Sunday Feature: Dáirine Ní Mheadhra on Ana Sokolović and Svadba - Wedding

Jacqueline Woodley

The Art of Making Opera with composer Ana Sokolović
by Dáirine Ní Mheadhra
(production photos and shot of Ms Mheadra by John Lauener)

I’m the co-Artistic Director and conductor for Queen of Puddings Music Theatre in Toronto. I co-founded the company with my husband John Hess back in 1994 in order to commission, develop, and produce new Canadian chamber operas. We’ve both been musicians since the age of four, and opera, with its inherent mix of music and text is for us the most explosive music form. Reading text on its own conjures such evocative images, and then when you add music it nearly blows your head off….that’s if both text and music are excellent, of course.