Some thoughts about opera:

Opera is the natural place for me to combine my love of theater, singing, storytelling, and a general joyfulness in absurdity. But opera as it exists now—a genre, an industry, a tradition—doesn’t always feel completely natural to me.

So, I’m working on creating and collaborating to build what I want to exist:

I want opera that explores the full range of human experiences…and non-human experiences. We often think opera is for telling large, sweeping, dramatic, and tragic stories—and it is! But our gifts can also be used to show exquisite joy, victory, playfulness, and more. We can explore the emotional lives of animals and the fantasies of creatures of lore. We can claim silliness for what it is — a complete and total freedom — and not pretend it is something lesser or relegate it to children.

I want us to stop asking some of our players to embody trauma and sacrifice over and over and over again. While much my work focuses on women, all marginalized voices are more than their traumas. Their strength is in more than resisting or out-maneuvering the people who would manipulate or crush them. Their heroic arcs on and off stage go beyond proving their full humanity to those who pull the strings. All singers should have the ability so play a wide variety of human experiences: whatever their voice type, fach, or identities, they should be able to embody joy, victory, delightful villainy, humor, and more.

I want opera to be gender balanced. If most of us are sopranos, then let’s have exciting roles, scenes, and full operas for mostly sopranos. And let’s have roles that can be played by singers of any gender.

I want to recognize our absurdity. Non-opera types sometimes think we’re screaming, we’re over the top, we’re hard to understand, we’re stuffy. What wonderful things to have fun with. And if we don’t want to lean into those things, then we can remember that opera is just music plus stories, and we can use whatever techniques, styles, and devices we want to suit the specific story we want to tell.

I want opera to be short. Lots of lengths can be “evening-length.” People have varied schedules and attention spans!

I want opera to be fun. Funny, spooky, silly, playful, etc. When I watch an opera, I want to be able to easily see the stage, sit in a comfortable seat, and keep my budget in tact. I want to think the acting was good and that the people in the front row aren’t looking down on me for wearing jeans and that I haven’t had to drag anyone along.

I want that young singer to see a wide range of experiences waiting for them, now and in the future. I work with aspiring singers, and they are overwhelmingly sopranos. Many of them are women, and some don’t fall into traditional gender roles. As such, many of them beginning to peer into the universe of opera see a future of asking their bodies and minds to commit to playing out tragedy—and often assault, sickness, and abuse—again and again. To have to find their artistic voices in those modes, again and again. To portray women by reproducing the words and music of men, again and again. That, or they might get to occasionally play a bird-person of secondary importance. Or, they might see little representation of themselves at all. What if we made a world where they could see a possible future full of being pirates and puppies and geniuses and dashing heroes and formidable villains and ghosts and goblins? If younger me, whose voice was starting to grow into something workable, had seen this future, what might have happened?

About my works: 

At some level, all of my completed and in-progress works are about exploring who gets to walk freely through this world and who does not. I’m especially interested in making short, chamber works meant for smaller spaces that an be done in full-out staging, as concert works, or anything in between. I love small, weird companies that make magic out of small budgets in strange places. (None of which is to say I don’t also love companies and stages of all kinds and sizes!) As a singer, I write by singing. I’ve developed a practice of drafting both the text and music simultaneously. Instead of first finding a libretto and then writing music, I’m not finalizing either until I’m writing the actual score. This way, the music and text are dictating to and informing each other in what hopefully comes across as a natural flow. They can adapt to each other in the moment of writing to make honest statements for the character and piece. I love to explore animals, fairytales, and legends. I plan to avoid writing traumatic scenes for women performers, as best I can, and instead give opportunities to feel power and have fun while making full use of the marvelous instruments they’ve developed.

If you are interested in collaborating or performing, please reach out!

One-Acts

WAKING THE WITCH (2022)

the fishwife (2025)

After her husband, a poor fisherman, catches a magical fish, a woman makes a series of increasingly bombastic wishes for wealth and power until she ultimately asks to be “like God.” But what does it mean to be—truly—similar to the divine? What does the fishwife actually want and need? From traditional arias to jaunty sea Shanties, The Fishwife is an inventive reimagining of the Brothers Grimms’ fable on greed, The Fisherman and His Wife. Commissioned by the Maryland Opera Studio, this playful, one-act ensemble piece expands on the original story in a collage of musical languages and styles.

For 9 singers and piano

Fishwife: Soprano
Fisherman: Mezzo-soprano (opt. countertenor or baritone)
Fish: Baritone
Milkmaid: Soprano
Socialite: Mezzo-soprano
Fat Cat: Bass-baritone
Lighthouse Keeper: Tenor
Shadow Advisor: Tenor
Acolyte: Soprano

One act, ~60 min.

Complete. Full piece with piano workshopped by Maryland Opera Studio’s New Works Reading Project in February 2025; open for productions or commissions/workshops for versions with instrumental accompaniment

Commissioned for the Maryland Opera Studio by the School of Music, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

Music and libretto by Ashi Day.

Hear excerpts and learn more at ashi-day.com/fishwife.

Micro-Operas

For Whom the Dog Tolls (2018)

Piper, a rare Canadian hunting dog known as a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, uses the unique (and real!) ability of her breed to lure unsuspecting ducks into gun range—by igniting their curiosity through playfulness. A story of deception, entrapment, and murder.

For soprano, piano, duck call, and whistle

Piper, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever: Soprano

~10'

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Audio

Performances include Opera from Scratch, New Music DC, New Music on the Bayou, and the International Alliance of Women in Music

Music and libretto by Ashi Day. Written for Charlotte Stewart-Juby, soprano, and Opera from Scratch.

The Green child (2020)

A little green girl is found alone and sobbing in the woods and is rescued by a little girl from a nearby village. A nearly grown girl from a small village is rescued from domestic service by a wild, green friend. Based on the possibly true legend of the Green Children of Woolpit, as told in a French fairytale, “The Green She-Devil,” by Marcel Schwob.

For soprano and clarinet

The Village Girl: Soprano*
The Green Child: Clarinet
Narrator: Soprano, speaker, or projected text

~15’ (10’ abridged version available; three excerpts available as independent art songs)

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Audio

*The range of this piece is moderate; it could be potentially performed by some mezzos

Performances by Whistling Hens in a number of venues and festivals, and by Hartford Opera Theater as part of Folxtales in June, 2021. Included in Whistling Hens’ premiere album, Reacting to the Landscape, available on all major streaming services.

Music and original text by Ashi Day, with the inclusion of traditional nursery rhymes and lullaby texts. Commissioned by Whistling Hens.

In Progress