Only love can bear the burden of truth: Ben Parry & Garth Bardsley on their new opera that premieres at Snape this Saturday

Ben Parry and Garth Bardsley’s My Father Cannot Speak in rehearsals with Roderick Williams at Snape [Photo: Angus Cooke / Britten Pears Arts]

On 24 October, composer Ben Parry and writer Garth Bardsley‘s new opera, My Father Cannot Speak will be premiered at the Britten Studio, Snape Maltings with baritone Roderick Williams and an instrumental ensemble conducted by Ben Parry in a production directed by Garth Bardsley. The evening will also include Parry and Bardsley’s song cycle, Songs For Girls Of A Certain Age performed by Sarah Connolly and Malcolm Martineau.

Whilst Ben Parry and Garth Bardsley have a long history of collaborating, My Father Cannot Speak is their largest work to date. A 70-minute one-act opera, My Father Cannot Speak features a single sung role, taken by Roderick Williams. I chatted to Ben and Garth during rehearsals at the Britten Studio and they were confident that they had created something listenable and watchable, that fits small venues and festivals.

The piece is a voyage into the relationship between a man and his father, as the man realises how little he knows about his father. With the birth of the man’s son, he wants to find out more but his father is reticent and does not want to engage. Then the father has a stroke and cannot speak. By the end, the son puts words into his father’s mouth as to why he cannot speak. At the beginning of the opera the man has an aria which is only completed at the end of the opera, as the man realises that we cannot know who we are if we don’t know where were come from using an analogy of a closed museum.

The work is about the parent/child relationships, and the man undergoes a rite of passage as a middle aged man. His journey during the opera means that we see him maturing, he learns to grow up. He comes to regret that he cannot know his father, and comes to understand that only love can bear the burden of truth.

Ben Parry and Garth Bardsley’s My Father Cannot Speak in rehearsals with Roderick Williams at Snape [Photo: Angus Cooke / Britten Pears Arts]

Having collaborated on Songs For Girls Of A Certain Age, Ben and Garth were looking to write a new song-cycle. Garth had started writing poems intended for songs for a male voice. One of them, My Father Cannot Speak resonated with both men. Garth’s father was adopted and thanks to a fire all information about his past has been lost, so Garth feels a gap, that something is missing. Ben’s father had a stroke and was only able to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, any other response had to be written down.

So in many ways, the new opera is inspired by real events in the two men’s lives.

Though the subject matter is thought provoking and challenging, there are humorous moments. It is also an extraordinary vehicle for the singer, a 75 minute monologue for baritone and six instruments – flute, clarinet, violin, cello, double bass, accordion. The role of the singer combines story telling with interaction with the audience as well as dramatic narration. It is a challenge as there is nowhere to hide.

Garth is an actor and writer, creating books and plays, and he felt that there was more in the original poem and thought why not an opera for one person. Garth and Ben both feel that the piece could be performed either by a trained opera singer (as it will be at Snape) or by someone with a musical theatre background, and there has been discussion about whether two call it an opera or simply one-man show. The piece could be done in a music-theatre environment and though it does work with piano, the six instruments are intended to make it portable. We never hear the father’s voice: initially when the man talks to him, the response is instrumental and then later the accordion simply produces a wheezing sound.

They comment that they have not seen many operas for a single male singer (Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for Mad King is the one they mention). But in a world where opera seems to be shrinking, they feel My Father Cannot Speak offers a full operatic experience on an intimate yet grand scale, and both men are grateful to Britten Pears Arts for the opportunity to create the piece. Ben met Benjamin Britten in 1972 when he was seeing The Little Sweep. Garth played Cobweb in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1974, returning to the work some forty-odd years later when he directed it. Now, for My Father Cannot Speak they have had the run of Snape for a week.

The two men have worked together for 25 years, but My Father Cannot Speak is their most adventurous venture yet. It is a voyage of discovery for them, with a lot riding on it as they explore how do you make it work musically, dramatically and vocally. Ben wrote most of the opera whilst staying in Imogen Holst’s flat in Aldeburgh, what he describes as a magical two weeks.

They have written My Father Cannot Speak to be performed and they are confident it has a future. Both their wives have been positive about the piece! They feel that it is quite a catholic work, exploring ides of loss, lack of history and the importance of truth with the irony at the end that the man puts words into his father’s mouth, effectively creating a lie.

Ben and Garth were at university together and wrote sketches and cabaret, but never did anything more. But then in 2002 Ben and his family visited Garth’s family. At the time Garth had started working on a musical and asked Ben to write the music for it, a work which is still in progress evidently. Then Garth started writing poetry intended to be set to music. One of the results was their Spring Sonnets for unaccompanied chorus, premiered by the BBC Singers in 2013. Ben comments that the words are beautiful in their own right, yet perfect for setting to music, and Garth adds that when writing for singing he avoids words like ‘whilst’ and ‘flannel’. He also needs to leave space for the music, so in the opera there are spaces where the music takes over and he has to trust the music.

The two have collaborated on a lot of choral pieces, having works performed at the BBC Proms, at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, and all over the world. Before their opera, their longest piece was probably the choral work Seven Goodly Reasons to Sing from 2015. They had fun collaborating on the 2012 cycle, Songs For Girls Of A Certain Age and indeed Garth is the father to two girls. His conversations about the giving of flowers and the sadness at watching them die, led to the song ‘Flowers’ in this cycle with the shape of Ben’s music reflecting the words.

Both men feel quite strongly that opera is not elitist, and Saturday’s performance is sold out. The opera takes the listeners on a journey, something that you can’t do in other places. Garth admits that his initial response to the work was ‘wow’, it has come to fruition and it works. He is keen to do more opera.

They have raised much of the money for the performance themselves and have found that the story resonates with people. It is a worrying time when considering money and the arts, but they feel that you cannot give up. You need to sing and play louder; truth and beauty will always endure.

Ben Parry and Garth Bardsley’s My Father Cannot Speak in rehearsals with Roderick Williams at Snape [Photo: Angus Cooke / Britten Pears Arts]

They are recording Saturday’s performance for the archive and have already had expressions of interest in the piece. Their next aim is a London performance; Roderick Williams is keen as are Britten Pears Arts.

Full details from the Britten Pears Arts website.