David Almond on the Skellig opera.

From the Guardian:

When I wrote Skellig - set in the streets of Newcastle - my mind was filled with sounds: the creaking of a dilapidated garage, the scuttlings and scratchings inside, a baby's heartbeats, her breath, the songs of blackbirds, the cheeping of chicks, the hooting of owls, the dawn chorus, the voice of a girl quoting William Blake, the sound of the city beyond a small suburban garden. At the centre of it was Skellig himself: his surly almost-animal squeaks and growls becoming more coherent, turning into a confident human voice. And when the book was published and people began to ask questions about it - about the repetition of certain phrases, for instance, or its rhythms, or its composition as a series of scenes, or its use of Blake's poetry, I often found myself referring to music.