Having spent the last 20 years writing music for film and television, when I was asked if I would be interested in writing an opera, it wasn’t a straightforward decision. It required me to think quite hard about who I was as a composer, and about the skills I had spent those two decades developing.
Film and television scoring... an oddly specific task
Writing for film and television is an oddly specific job. You come very late to the party. By the time I’m engaged, many decisions about the drama have already been made. The script has been written, the performances captured, the scenes shot and edited, and the shape and timing of the story are largely determined.
That’s not to say that a film composer doesn’t have enormous influence over the finished piece. Music can alter the emotional temperature of a scene, change the way we perceive a character, create tension where there was none, or create friction between what we see and what we hear. But we are doing all of that within a dramatic structure that already exists. We are inserting ourselves into something that has largely been built, rather than being there when the foundations are laid.
Could I make the transition to opera... and what would it take?
With all that in mind, I had to ask myself: after 20 years of working this way, did I actually have the ability to work in another dramatic form, one for which I had never written before? My initial answer was no.
But with encouragement from friends and colleagues, and after a certain amount of interrogation of my own instincts, I embraced the opportunity. Once I got into my stride writing Oracle, I found the experience remarkably liberating.
At the commissioning stage I was given a few parameters. There was a large orchestra and only a few singers, a slightly unusual but enjoyable brief. Other than that, I was given more or less carte blanche. That was simultaneously freeing and terrifying, having become used to being given so much material to respond to before I start writing.
On an opera, I was in control of the whole process
Once I got past that initial sensation of, 'This is all down to me - where do I start?', I began to enjoy the fact that I was suddenly doing much more than composing. I would finish a working day and, the following morning, scrutinize what I had done, rather as a director might when I send music for a film: Why is this like this? This needs to move faster. We need to trim this. The story isn’t clear enough here. All those instincts I had developed through years of working with other people on film and television suddenly became internalised. I was still the composer, but I was also, metaphorically at least, the editor, cinematographer, director and producer.
Film and television are intensely collaborative. You are constantly in meetings, sending revisions, responding to notes and adapting to picture changes. At times it can feel like half composing and half Zoom calls.
Writing the opera was much more solitary, but I was very fortunate to have two trusted collaborators. The brilliant librettist Stephen Plaice and I worked closely together, while Jérôme Kuhn, who commissioned the work, was always there to hear ideas and reassure me that I wasn’t quietly going mad in the dark.
Fundamentally, though, the responsibility felt different. There was no locked picture telling me that a scene lasted two minutes and 17 seconds. If something was too long, unclear or dramatically inert, I couldn’t blame the edit. I had made the edit.
Opera and film... so much common ground
What I eventually realised was that, despite all the technical differences between the two worlds, there is an enormous amount of common ground. The most obvious connection sounds almost trite: I am involved in the business of trying to entertain people. That thought gave me confidence. I have spent most of my working life helping to tell stories through film and television. With opera, the medium is different, but many of the instincts are the same: pace, tension, character, surprise, knowing when to push something and knowing when to get out of the way. I wasn’t abandoning the skill set I had developed; I was taking it somewhere else.
And, like anything, lessons are learnt along the way. Perhaps the biggest lesson was that the move from screen to stage wasn’t really about leaving one way of working behind and learning another. It was about recognising which instincts could travel with me, and which needed to change. The disciplines I had developed over 20 years – pacing, structure, economy, tension and storytelling – were still there, but for the first time I had to use them without a picture to guide me. That was the real challenge, and ultimately the most liberating part of the process.
So on I go, telling stories through music, and trying to keep people entertained.
The UK premiere of David Buckley’s chamber opera Oracle will take place on 3 October 2026 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra.
