_{Artist of the Week} 19 Qs for Cecilia Livingston

Drink of choice?
Henry of Pelham Cabernet-Merlot.

What’s your favourite opera house?
Glyndebourne. To walk over the Downs and arrive for some world-class opera is a surreality that gets me every time.

What’s your favourite orchestral instrument? Why?
Clarinet. Vibraphone. Both have mysterious, beautiful colours whose possibilities feel endless. And the bassoon! Witty, plangent, tender, sinister…

Coffee or tea?
Coffee. The day does not begin without.

What was the first opera you ever saw?
The Magic Flute at Opera Atelier, I believe. I was tiny and the experience made a big impression!

What’s your favourite mind-calming practice?
Running. Gives me space to think. And it’s good stamina training for a compositional career.

What’s your favourite non-classical band?
Radiohead. 

Are you a cat person or dog person?
Cats. But, that said, because of various interesting neighbours, I’ve taken care of cats, dogs, fish, hawks, falcons and various kinds of owls. I really love animals. They show me how to be still, how to be present.

What’s the best meal you’ve ever had?
Carbonara in Venice on a warm, sunny evening after walking all day with one of my favourite people.

What was your childhood dream job?
When I was very small, I wanted to be a conductor. (I don’t think I understood, at the time, what that entailed!)

Are you happiest in the country or in the city?
The country. Cities in small doses are fabulous and invigorating. The country keeps me sane.

What’s your guilty pleasure?
All things Bravo.

What’s a big investment for an opera artist, but totally worth it?
Every beloved opera was new once, and I’d love for all opera artists to have the opportunity to be part of making new work. It is an investment of time and energy and, yes, you may not sing that role again or remount that production. But the experience of being part of the process can be transformational.

Do you enjoy cooking? If yes, what is your best dish?
I can’t cook at all. I can fry an egg, badly, and even my microwaving isn’t great. This means I am profoundly grateful when other people cook.

What is the first thing you would do if you won the lottery?
Invest in creators’ careers. Our current funding models typically invest in individual projects. Sustaining the artist themself – supporting the trajectory of their career through its highs and lows, its periods of risk and discovery – that’s how we help an artist move towards greatness, towards the works that can change all our lives.

I would also give a thundering, sustaining donation to The Donkey Sanctuary of Canada.

What has been inspiring you lately?
Stand-up comedy. Good standup has so much to teach about theatre and performance.

Does composing help keep you young?
Stupidly stressful career in today’s economy. But the activity itself and the collaboration it involves: incredibly rewarding, rejuvenating, keeps me curious and energetic and joyful. That keeps me young.

How old were you when you discovered opera?
I was a child when I first saw the Lepage Bluebeard/Erwartung at the COC. In Bluebeard, when Judith opens the sixth door and reveals the lake of tears… that was the first time I felt, viscerally, what opera can do. This May, when the COC remounted that production, I went three times. Or was it four?

What is the ultimate goal of opera?
Opera is theatre, with ALL the tools. As theatre, opera creates opportunities for us to come together to explore the hardest questions of human experience: its most intense joys and beauties and its greatest despair. I suppose I’d say that, really, it’s about compassion. We sit in rows in the dark, and through shared imagination, we experience such profound connection. I love that fascinating, fragile paradox and the unique role that music can play in it, with such extraordinary power. That keeps me going.