"Winterreise is such a complete and perfect work, any disruption or pulling apart of it is a real act of violence, and one that makes very little musical sense, and that kind of reflects how I feel about the world right now," Moore says.
"I'm a political junkie and although I'm idealistic and optimistic, all of that came crashing down when Trump won. I had a huge emotional response to what happened because it felt like my understanding of the world had shifted and been negated to such an extraordinary extent."
She found Winterreise, a taut hour of dark intensity and no little despondency, suited her mood and returned again and again to Schubert's work.
"This is a song cycle that's entirely about despair and that sense of being rejected by a community and walking away from it. It's very bleak.
"That mirrored how I was feeling. If Winterreise is a man's response to a really bad break-up, this is my response to a break-up with the world. It feels like the world broke up with me and I didn't see it coming."
If it sounds lovelorn, Moore finds strength in singing a work more often performed by men.
"I feel it's almost a feminist act, claiming Winterreise. Men often get to play the lovesick, the obsessive, the stalker-y, and for them it's kind of acceptable," she says.
"When women play the obsessive, the stalker-y, or show a sense of not being able to let the relationship go, they're often defined as crazy so I think there's power in taking ownership and saying, 'I feel these things and it's not shrill, it's actually comprehensible, considering everything'."
It's Alex Taylor's job to convey musically Moore's vision, which she described to him as "a kind of wintry apocalypse with some 1930s vibes thrown in".
For this, Taylor sees himself less composer, more arranger and, though he shudders at the word, curator, creating a programme of music that fits in between, over the top of and around the Schubert in a way that forms a coherent work.
"I'm sort of a circus master bringing bits together," he says.
Those bits include early 20th century composers like Schoenberg, Webern and Bartok. The links between that trio and the more decorous Schubert of a century earlier aren't immediately apparent but Taylor says you can find them if you know where to look.
"In Schubert, there are moments of real intensity and adventurousness in the harmonic language but you have to draw them out, they're kind of brief. The majority of Schubert goes by quite pleasantly; I reckon you have to heighten these moments of weirdness."
For Dido and Aeneas: Recomposed, Taylor threw in some Beyonce. Pop music may or may be part of the new show; Moore's keen to include Shakespears Sister's 1992 hit Stay but Taylor's yet to be convinced.
"Including contemporary pop-culture references isn't about broadening audiences, he says.
"Some of the language around opera strikes me as slightly desperate: breaking down barriers and making it more accessible and all that stuff.
"The art form is great in itself but if you keep on doing it the same old way you're not going to survive. I don't try to imagine or guess someone's tastes. I think you can only make music to your own taste and hope the audience sees the value in that."
The danger is that you don't take people with you. That's not been the case for UnstuckOpera - the Auckland season of Dido and Aeneas: Recomposed sold out before the show opened. Even so, a small venue and defiantly low ticket prices meant that Dido made a loss.
"We did very well but staging opera is expensive," says Moore. "Often we say to our artists that we'll give them a cut of the box office, we can't guarantee what you'll make. That's a difficult ask for professionals."
Moore nevertheless remains optimistic UnstuckOpera can survive financially.
"Where there's a will there's a way," she says, "you have to stay hopeful - and I believe in this art form."
Lowdown
What: The Winterreise Project
Where and when: Basement Theatre studio, October 17-28
