Pecan Summer is one of those operas in which recitative and aria are one. This means there are no standout melodies to whistle on your way home, but there is a sense of unity, of deep involvement in the oneness of story and music. And indeed Pecan Summer carries a tale that needs such treatment. It concerns Alice, a young girl who is stolen from her family by the authorities, only to have her own daughter stolen in the same manner. And there is no happy ending, only the poignancy of mother and daughter having suffered the same fate.
There are, of course, lighter moments. One is when the children are about to set off to town to see ‘the movie house’. This chorus could easily become a popular favourite if it were performed on, say, commercial television. There is another melodic sequence set in church – the specially written hymn and the setting of the Lord’s Prayer would not be out of place in any Sunday service. No matter that they are sung by characters who mean well, but whose conditioning has made them patronising and condescending toward the people they want to ‘help’.
The acting, with one or two minor exceptions, was excellent. Deborah Cheetham herself, as Ella, Alice’s mother, demonstrated clarity of tone and sincerity of presentation that set an example to her colleagues. The cast overall is a large one and too numerous to name one by one. Some of the artists – notably the children’s chorus, drawn from the Shepparton-based Dhunghala Children’s Choir – are only just beginning their training, but they gave a very good account of themselves and are a credit to their teachers and mentors.
The Perth Symphony Orchestra responded magnificently to the sensitive baton of David Kram. This new orchestra continues to go from strength to strength. I hope they will become involved in more theatre performances.
Mention should also be made of the brilliant ‘Dreamtime’ sequence which serves as a prelude to the opera proper. The dance and mime of Rachel Woods and her athletic serpentine companion Sermsah Bin Saad established the tone of the evening in a meaningful manner that paid due respect to Aboriginal spirituality.
There are one or two small quibbles – for one thing, why ‘Pecan Summer’? Alice is called Pecan by her father, but as she was born in about 1930, it would have been unlikely that he even knew the word: Pecans are from America (where the word, by the way, is pronounced ‘peck ahn’) and were virtually unknown here then: we didn’t start growing them commercially until the 1960s. If a librettist is introducing a deliberate anachronism, it needs to be explained by the plot.
Likewise, the use of the term ‘Movie House’. I am, I fear, old enough to remember the 1940s, and I know darned well that the term in use in Australia before the 1960s was ‘Picture House’. I also find it hard to believe that women on mission stations and in bush camps wore high heels.
But these, as I say, are minor quibbles. If you get a chance to see a future production of this show, please do so.
Rating: 4 ½ stars out of 5
Short Black Opera presents:
Pecan Summer – Australia’s first indigenous opera
Composer/Librettist and Director: Deborah Cheetham
Associate Director: Cameron Menzies
Conductor: Dr David Kram
Set Design: Hugh Colman
Lighting Design: Rachel Burke
Choreography: Sermsah Bin Saad
Costumes: Alexis George
Orchestration: Jessica Wells
Cast includes: Shauntai Batzke, Jessica Hitchcock, Stephen Grant, John Wayne Parsons, Tiriki Onus, Vonda Last, Minjara Atkinson, Patricia Oakley, Jonathan Welch and many others.
Heath Ledger Theatre, Perth
September 6 – 8
