30' opera for two singers, written & composed by Michael Maxwell Steer.
A young woman is shown round a one-room flat by a letting agent. We learn she's a photographer who is trying to fund a photography project about deserts. She agrees to take it and he leaves.
She then phones a friend while boiling a kettle. Looking for somewhere to put the teabag she discovers wads of banknotes in the wastebin. She is horrified & excited in equal measure.
At first she doesnt know what to do & searches for traces of the previous tenant. But finding almost nothing she slowly realises it's enough to fund her project, and is trying to work out if she could get away with it - when there's a shot & the lightbulb above her head shatters. Terrified, in the darkness she grabs her belongings & exits - but we don't see whether she's taken the money or replaced it.
The opera ends with the letting agent showing someonelse round in identical language. We never know whether she put the money back or took it.