A work that has evolved across two decades

Little began composing  Soldier Songs after a 2004 conversation with a childhood friend who had recently returned from Iraq. The composer subsequently drew on interviews with veterans to create an intensely personal work for a single baritone and amplified seven-piece ensemble. The piece was commissioned by Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and first presented in 2006. The work continued to evolve theatrically. A workshop presentation was featured in New York City Opera’s VOX Showcase in 2008, followed by a staged production by Beth Morrison Projects at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, one of the earliest examples of the “indie-opera” aesthetic that would explode on the scene within a decade. The first full production premiered at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven in 2011, directed by Yuval Sharon and starring David Adam Moore with members of Little’s ensemble Newspeak, with the composer himself on drum set.

Since then, Soldier Songs has been presented by opera companies and festivals across the country, including Los Angeles Opera, Atlanta Opera, San Diego Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, PROTOTYPE Festival, and Chicago Opera Theater, among others. The work has also been presented internationally, including at the Holland Festival.

“Soldier Songs was, in many ways, my unexpected entry into opera,” said David T. Little. “When I wrote it, I didn’t even really think of it as an opera. It was an experiment—an ‘opera in the form of a song cycle,’ built from interviews with veterans and shaped by my own musical and dramatic instincts. It was Beth Morrison who said, essentially, ‘You know, this is an opera,’ and that realization opened a whole new world for me. Connecting with Beth and seeing what the piece could become gave me the confidence and excitement to keep writing opera. It’s entirely possible that I wouldn’t be writing opera today if I hadn’t written Soldier Songs almost on a whim.”

Twenty years later, Little is struck by how much of what has come to define his approach to opera is already present in Soldier Songs. “I’ve always been interested in the experiential possibilities of the form—how music, theater, visual language, and unconventional approaches to narrative can work together to create something that is more than any one of those elements on its own,” said Little, who served as Opera Philadelphia’s Composer in Residence from 2014-2017. “That impulse continued through works like Dog Days, Vinkensport, JFK, Black Lodge, Sin-Eater and What Belongs to You. Each of those pieces finds its own way of thinking about what an opera can be, while remaining deeply connected to the operatic tradition.”

In 2021, Opera Philadelphia transformed the work yet again, creating a film specifically for the screen rather than simply filming a stage production. Filmed on location at the Brandywine Conservancy’s Birmingham Hill Preserve in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the movie places McCullough’s Soldier in and around a deteriorating trailer in an isolated landscape, using cinematic language to enter the character’s fractured psychological world. McCullough both directed and starred in the film, with James Darrah serving as producer and screenwriter and Corrado Rovaris as music director. The film was produced by Opera Philadelphia in association with FreshFly.

“A worthy addition” to opera on film

The 2021 film received widespread critical acclaim. The New York Times called Soldier Songs “a worthy addition to the far-too-slight catalog of opera presented in cinematic form,” praising the film’s “imagistic playfulness” and the score’s blend of post-Minimalist and hard-rock influences. The Wall Street Journal described the film as “an immersive experience that takes the audience on a terrifying dive into the mind of a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder,” while Opera News called it “a remarkable achievement for Johnathan McCullough as performer and as filmmaker.”

The New Yorker, writing as the film received its GRAMMY nomination, highlighted McCullough’s direction and performance and called the Opera Philadelphia Channel one of the most successful pandemic-era innovations by an American opera company.

The film ultimately received a 2022 GRAMMY® Award nomination for Best Opera Recording, as well as an Opera America Award and a nomination from the International Opera Awards.

About Soldier Songs
Music and Libretto by David T. Little, based on and featuring interviews with: Justen Bennett (US Army), Amber Ferenz (US Army), Richard Girardin (US Marine Corps), Gene Little (US Army), Joseph W. Little (US Army), Eugene F. Woznicki (US Air Force)
Directed by and Starring Johnathan McCullough
Producer and Screenwriter James Darrah
Music Director Corrado Rovaris
Produced by Opera Philadelphia in association with FreshFly
Approximately 60 minutes
Soldier Songs contains strong language, strobe lighting, and themes and depictions of violence, military combat and PTSD.