(Photo: Maru Teppei)

Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) is an organization actively changing the roadmap of opera production and composition one project at a time. Since 2006 the company has commissioned, developed, produced, and toured over 60 works in 14 countries around the world, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning chamber operas “Angel’s Bone” and “p r i s m.”

This year’s PROTOTYPE Festival is about to begin, featuring works “Eat the Document,” “Black Lodge,” “In a Grove,” “Positive Vibration Nation,” “Night Reign,” “Telekinetik,” and “Art Bath.” BMP also just announced the two finalists for NEXTGEN 3: Harriet Steinke and Anuj Bhutani. NEXTGEN fosters the next generation of creatives, which is at the core of BMP’s mission.

OperaWire visits with Beth Morrison to learn more about her company, discovering the power of collaboration and what it takes to make it.

OperaWire: Your passion for cultivating new works and artists as a whole is astounding. Your work celebrates the evolution of opera, giving new works the space and support they deserve. What do you want our readers to know about why you do what you do, and how did all of this begin for you?

Beth Morrison: I think why I still do what I do is that I believe telling stories through music has the ability to impact people in a way that not all art forms can. Opera is a synthesis of so many art forms that has the opportunity to really affect people emotionally, changing minds and hearts. BMP is committed to presenting stories of our time that are socially connected… to our culture. We feel that opera and music theatre are uniquely poised to be able to make an impact.

I started the company almost 20 years ago with the expressed intent to change the industry. I was 20-something years old, a singer, and I wasn’t feeling connected to the opera industry in any way, including the repertoire and productions. There was beautiful music but it felt very out of reach to me, instead of something I could take with me and make relevant. My initial thoughts for BMP were about how to make opera relevant for a young generation. I wanted to know how we could tell stories of our time and how to work with living composers that are interested in telling stories that have a musical vocabulary that I feel is fresh and “of the moment,” and not connected to music of the 20th century. I was looking for something really different and was seeing a lot of really avant-garde theatre at that time. I was really excited and energized by what was happening in that sphere. The opera I was seeing at that time was incredibly boring and the productions were not theatrically vibrant. So I started thinking about how to take the avant-garde opera theatre aesthetic and put that into opera while telling stories of our time and working with living composers. At that time I was looking around and nobody was doing that. There was no place to go. Also at that time, women weren’t given the top leading artistic positions in companies and so it became apparent to me that if I wanted to do this and really believed in this that I was going to have to strike off on my own.

I went back to school and completed a degree in theatre management and producing so that I could understand the business side of things. I already had the two music degrees, but didn’t have the business side of things yet. Once I completed this degree I immediately moved to NYC and started the company in 2005. We became non-profit in 2006 and I co-founded the PROTOTYPE festival with HERE Arts Center in 2013.

OW: I would love to hear more about BMP NEXTGEN and what you feel is most impactful about this new initiative.

BM: NEXTGEN is in a multiyear structure and we start with round one in a cycle, which is a call for scores. We look for scores that are… between five and ten minutes of vocal works by composers who are in school or four years out from any degree program. The majority of applicants are between the ages of 24 to 30. We received 140 submissions this year and my team and I chose ten of them to showcase at National Sawdust. We just completed this year’s Cycle Three Round One and had an amazing week of rehearsals, getting to know [the applicants], and presenting the two concerts. I assembled an industry panel with me to select two finalists. The two finalists are Harriet Steinke and Anuj Bhutani. BMP commissions them now to write 30 minute vocal theatre works. Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek will mentor them for the year as they put their works together. Then they will come back in the spring and we will do another showcase of those works and semi-staged workshops. I will choose one of them and commission a full-length work that BMP will produce over the next three to five years. So, this is what one cycle looks like.

Our first cycle winner was Emma O’Halloran, who debuted her commissioned double bill work “TRADE | MARY MOTORHEAD” with playwright and librettist Mark O’Halloran at PROTOTYPE Festival 2023. BMP commissioned “TRADE” as the full length work and “MARY MOTORHEAD” as the 30 minute work. Our second cycle winner is Niloufar Nourbakhsh who won the competition with her work “Threshold of Brightness” and has since been commissioned for a full length work with librettist Anahita Ghazvinizadeh, premiering in the coming BMP Seasons. Both Emma and Niloufar have had wonderful partners too, including Irish National Opera and LA Opera. Niloufar’s piece will also partner with Banff which we are really excited about.

All of the pieces of NEXTGEN will have a PROTOTYPE premiere and a West Coast premiere with LA Opera. This program is a way for me to stay connected to the next generation and why we created it back in 2017. There came a point in my career and with BMP where we saw everyone we had initially worked with getting commissioned by opera houses and known all over the world for their work in the opera field, but my heart has always been with the next generation and so NEXTGEN is BMP’s way to focus on that and continue to launch careers. This is where my heart lives and gets most excited.

OW: I think, for me, this is what has always stood out most about you – your commitment to finish what you began and the level of support you provide to make a new work possible. You are always right there beside the composer, making yourself available for what is next.

BM: We are definitely committed at NEXTGEN to taking these works to full production and having them seen in multiple cities. This is how you launch careers. You don’t launch careers by only doing a staged workshop because that’s not what helps composers the most. The most supportive part of this initiative is the full evening-length commission that we develop with them and as creative director and producer, I work with them over the next several years.

I am deeply engaged with the creation of our works for our commissions. I work closely with the libretto reading and workshops and am very much a vocal participant. However, for Round Two, which is what we are in right now with the mentors for this year’s NEXTGEN is where I try to understand the composer’s instincts. They get to choose the librettist, partners, subject matter, and literally everything. I have Missy and Royce as their mentors who are a sounding board for them if they have questions along the way. But I really stay out of this part of the process because I want to understand what they gravitate towards without me offering any guidance. So this is a big part of what NEXTGEN is and why this Round Two exists. It’s important for them to know and act on their instincts alone.

This is also an opportunity for me to get to know the finalists and when BMP takes on a production then we are committed for at least the next five years. This is a long time and so it is important to click with them as human beings and make sure they share the same ethos as BMP.

OW: How would you describe that special connection you feel with composers that you do take on? What is it that makes them click with BMP?

BM: This is a good question. It’s like asking someone why they fell in love with somebody. It’s hard to say because there is a certain ephemeral nature of whatever that thing is and you hope it stays but it’s hard to codify. I will say that what I am looking for in a composer is somebody who inherently and innately understands how to write theatre. They write with drama inherently in their music and that’s how they think about music. I’m looking for somebody who has a unique compositional voice. You may hear the lineage of their ancestors, but their voice is securely their own. I’m looking for somebody who isn’t afraid to experiment and push the boundaries. Somebody who is collaborative or wants to know what that means if they haven’t had the opportunity to be collaborative before. I’m looking for somebody with a fantastic imagination who is genuinely nice and likes to have fun. I want us to get along and have many conversations that feel comfortable and exciting. It takes all the things, personally and professionally, to find the match. I work with composers that might not hit all those marks, but the ones that do are at the core of why I do what I do and I am in love with them as artists.

OW: I notice that what you produce and who you take under your wings “makes it.” They make it because you’ve cultivated their work along the way, but there is also that special “thing” that only you can see. Your intuition, in my opinion, is unmatched and I think it impacts more than what we can articulate right now in regards to opera’s new roadmap. What are your thoughts on your intuition, especially in the form of collaboration?

BM: I think collaboration is a couple of things: it’s about respect for the collaborators and everyone’s contribution to the process. It’s about leading with kindness and assuming goodwill. This is hugely important. It’s also about wanting to get to know your collaborators and understand what makes them tick and what gets them excited about the process. Their own skillset is a big part of understanding them and what they bring to the table.

Collaboration is really about listening and giving space for something. BMP has commissioned over 60 pieces, and I’ve been in so many collaborations – the ones that work like magic, and the ones that are really really tough. Sometimes it’s also important to realize that all things don’t always work out and that tough conversations may need to be had.

I am a very tenacious individual and so when I commit to something it’s very hard for me to not complete it. This means that there are projects that go on and on with many ups and downs and people that come in and out of the project. Eventually you find out who the team is that’s going to work collaboratively together in a way that will bring it all to life. At the end of the day there has to be joy in what we are doing. We are making art and putting out beautiful things into the world. If there is not a sense of joy in the process, then it’s not going to work and you have to reconfigure the process which can be expensive but sometimes that is what it takes. When I believe in something and bring it to the stage it takes a lot. I think I’ve only had two projects that we’ve commissioned that have not made it. We have a great track record with 60 plus projects that have made it and this means the work we do can be challenging but worth it.

At the core of my being I believe we are better together than we are alone. Brainstorming and connecting with people on a creative level that you believe in and trust is what this work is all about – this is when the magic happens.

OW: What excites you most about this year’s PROTOTYPE festival?

BM: I am very excited about this year’s PROTOTYPE. We are doing our first film, “Black Lodge.” We made [it] during the pandemic in my hometown, Auburn and Lewiston, Maine, in a warehouse my dad’s best friend owns. I brought 18 people during Covid up to my hometown and it was crazy Covid protocols. We recorded the band for the project in their individual living rooms across the country and had the most amazing engineer, Andrew McKenna Lee, who put it all together. We were nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2024. I am deeply proud of this piece and it’s what I’m most proud of in my career. It’s a project that composer David T. Little and the singer Timur and I worked on for 10 years before we got it off the ground. Director and screenwriter Michael McQuilken pivoted our theatre piece to film and having him on this project brought it to what it was always supposed to be. On opening night we are doing an incredible BARDO experience which is an immersive live theater experience that will lead you into this very Lynchian world of the BARDO. We did the West Coast premiere version of BARDO at the end of October 2024 and I am thrilled to bring it to NYC in its most realized form.

Director Kristin Marting’s piece “Eat the Document” is another project I am thrilled about featuring, by composer John Glover and librettist Kelley Rourke. Kristin is a founding director with us, but she has never had her own creative directing work in PROTOTYPE and it felt very important in her last season to really showcase her directorial and creative work in her final festival. I am thrilled and excited for her.

“In a Grove” is another exciting piece by composer Christopher Cerrone and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann. This is a piece I’ve been tracking for years. It is so gorgeous and I love Chris’ work: we’ve never had him in the festival, so this is super special.

We also have two power-house women composer/performers Sol Ruiz with “Positive Vibration Nation,” and Arooj Aftab with “Night Reign.” They are wildly different from each other, representing the Cuban Latin vibe and Persian Jazz vibe. We also have “Art Bath” co-curated by Mara Driscoll and Liz Yilmaz, featuring performances by Julian Crouch, Leah Hawkins, Saha Gnawa, and Annie Rigney. It’s an immersive sensorial event where you can wander through the building and get opera/music theatre experiences. There is also “Telekinetik” which is a digital Hip-Hopera by composer and librettist Khary Laurent and director and producer George Cederquist. It is commissioned and produced by Catapult Opera.

I am thrilled to share this year’s PROTOTYPE festival with everyone.