During her time there were so many barriers for women, but she had a real passion in her life. I think that her energy is moving. She felt a great urgency for her chosen causes and I think that resonates with activism in general, over time and into the future.
The soprano, saxophone, and percussion orchestration breeds a uniquely intimate listening experience. Is there a specific reasoning for this arrangement of voices?
Yes. We are never interested in piano reductions of works that a composer wishes could be orchestrated. Soprano, saxophone and percussion is the core instrumentation of Guerilla Opera. We’re an artist-centric group in that way. When Beth Wiemann approached us to write this work we knew we wanted to keep the core the same, and she was game for it!
What’s the greatest performance you’ve ever seen, and what made it special?
There have been so many performances that still impact me, it’s difficult to single any of them out. Surprisingly, it’s never opera singers. It’s always actors and theater artists who move so beautifully that inspire me the most.
What musical mentor had the greatest impact on your artistic journey? Is there any wisdom they’ve imparted onto you that still resonates today?
My greatest musical mentor is Sanford Sylvan without a doubt. I learned so much from him and he was so supportive of what I wanted to do in my career. He really made me feel secure in my decisions.
What’s next for Guerilla Opera?
Two things:
- We are showing the film by Cara Consilvio of Beth Wiemann’s I Give You My Home live in limited locations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine from March 24 to April 2, as well as a live screening at The Colonial on June 11.
- Our next live production is Her | alive.un.dead by Emily Koh in May. This is a world-premiere production that is co-produced by the Pao Arts Center and is a surrealist SciFi drama in a multigenerational family of Chinese women.
Guerilla Opera is always working on something. We also have concerts in June and possibly some pop-up workshops, so I always suggest checking our calendar page and signing up for our newsletter!
Guerilla Opera is one of Boston’s most exciting young companies creating brave new works. Founded in 2007, the ensemble has accumulated a repertoire of 40 new works, which continues to grow, by the most exciting composers of our generation. In daring performances, they have garnered a national reputation for innovative contemporary opera, with the Boston Globe raving that “radical exploration remains the cornerstone of everything it does.”
The Arts Fuse lauds de la Guardia’s sound as “lovely, natural” and “as clear and powerful as grain alcohol.” As an active soprano vocalist, Aliana de la Guardia has garnered acclaim for her “dazzling flights of virtuosity” (Gramophone) in “vocally fearless” performances that are “fizzing with theatrical commitment” (The Boston Globe). A graduate of the Boston Conservatory and consummate interpreter of new classical concert repertoire, she has enjoyed collaborations with many ensembles featuring today’s most eminent composers including “Scenes from a Novel” and “Kafka Fragments” with violinist Gabriela Diaz by György Kurtág, “Aspen Suite” by Salvatore Sciarrino,“Nenia: the Death of Orpheus” by Harrison Birtwistle conducted by Jeffery Means, and the world premiere of “Earth Songs” by Ronald Perrera with New England Philharmonic, among others.
