Welcome to a world premiere, reflecting on the meeting of indigenous Australians with the European arrivals. We're starting our term with an unknown work that provides a pause for thought about our relations with the First Nations of Australia.
Victorian Opera's premiere comes to our session 19/10/23. Here's the program from that premiere, complete with rehearsal images. And on their website, we have the first images from the performance.
The Visitors was first a book, then a play, now an opera.
'We join seven Aboriginal Elders in 1788 as they meet ‘The Visitors’.
Imbued with Aboriginal customs, melody and humour from composer Christopher Sainsbury and libretto by original playwright and Muruwari woman, Jane Harrison, it tells the story of the early days of colonialism and its impacts on the First Peoples. Through metaphors of birds falling from the sky and changes to the weather, we watch as the Elders question how to respond to ‘the visitors’.'
There are detailed interviews with the author/playwright and the composer - as well as a playlist of extracts - on the Victorian Opera site.
Muruwari woman, Jane Harrison, is founding Director of the Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival. Here she gives her account of moving from her book, via the play, to the opera.
'Each medium is very different in how you approach it. With the novel I needed to describe events which is anathema in playwrighting. All of the other elements that are present in a stage production – the performers, their costumes, the set and the props, music and lighting, are absent in a book so you have to create the atmosphere through description. For the opera I had to think big, grand gesture but hone the 60 odd pages of a stage script down to 20 pages of a libretto. So you do lose some narrative but it is more than compensated for by the music that does much of the storytelling.'
Check out Christopher Sainsbury's account of his arrival at the music for this opera; there's more here about his work as a 'regionalist composer'.
Taking images from a local region he 'reconstitutes them in new ways ... that in turn fortify a sense of regional identity.'
He improvises and composes in jazz and cross-over styles, as well as supporting indigenous music making. “I must point out that some non-Indigenous composers have occupied the Indigenous space,” he writes. “Many non-Indigenous composers have referenced Indigenous music, culture, themes or narratives in their compositions. At times, some have done so effectively, disempowering Indigenous composers. This has occurred for many decades.”. Read here about his view on indigenous music and the First Peoples Composers program.
If you have time, take a side trip to the music Sainsbury drew on from German radical Hans Werner Henze, whose El Cimarrón (The Runaway Slave) is the story of a Cuban slave told by a scenic vocal composition involving traditional instruments and amazing sounds.
Listen here to a stunning performance in the other Met - the NY Met Museum of Art.
Now, what to expect when the Visitors arrive?
Lyn 15/10/23
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