In 2019, I came across a video of Emma O’Halloran’s opera Mary Motorhead, which had premiered at National Sawdust in New York. It was brilliantly performed by Naomi Louisa O’Connell, and both the confidence and clarity of the composition and the compelling narrative of Mark O’Halloran’s text were striking. I was hooked. Beth Morrison Projects had commissioned and produced the premiere as part of their BMP: Next Gen composers’ competition, which Emma won. The prize for the win was a fully commissioned and produced opera, which became Trade. BMP invited INO into the project, and together we commissioned and produced Trade.

Bringing new operas to life is always an exciting but complex process, and working with major international partners allows these works to reach a wider audience. This double bill made a significant impact when it premiered at New York’s Prototype Festival in January 2023 and later at Los Angeles Opera, with so many Irish artists being celebrated on an international stage. Following its US debut, Trade and Mary Motorhead embarked on an Irish tour, reaching audiences in Kilkenny, Dún Laoghaire, Cork, Tralee, Ennis, and Navan—further cementing the works’ place in Ireland’s contemporary opera landscape.

Emma and Mark O’Halloran have crafted characters drawn from contemporary life—individuals facing daunting challenges, whose stories unfold with raw intensity. Like Puccini’s underdogs, they exist in worlds where hardship and resilience collide, projected onto the grand and heartbreaking canvas that is opera. As the Los Angeles Times’s Mark Swed wrote about this production: “Rarely, if ever, does every element—score, text, singers, instrumentalists, conductor, director, sets, costumes, lighting, sound design—all come together. This is that rarity.”

This album captures that rarity, preserving the power of these extraordinary operas and allowing listeners to experience their impact beyond the stage.

Fergus Sheil © 2025
Artistic Director, Irish National Opera

I have always been fascinated by people. Observing them, figuring out what makes them tick. Before becoming a composer, I studied psychology and anthropology, and I loved spending my time thinking about who people are and why they do things. In a way, I was drawn to music as a means of exploring these complicated emotions that I sometimes had trouble capturing in words.

In 2018, I adapted the play Mary Motorhead, written by my uncle Mark O’Halloran, into a monodrama. Mark’s work explores inner worlds, the often unseen events in people’s lives that shape them and make them who they are. There is a beautiful economy in his use of language—if a line of text can be conveyed through a look or a gesture, it’s not needed. His words leave space for my music to capture all the complex and messy feelings of what it is to be alive.

When Mark agreed to adapt his play, Trade, into an opera, I knew he would make something special. In Trade, we witness an encounter between two men in a guestroom in North Dublin. The men are separated by age but not by much else, and they both share a secret. These men go on to have a conversation unlike anything they’ve ever had before.

I wrote the majority of this opera during the pandemic lockdowns in Ireland and this text grew roots and lived inside me. I began to see these two men as mirrors for each other, reflecting back aspects of themselves that they may or may not want to see. Slowly, the music began to do that too. I think, in writing this opera, I have also been transformed. I spent every day for over a year thinking that, deep down, all we want in this life is to be seen and loved and accepted for who we are. If even one person resonates with that after hearing this work, I’ve done my job.

Emma O'Halloran © 2025