Chamber opera in three acts · in production
Rhizomessages
If humanity struggles to interpret its own signals, how can we hope to read the subtler communications of nature?
The premise
A myth rewritten as climate emergency
Daphne has spent 2,000 years as a linden tree. She regains her human voice and is sent back by the plant kingdom — not to be saved, but to deliver an urgent message that no one knows how to hear.
The result sits between opera, installation, and live electronics: three voices, a six-player ensemble, surround sound, responsive lighting, and a stage of living plants whose signals are continuously turned into notation. Audiences are immersed from the moment they enter.
Act by act
Three acts, one unanswered call
She is met, but not heard
Daphne returns. Apollo objectifies her emotionally; the Beautanist objectifies her scientifically. She is met, but not heard.
Still, no one listens
Daphne intensifies her message through accounts of ecological disaster. Still, no one truly listens.
Reabsorbed
Daphne resigns her mission and is reabsorbed into the forest. The central paradox lingers.
Cast & forces
Who's on stage
Voices
- Daphne — soprano · Patricia Auchterlonie
- Beautanist — mezzo-soprano · Rosie Middleton
- Apollo — baritone · Oskar McCarthy
Explore Ensemble
- Clarinet, trombone
- Violin, cello
- Piano, percussion
Characters
The three characters
Daphne
Returned from the plant kingdom, carrying deep ecological memory. Her language is urgent, strange, beyond ordinary speech.
Apollo
God of music and light — still haunted by ancient longing. Projects emotion onto Daphne; cannot hear past his own myth.
Beautanist
Attempts to interpret plant life through science and technology. Reduces the living to data — and also fails to listen.
From the libretto
Apollo & Daphne: an exchange
The libretto by Cia Rinne operates as poetic installation rather than drama — fragmentary, layered with wordplay, resistant to singular meaning, and inhabited physically as much as sung.
Technical system
Plant biofeedback & live score generation
A custom IoT system captures the bio-electrical activity of living plants on stage and converts it into notation that performers read from their iPads — in real time, as they play. The plants don't make sound; they shape pitch and rhythm for the musicians, who respond in a feedback loop.
A key distinction: this is score generation, not sonification. The plant is not an instrument to be played — it is a collaborator in a shared creative process.
Research
Documentation & writing
The technical system underpinning the work is described in a co-authored ICMC 2026 paper, "Co-Composing with Plants: Early Experiments in Bio-Responsive Score Design," covering the IoT architecture, the signal-to-notation pipeline, and the questions that emerge when a non-human system takes part in composition.
The work is grounded in posthumanism, 4E cognition, and theories of plant agency — proposing a non-hierarchical network in which plant, algorithm, and performer act as co-equal collaborators. In rehearsal, character is explored through a surrealist lens with dramaturg Sam Redway Wells, drawing on reference points including Birtwistle's Punch and Judy and the Bouffon tradition.
Status
Rhizomessages is in active production, with a full staged premiere planned for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in November 2027. For performance enquiries, collaboration, or press, please get in touch.
