Iris Candelaria: Talking animals and a singing river

Just before becoming involved with All the Truths, I had watched the haunting HBO series Chernobyl, so the timeline and structure of the accident were clear in my mind before reading the libretto. The librettist, Glenda Goss, has taken an interesting artistic approach to describing the events. Chernobyl is not described in a realistic manner but is placed in a fantasy world with talking animals and a singing river. I am portraying several roles, for instance the role of a bear.

The bear seems to be the leader of the animals in the forest. She is always on top of the situation, has good moral values, and strong opinions about the humans who have destroyed their home by building nuclear plants. Like a true Queen of the Forest, she warns other animals about these dangerous intruders while singing high coloraturas. The only human she trusts is a former nuclear scientist, Svetlana, who now cares for the animals. And, of course, there is a love triangle in the story. This is opera after all! Luckily it doesn’t concern the bear.

The colors and the overall feeling of the HBO series are very dark and grey. It really underlines the horrible destruction that the accident caused and focuses on the political scheming that cost even more lives. It really made me feel quite anxious and hopeless – won’t we ever learn? After reading the libretto, however, I found the setting of the opera very colorful, with the green forest and silvery river calm before the storm, a sunny town celebration, the explosion, and the darkness after that, and finally a red contaminated forest. I’m therefore very excited to see how the opera is going to look visually. But the real question for me is: Will I have huge paws and a snout on stage?

While this theme is very difficult and will possibly cause anxiousness among the cast during the months of rehearsing the opera, I’m very proud to be part of a project that has such an important environmental message. Maybe this would be the beginning of a more environmentally active wave in modern opera.

Iris Candelaria

The author plays the parts of the bear in the opera All the Truths We Cannot See – A Chernobyl Story.