Whatever else you took away from the Victorian State Opera and Opera Australia’s production of Eucalyptus, it’s a fair bet that you didn’t exit the theatre whistling the tunes. But, then again, catchy melodies aren’t everything…
A new Australian opera with a long gestation period (thanks to its venerated composer getting another job and then a pandemic disrupting its planned 2020 Sydney premiere) Eucalyptus is the third opera from Jonathan Mills, following 1999’s The Ghost Wife and 2003’s The Eternity Man, which both had librettos from the late great Dorothy Porter. The libretto this time around is from Meredith Oakes, who has done a simply wonderful job of taking the words from Murray Bail’s Miles Franklin Award-winning novel and crafting a beautifully lucid and poetic tale.
Literary critic Peter Craven may have accused Bail of being “incapable of writing simple sentences” when the book was published in 1998, but whether that’s true or not, Oakes’ libretto eloquently and succinctly tells the story of the widower who loves his trees and daughter in such equal measure that he decides to give her hand in marriage to whomsoever is able to name each of the individual types of eucalyptus he has grown on his property in the bush.
Mills’ composition may not be immediately accessible or an easy crowd-pleaser, but its complex rhythms and tones capture a rural Australia that is at once familiar and yet conversely also unfathomable.
The catalyst for the plot, and the pivot around which the opera revolves, is Ellen, the daughter who – in the spirit of so many predecessors from works stretching from The Mayor of Casterbridge to Paint Your Wagon and myriad fairy tales, of course – is basically a chattel to be disposed of by auction, competition or whatever other means the patriarch feels fitting. And this is despite the fact that the father in question dotes on his only child and supposedly values her above all everything.
Ellen is a huge and demanding role, but thankfully Desiree Frahn was more than up to the task, with a powerful technique coping admirably with the more challenging requirements of the score. Simon Meadows was also a staunch presence as Ellen’s father, Holland, and Michael Petruccelli brought a particularly warm and hearty presence to the role of The Stranger – the man who arrives to disrupt Holland’s rather preposterous scheme.
With such an experienced theatrical as Michael Gow in the director’s chair, it was perhaps unsurprising that this was a production in which all the singers were able to really convey emotion through their acting as well as their vocal prowess. Natalie Jones and Dimity Shepherd were a case in point – delightful as the perennially cheery and gossipy Sprunt Sisters. And the chorus was particularly fine – whether acting as townsfolk or an ersatz Greek chorus.
A modest set comprising towering split backdrops emblazoned with the trees of the title, and a small stage in front of a bush screen, upon which archive footage was projected, was an efficient solution to the recreation of time and place. But with Orchestra Victoria only partly able to be glimpsed through the backdrops, the result did seem like an unfair spotlight was given to part of the the woodwind section at the expense of all the other players.
Read: Theatre review: Werewolf, Arts Centre Melbourne
Overall, in a year when Melbourne’s stages have been graced by such international staples as Tosca, Candide and La Rondine, with The Barber of Seville and Carmen yet to come, the opportunity to witness such a genuine, homegrown and quintessentially Australian opera as Eucalyptus was a treat indeed. Whether we came out humming or not.
Eucalyptus: The Opera
Based on Murray Bail’s novel
Presented in association with Victorian Opera, Brisbane Festival and Opera Australia with West Australian Opera
Composer: Jonathan Mills
Librettist: Meredith Oakes
Conductor: Tahu Matheson
Director: Michael Gow
Set and Costume Designer: Simone Romaniuk
Lighting Designer: Trudy Dalgleish
Cover Conductor: Richard Mills
Cast: Desiree Frahn, Simon Meadows, Michael Petruccelli, Samuel Dundas, Natalie Jones, Dimity Shepherd
Orchestra Victoria
Eucalyptus was performed at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne from 16-19 October.
