Susan Hill looks back to her novel and forwards to Finney’s opera of A Kind Man

Can you remember what first inspired the ideas that led to the novel?

A friend told me some years ago that she had been staying in Ireland and heard of a local man who had apparently started to heal people, quite suddenly. News about him spread, until dozens of sick people visited him, wanting to be cured and he felt he had to help them, though his new gift bewildered him. Then, after a year or two, just as abruptly, the healing power deserted him. The story stayed with me & I knew I would do something with it one day.

It’s been over ten years since A Kind Man first appeared. Do you look back on your books? I think you said you were fond of this one?

I only look back when asked questions about them. But I have one or two I am fond of, including this though I don’t really know why.

Does music play a large part in your life? Do you listen to vocal works or any opera? 

It used to play a huge part. For deeply private & personal reasons, I find it hard to listen to much now, unless it’s ephemera or brass bands. And I’ll go to any production of The Magic Flute. 

What were your first thoughts when Jonathan asked permission to turn the book into an opera? Had you been approached by a composer before for another work? 

Yes, Diana Burrell wrote an opera based on my novella The Albatross. I am always very happy for an artist in any other medium to take my books and recreate them as they want, because of course they’re not actually changing a word. The book is always still there, as it was written, to be read.

Jonathan kept in touch along his composing path, running the libretto past you. Your work had been adapted in the past – can you let go completely to the other writers or are you concerned about what they might do? 

No. They do exactly what they want. See above!

The stage and film adaptations of The Woman in Black produced very different works from the novel – what do you expect from an operatic treatment? Also, adaptations reach different and new audiences – have you found this brings people back to the original stories?

Yes. It all does nothing but good.

A Kind Man is spare on detail – we don’t know where or when it was set. How do you feel about someone making a decision on how they dress or move, which indirectly fills in information that isn’t in the original book? 

Apart from the quite separate crime novels, all my books are like this. The reader’s imagination does the ‘colouring in’, which is why writing fiction is always a live collaboration. The same applies to dramatisation and opera.

You leave the response to your words to the readers, but a composer is adding his subjective feelings through his music. How do feel about your words interacting with music?

It can only add another layer of richness and meaning. Writing, producing, directing and performing an opera is a huge undertaking, and has to be a labour of love. I hope everyone who sees it will love it, and even more, that it will have a life.