Drawing upon our experiences of working with refugees and seekers of asylum, The Land of Nightingales and Honey aims to illustrate the anxieties that refugees face once they have been displaced from their homeland. It is easy to assume that once in a camp or ‘safe’ country, people are content; however the state of limbo that a refugee faces and alienation from things that help to inform one's identity (such as food, language, landscape, family etc) can be as traumatic as the horrors from which they have fled.

Claire O’Connor wrote a libretto which was a dialogue between a female refugee and her inner consciousness – providing scope to capture the tumult of feelings that person may feel in that situation. However, it was important that this piece wasn’t mournful but a navigation of emotions from fear, anxiety, love and hope. Having the two voices enables these emotions to come across strongly and take the audience on a journey of duality, the past journey to get to the camp and the journey into the future which is uncertain.

Certain decisions such as the character’s name Dilva, the names of the bread (babari, samoon and kalaneh) and the title are all designed to evoke the Kurdish culture.

This is but one song of a developing set of miniature opera scenes.