Mezzosoprano Rosie Middleton
Medicine, Memory, and the Music of Defiance
Zakiya Leeming tells us why a new Opera about an 18th century vaccine advocate is urgently relevant, and a story for our times.
Vaccines: centuries old and still a hot topic. This month, we mark two momentous victories in the story of inoculation: the 45th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, and the 229th anniversary of the official discovery of the modern vaccine. The roundabout to this swinging story is that measles, tuberculosis, whooping cough, and other communicable diseases are experiencing a dramatic rise – with some threatening to return to endemic status in the US within the next two decades.
Conscious of this timing, I’m heading into rehearsals for my new opera at the Royal Northern College of Music, Dangerous Matter, which debuts in June and is inspired by the history of science and immune memory, told through the story of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – an 18th century writer whose pioneering medical advocacy is credited with laying the groundwork for the modern vaccine (and played by lauded mezzosoprano Rosie Middleton).
Why should opera concern itself with something as charged and contentious as vaccinations? I’d argue that opera, with its capacity to fuse emotion and reason, is uniquely suited to the task. The libretto, by Sam Redway after Lady Mary’s own writing, explores the deeply human dimensions of public health: fear, hope, loss, and trust. The emotional weight behind human motivations reminds us that beneath every policy or breakthrough, and every stance against it, lies a story of human lives, relationships, and moral conviction. Recognising our shared values and humanity creates a foundation upon which we can build meaningful conversation on emotionally charged topics.
Composer Zakiya Leeming
The urgency of addressing reemerging medical nationalism and vaccine hesitancy cannot be understated. Vaccines, one of the greatest public health achievements in history, are now mired in political controversy and conspiracy. Misinformation spreads faster than measles in an unprotected population. Public health officials face harassment. Countries have at times threatened to reduce cooperation with or withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), undermining the very structures meant to facilitate a global health response. In this atmosphere, we desperately need cultural works that do more than entertain – we need those that illuminate, provoke, and remember.
That’s why I teamed up with Professor Paul Klenerman, an immunologist at Oxford University, to create an inter-disciplinary project exploring how immune science can inform music. Klenerman’s research looks at ‘unconventional T-cells’ and how they operate in our immune systems. Our discussions led us to the perfect analogy: the story of Lady Mary and her fight with the medical establishment in England to accept the practice of inoculation.
Lady Mary fought for smallpox inoculations for both of her children; she had recovered from the disease herself, but with life-altering scars. Dangerous Matter emphasises the role that she and many other women have played as the carriers of immunological and intellectual memory for communities. For centuries, women have been at the heart of health care – as midwives, caregivers, healers – and yet their contributions have often been dismissed or co-opted. In a world where women’s rights, including access to health care, are being eroded in many countries, Lady Mary’s story reminds us that progress often begins in the margins and is carried forward by those whose voices are not always amplified. We see that some of our greatest achievements in medicine owe much to women’s traditional medicine and to the people who became brave conduits of knowledge, whose continuous attribution of vaccine practice have emphasised the importance of cooperative action.
Lady Mary’s decision to advocate for the practice (as well as her life-long and vocal attribution of the procedure known as the ‘Turkish Method’, and credit given to the women who taught her) is a rebuke to both nationalism and isolationism. She did not cling to English tradition; she trusted the knowledge of a practice and people who had been successful in their fight against a common experience. She observed, listened, learned – and then acted. Her approach was one of curiosity, humility, and courage. These are precisely the virtues lacking in much of today’s political discourse around global health. From COVID-19 vaccine hoarding by wealthy nations to the suspicion cast on international science, we are witnessing the consequences of a world that has forgotten why we cooperate.
Professor of Immunology at Oxford University Paul Klenerman
Today, women are disproportionately targeted by misinformation campaigns that exploit their roles as caregivers, sowing doubt about vaccine safety and endangering public health. We owe it to the women, past and present, who helped shape modern medicine to acknowledge their contributions, especially as access to the very practices they helped pioneer is now being restricted and undermined. A message of resistance is urgent – resistance to disinformation, fear, and to the hoarding of life-saving knowledge and the tools that we all deserve.
Lady Mary’s story highlights the long history of global co-operation required for the successful transmission of this knowledge, from Ancient China through to the global eradication of the deadly disease of smallpox in 1980. This work continues to inform our pandemic readiness today. The memory of a woman who dared to believe that knowledge should travel across borders is a timely reminder that, if we are to survive the pandemics, both viral and ideological, we must remember and we must cooperate.
Dangerous Matter, an Opera in one act, premieres at the RNCM on Tue 24 Jun.
Tickets are available here.
