Anne Bonny: Composing a New Sapphic Pirate Folk Opera

Anne Bonny was a female pirate active around the early 1700s. Very little is known about her life beyond sensationalist imaginings. However, I was inspired by her story and saw in her circumstances the experiences of women and queer people today who face persecution anew under recent and pending legislation. I reinterpret Anne’s life, and those of her fellow pirates Calico Jack and Mary Read, in a new folk opera as an allegory and opportunity for representation of these experiences on stage. This fourth-wall-breaking opera, with music in shanty, Irish, and Scandinavian folk styles with a dramatic contemporary twist, explores the power dynamics between Anne and Calico Jack, her lover and captain. Jack represents patriarchal structures designed to control, isolate, and suppress women. Mary Read, who is soon revealed also to be a woman aboard the ship, represents the transformative power of female friendships and sappy/queer love. The opera exhibits Anne’s transformation as she reexamines the sacrifices she once made, and now regrets, to be with Jack. As the two women begin to fall for one another, Anne encourages Mary to assert her own power of deception with other historical ways women have wrested control from men. Ultimately, Calico Jack is outsmarted, and his agency over the opera is torn apart. The consequences of his actions finally catch up to him in an ending inspired by the historical accounts of Anne, Mary, and Jack.