Jeremy Kleeman in Oscar and Lucinda (photograph by Zan Wimberley)

Carey plays with various narrative conventions; the title suggests a conventional love story, yet the narrative expectations of the nineteenth-century novel are frequently frustrated, not the least in there being no happy ending where we might expect the title characters to end up together. Both characters are social misfits, well removed from the romantic stereotypes of the conventional hero and heroine of costume drama. The time frame ranges from the 1980s back to the narrator’s childhood in the 1930s, with the main events occurring in the period from 1856–66. There is a constant postmodern self-consciousness at play in the novel.

As an early critic noted, the book dramatises the four great Victorian interests: ‘science, religion, technology and exploration’. There are intertextual references to several Victorian novels, but the novel’s structure is not in the characteristic serialised form, consisting of 110 brief chapters described as being like ‘fitting together like panes of glass, but also having a cinematic element of montage’. The narrative and thematic complexity at the heart of the novel would suggest that adapting it for the stage is not unproblematic.

In some ways, though, Oscar and Lucinda is very suited to adaptation; it contains a large and vivid imaginative world within its pages. A contemporary critic described it as a ‘potent brew of religious fanaticism, naturalism, strange conversions, bizarre water-themed activity, determination in the face of insuperable odds and triumphs of madness over reason’ – rich pickings for opera’s penchant for the exaggerated and extreme. But this thematic and event-laden richness presents its own challenges: most obviously what to leave out in its adaptation into a two-hour opera.

Librettos are always drastic reductions of their literary sources, particularly novels, and a librettist, usually in close collaboration with the composer, has to make some radical choices early in the creative process. The resources at their disposal naturally will dictate the shape of the libretto. (Sydney Chamber Opera usually have a small group of instrumentalists and a limited number of singers with no traditional chorus.) The excellent and innovative libretto by Pierce Wilcox is a distillation of the ‘Dickensian’ richness of Carey’s language, reducing it to shards of illumination and flashes of emotional intensity. It reminds one of the recent brilliant Hamlet libretto by Mathew Jocelyn in its imaginative reworking of the original text. The essence of Carey’s novel emerges, almost as if in a pointillist painting.

The resource limitations of a small company can be a challenge, but also an advantage. The novel has many characters who weave in and out of the narrative, often disappearing for many chapters and then, suddenly, briefly emerging again. With a cast of six singers, two of them playing only the title characters, the rest have to embody as many of these other figures as possible to construct a coherent narrative. At first, this can be confusing, but once the dramatic convention has been understood and accepted by an audience, this strategy seems perfectly natural.

The opera is Elliott Gyger’s second, following his very successful adaptation of David Malouf’s novella, Fly Away Peter (2015). Gyger described his musical approach for the opera in terms of harmonies constructed from thirty-five chords, ‘constantly breaking and reforming almost like glass in a kaleidoscope … you’re in one place, and then all of a sudden some action or event happens and you’re somewhere quite different’. This provides the element of musical chance, appropriate for a work about two obsessive and compulsive gamblers. There is an almost glassy, sharp-edged brittleness to the music at times.

Gyger’s idiom is complex and dense, different from his first opera, with an almost obsessive interweaving of the six voices with a wide range of colour being provided by a larger instrumental ensemble. The instrumental writing is superb, particularly fine when he deploys solo instruments which are gradually woven into increasingly complex textures. The storm that ends act one is a remarkable musical depiction of Oscar’s growing terror, expressed at one point in a sustained high C while still playing a game of poker with Lucinda. The rising sea is conjured by both vocal and instrumental forces, culminating in a terrifying musical climax to the first act.  

The cast is uniformly strong, all veterans of much recent contemporary opera in Australia. These are young singers who have all earned excellent reputations, revealing intelligence, musicality, and stage presence in abundance. The title figures are created by Brenton Spiteri and Jessica Aszodi, both of whom were in Fly away Peter. Spiteri’s Oscar expertly captures the ‘oddness’ of Carey’s character – profoundly ill at ease in his own skin and full of unarticulated desire and longing. Vocally, he is outstanding. The role sometimes lies brutally high for the tenor, but he meets all the musical challenges with multi-faceted vocal coloring and crystalline articulation, the voice sounding perfectly fresh at the end of the evening. A remarkable performance.

Jane Sheldon, Brenton Spiteri, and Jeremy Kleeman in Oscar and Lucinda (photograph by Zan Wimberley)

Azsodi, equally fine, captures a similar sense of pent-up longing with her rich mezzo and delightful stage presence, fully embodying the agency that the character frequently demonstrates, in stark contrast to Oscar’s prevarication and tendency to leave things, literally, to chance. She is certainly an operatic heroine for a new century, shattering the pattern of operatic victimhood. Their relationship reaches a musical apotheosis in a beautifully lyrical duet in Act Two, ‘Silver skin of Sydney Harbour’, where Gyger’s fragmentation of musical line paradoxically achieves a serene moment of transcendence for both, vividly contrasted a few moments later with their ecstatic exuberance when the crazy dream of the glass church and their wager occurs.

The multiplicity of character delineation falls to bass baritone, Jeremy Kleeman, baritones Simon Lobelson and Mitchell Riley, and soprano Jane Sheldon, all of whom are stalwarts of Sydney Chamber Opera. Gyger gives these brief character appearances distinctive music, but the singers, both physically and vocally, have the task of instantly creating brief but vivid and telling vignettes to drive forward the narrative as they momentarily intersect with Oscar and Lucinda, as well as occasionally providing a commentary on events, challenges they meet with aplomb. It’s difficult to single out individual characters, but Lobelson’s wonderful sonorous dignity, particularly as Oscars’s father was memorable, his rich baritone soaring effortlessly in frequent, high-lying phrases.

Kleeman brings a deep and clear incisive tone to the unpleasant and rapacious leader of the expedition, a Voss-like figure, Mr Jeffris. Kleeman’s elegance and presence as a performer lending the character even more menace. Riley has the remarkable facility of smoothly integrating a strong falsetto into his warm baritone, adding an unexpected texture to an ensemble of three low voices and soprano. His effectively sustained portrayal of Reverend Hasset conveys the agonies of this conflicted character. Jane Sheldon is admired for her vocal feats in much new and challenging music, and her high soprano contrasts well with Aszodi’s mezzo. Her Act Two solo moment, ‘Black on black’, as Miriam Chadwick, accompanied by a quirky, solo double bass, brilliantly contrasts with Aszodi’s Act One solo, ‘My parents’ lives are turned to paper’, accompanied by a similarly effective solo clarinet.

Jessica Aszodi and Brenton Spiteri in Oscar and Lucinda (photograph by Zan Wimberley)

These singers all have voices of substance and varied colour, and the musical wherewithal to cope with this constantly challenging music. Much of their singing occurs in fleeting ensembles where secure tuning is imperative, sometimes reminiscent of Renaissance madrigals, and Gyger is superbly served by them. This is musicality of the highest order.

The musical engine driving the show is Jack Symonds, who leads the ensemble with his usual expertise and sense of control in this multi-faceted score. The instrumental writing is equally demanding as that for the singers, and the players revel in these challenges with Symonds at the helm. Patrick Nolan, who directed SCO’s 2016 Notes from the Underground, directs with his customary style and dramatic insight, using the space most effectively, allowing the complexity of the story to unfold with coherence and clarity. Anna Tregloan’s set and costume design reflect the element of fragmentation contained in the text and music, visually embodied in what looks like a tree collage suggesting the Australian bush. Her designs are excellently lit by Damien Cooper. Appropriately, the surtitles are provided by twin elegant glass discs, reinforcing the centrality of the metaphor of glass in the opera.  

The narrative trajectory moves forward relentlessly towards the unforgettable image of the glass church floating down the Bellinger River – the culmination of the wager between Oscar and Lucinda – a seemingly impossible task on a bare stage with sparse sets, but one that is beautifully achieved through the simple device of a model glass church sinking slowly to the bottom of a fish tank as Oscar drowns to Lucinda’s poignant final line: ‘I know I was loved’, which ends the opera. This is a powerful visual metaphor for the whole colonial project – combining the dominant images of glass and water of the novel – and one that sustains the equivocal culmination of the novel, avoiding the unfortunate ‘happy ending’ that marred the otherwise excellent film.

This opera is a triumph for Sydney Chamber Opera. A co-production with Victorian Opera and Opera Queensland, it will have two further runs over the next couple of years, where, if necessary, the work can be further refined – a rare opportunity for a contemporary opera. Symonds has co-created a company over the last ten years that has redefined operatic performance in Sydney and Australia, developing a pool of singers, instrumentalists, designers, directors, and other creatives that challenges while nourishing wider operatic performance. That two such contrasting, fascinating operas have premièred in quick succession suggests that new opera in Australia is healthier than doomsayers have suggested.

Oscar and Lucinda, presented by Sydney Chamber Opera, continues at Carriageworks, Sydney, until 3 August 2019. Performance attended: July 27.