Backstage pass: composer Laura Karpman on breaking boundaries in opera, gender and genre

Your opera Balls revisits the iconic 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs – a moment that resonated far beyond sport. What inspired you to tell this story through opera, and how did you approach capturing its energy and significance musically?

The ‘Battle of the Sexes’ was always an opera, even as a sports event. Billie Jean King was carried out on a litter much like Aida in the processional of the Verdi opera. The almost melodramatic action, the stakes, the importance of the match not only for each individual person but also for society at large is what defines opera. It is the biggest work of all music,  the most involved with the most moving pieces, much like this tennis match.  Also, as a staged dramatic work, Balls can take a moment to look at the interior thoughts of every person involved in the match. I love that about theatre – while you’re in the middle of something that’s “real” – you can pause and look at what’s happening inside of somebody’s body, inside of their mind, inside of their thoughts. At its core, any of these art forms are all about empathy and opera suits itself perfectly to this purpose.

You’ve long been a champion for gender equality in the arts. How has your advocacy shaped your creative process, particularly in works like Balls that carry such a powerful social message?

There is this terrible undeniable attempt to erase women’s achievements. I have always where felt I can make the most difference is in my own field. Billie Jean King was the model for this. She took what was a very small world of women’s tennis and used it as a platform to make massive economic and social change not only to the sport of tennis but women’s sports in general, and then, in the women’s movement at large. She has always been my role model for my own advocacy work: start small and take it as far as you can. The change will come in the larger spaces once you can change your own backyard.

Your work often breaks down musical boundaries – blending jazz, hip hop, rap, and opera. How do you navigate genre in your compositions, and what does that freedom mean to you as a storyteller?

I am a maximalist. I have never seen musical boundaries. When I was working on Ask Your Mama with Jessye Norman, she told me, “pigeonholes are for pigeons.” Here is a massive opera star, or here is an iconic opera star who, later in life, crossed every conceivable musical boundary. She was doing jazz opera, and with the work we did together in Ask Your Mama she was even doing hip-hop. So I see everything as being one force. I am fortunate that my work in film music has made me a bit musically gymnastic so I can cross genres without difficulty. It’s a part of who I am.

You began composing at the age of seven. Looking back, how has your early start influenced the way you approach music today, especially in large-scale works like opera?

I love this question and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. When I was a kid, I used to sit down and play these long, ridiculously involved works and then at some point I would just break out into song inexplicably, so it was kind of this combination of classical composition and then it would go to, I guess, opera, but it was also jazz. It was also Joni Mitchell. It was also Stevie Wonder – all the people I was listening to at that time, so maybe this kind of composition was my first foray into genre-breaking music. But truthfully, I think I have returned to a lot of this idea of freedom and fun in music making – there is a certain lightness and joy in it. And I will confess that when I’m composing opera, I often have a microphone with me at the computer so I can sing a line as I’m working on something. It’s much like that kind of music making when I was a child.

This evening’s programme opens with Walton’s Façade, a piece that shocked and delighted audiences with its playful irreverence. Do you see a connection between Walton’s genre-defying spirit and your own approach to composition?

Yes, I think the Walton Façade is a perfect companion. I love that he was having fun. I love the idea that he was combining words and music without thinking formally about what those two meant together and how they would function together. Very specifically, the narrator role in the Façade is very much like the Howard Cosell role in Balls, so Marin [Alsop] was genius in pairing these two works. 

You’ve written for film, television, games, and opera – each with its own demands and audiences. What draws you to opera as a medium, and how does it allow you to express ideas differently than screen or stage work?

I don’t see a difference between my writing for film and television and opera and games. It’s all about drama. It’s about understanding drama and then understanding how music can function within drama, how it can bring out an actor’s performance or amp up a player’s experience in a game. With an opera, it’s exactly the same – how are you going to tell a story and do it through music but still keep story as the primary communication force. I think this is why film composers often make very good opera composers like Terence Blanchard. We know how to collaborate, we know how to interact with  music and drama, so it’s a perfect combination for us. 

[Billie Jean King] has always been my role model for my own advocacy work: start small and take it as far as you can. The change will come in the larger spaces once you can change your own backyard.