Reviewed: Sydney’s adventurous young chamber opera company does Dostoevsky

When: Feb 17, 2011

Where: Cell Block Theatre, Forbes St, Darlinghurst, New South Wales

Web: https://sydneychamberopera.com/

I can see how Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground would appeal to Sydney Chamber Opera, the newly founded troupe of ambitious twenty-somethings, as the basis of their inaugural production. The novella’s stream-of-consciousness diatribe is constructed as the writings of a raving recluse taking refuge from the world at large in his own internalised ‘underground’. Penned in 1864, this strikingly modern study of existentialism broods in the shadows, shunning the 19th-century Romantics.

With that grim premise for a new opera by young composer Jack Symonds, concert-goers and opera buffs might be expecting an indulgently angst-ridden affair from recent graduates and wannabe-enfants terribles. But, having seen Britten’s Turn of the Screw staged last year by members of the dynamic new group (in an earlier incarnation as Sydney University Opera Company) I knew to expect a polished, atmospheric and thought-provoking piece.

I had no idea, however, what to expect in terms of a plot. How to write an opera based on a hazy philosophical rant, with an alarming (to most theatre directors) lack of action or drama? Librettist Pierce Wilcox has devised a clever, though not entirely sustaining, solution that presents the two sections of the novella simultaneously. Dostoevsky’s 40-year-old Underground narrator scrawls his tirade against humanity in the first chapter, then recalls, in the second, the seed of his break with society as a 24-year-old; probably the average age of Sydney Chamber Opera’s performers. The hermitic malcontent observes and comments on his own earlier actions – at one pivotal moment even lending his younger self some roubles to pay a prostitute – with some interesting vocal and dramatic exchanges emerging as a result.

Darlinghurst’s Cell Block Theatre is the ideal venue for such an insular work. The sandstone walls and high ceiling might have given the feel of a church setting, had it not been for the iron-barred windows of this former gaol, and their ominous reminder of the anti-hero’s predicament: is his retreat into the Underground self-inflicted imprisonment, or is he freer than those who remain bound by conventional life?

The Underground and Aboveground dwellers are superbly cast: bass-baritone Morgan Pearse is a talent to be watched, with a rich, burnished quality to his middle range and fluid, flexible tone. But it is baritone Mitchell Riley whose searing intensity and expressive edge really flesh out the younger, still-hopeful character’s internal conflicts and pent-up desires: he bristles with self-loathing and his fear of rejection is palpable.

His love interest – or perhaps ‘human-connection interest’ would be more accurate – is equally damaged and emotionally volatile. As Liza, the young girl pressed into prostitution by her poverty-stricken family, Anna Yun is pathos in a corset, singing in warm, creamy tones. The chemistry is convincing, tinged as it is with sadness, fleeting tenderness, and some violent gestures from Aboveground for good measure. Liza’s sinister Madam, soprano Nicole Thomson, didn’t seem quite up to the task for the high, soft and sustained notes that comprised most of her part. The servant Apollon (Anthony Hunt) provides much-needed yet unobtrusive comic relief in a non-vocal role.

Angular, ascetic design by Charlotte Lane invites the audience to view the torn pages of agitated writings strewn across the stage as a sort of mindscape, while Julia Young’s costumes are most lavish and varied for the nightmarish grotesquerie of a St Petersburg brothel. SCO secured a masterful director in Netta Yashchin, who balances the ‘two selves’ dichotomy with great character insight.

As for the music, I was expecting something akin to the vicious satire of Shostakovich, but detected instead strains of Britten in the vocal writing, with a healthy dose of Webern and Ligeti in long sustained notes and skittering rhythms; a remarkably accomplished score from 23-year-old Symonds. Vibraphone and percussion is used to great effect but the real standout moment is an extended, staged solo from viola d’amore player James Wannan, the instrumental timbre and sheer energy of his playing heightening the raging emotion of the scene.

A brave and triumphant debut for Sydney Chamber Opera. With plans to stage three productions a year, including one new work: more power to them.

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