Brass Poppies

BRASS POPPIES Troop image courtesy of Richard Stowers collection Manipulated cottage image (ref: 1/1-026571-G) Courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library. Composer: Ross Harris Libretto: Vincent O’Sullivan FREE PROGRAMME POST-SHOW TALK: THURSDAY 10 MARCH CO-PRODUCED BY: WITH SUPPORT FROM: BRASS POPPIES MERCURY THEATRE TUESDAY 10 MARCH — SATURDAY 12 MARCH, 8:00 PM 1 HOUR 10 MINUTES WITH NO INTERVAL Nau mai haere mai ki Te Ahurei Toi O Tāmaki Makaurau. Welcome to Auckland Arts Festival. We are delighted to host you. The Festival moves through moments in history and reflects on the impact they have on our world. It moves across cultures and into places where there are no borders. It shows us human beings coming together through music, performance and art. We are delighted to present this major new chamber opera and offer our thanks to the artists whose vision, hard work and passion made it happen. Congratulations Ross, Vincent, Jonathan, Hamish and the entire team. And thank you to our commissioning partners, New Zealand Opera and the New Zealand Festival. Have a fabulous Festival. Ngā mihi mahana—the Festival Team ROSS HARRIS – THE COMPOSER’S VIEW Brass Poppies is a chamber opera that reflects the tragedy of war by focusing on the disastrous Gallipoli campaign and the fate of the Wellington Regiment at Chunuk Bair. Because the disaster of that battle is beyond communication, Brass Poppies draws a broader picture, with soldiers at the front and the women at home always present on stage. While the work expresses the physical and emotional trauma of war, it is some- times grotesquely humorous and absurd, but mostly it is a lament; a lament for lost and damaged lives. 2 VINCENT O’SULLIVAN – THE LIBRETTIST’S VIEW I never quite know what is meant by that phrase “ordinary men and women”, as if there were another variety possible. In the face of a century’s vast history of loss and love, destruction and friendship, erasure and memory, it’s hard to see how there is anything much else worth taking seriously. The heroism of war, if one speaks of such a thing, is in the detail of what people will do to preserve what to them is “ordinary”. An ordinary community, then, in the worst part of its experience — that is what Ross and I hoped to portray in this version of one of New Zealand’s most celebrated stories. And although New Zealanders from all parts of the country were involved in it, the story of Chunuk Bair seems very much a Wellington one. It was as the commanding officer of the Wellington Battalion that William Malone led the fruitless attack on the highest point of Gallipoli, took it, defended it for a few hours, and died there with over 700 of his men. It was what history likes to exhibit as an extraordinary event, which means where ordinary men performed as they never ex- pected they would need to do. An opera, of course, is a long way from being history. As with most opera, Brass Pop- pies is where possible emotions are explored, rather than definite events accurately described. Here are the lives of women and men from one small place, who were there before, and hope to be there after, war was declared on their behalf — in this case, the modest Aro Valley suburb and its people, what they are thrown into, and must try to survive. For it is always a local community that experiences war, and so women and men are on stage together throughout the various scenes. In a sense, there is no such thing as a war that does not bomb Cuba St, or where men from one Lambton Quay are not instructed to bomb another. Just as there is probably no war where patriotism does not at some point become caricature, and irreverence a sav- ing vestige of sanity. ‘Peace’, if such a concept has much purchase at the end of the performance, means a very simple thing — the desire to have again what you happily had before, although that is what war primarily prevents. Which is why the best thing that might be said about it is that this is an ordinary story. Image Credit: Artist Stephen Mulqueen’s brass poppies made from spent bullet casings, inspiration for the opera’s title. 3 A NOTE FROM DIRECTOR JONATHAN ALVER A mere 100 years has passed since the dreadful tragedy of Chunuk Bair where so many New Zealanders were killed but, despite photographic and filmic evidence, we have little real understanding of the experience for those soldiers and their families. They are characters locked away in a dusty sepia world, people of another time with a sense of duty, manners and conventions different from our own. We can recognise the awful loss of life, but we have no real sense of how that felt. We can look at the photographs of World War I, listen to the stories told by those who survived, but more often than not the history we are told is written and approved through official chan- nels, the details massaged to highlight glory and heroism to make the calamity more palatable and reflect a greater good. What would they who died tell us? Many operas have a true historical setting, and some of those are based on real-life characters, but opera was not created to teach us history. Instead, the exquisite con- junction of music, stage and voice brings characters to life, connecting us directly to the human condition, to the hearts of the personalities before us, allowing us to share their thoughts and feelings. In Brass Poppies, Ross and Vincent have reflected on one of the darkest days in New Zealand history, but not to simply commemorate the tragic events. They have put flesh on the dry bones of some of the real and imagined personalities involved, literally giv- ing them a voice to share snapshots of their experiences with us, telling us how it might have felt and inviting us to put ourselves in their shoes. In staging this opera, while using some original photographic images, I am keen to break away from sepia and to bring those characters and the world around them into full colour. The Wellington the soldiers left was as colourful and beautiful as it is now and the land where they died was also full of colour. Indeed, the approach to the peak of Chunuk Bair was made along Rhododendron Spur! Hopefully, Brass Poppies will bring back to life for a short time, in full colour, those whose lives were touched by these events, inviting us to share their experiences and feelings and to heed their warnings to never tolerate another Great War. 4 CREDITS CREATIVES Composer Ross Harris Librettist Vincent O’Sullivan Director Jonathan Alver Music Director Hamish McKeich AV Design Jon Baxter Lighting Design Jason Morphett Costuming Elizabeth Whiting Choreographer Maaka Pepene Stage Manager Kate Middleton-Olliver Production Manager Steve Crowcroft Repetiteur David Kelly Image Credit: Alexander Turnbull Library (Ref: 1/4-058131-F). 5 CAST William Malone James Egglestone Captain of the Wellington Regiment Mrs. Malone Sarah Court Tommo Robert Tucker Soldier - Family Man NZ Opera Freemasons Resident Artist Mary, the wife of Tommo Anna Leese Doubles as Luck Billy Jonathan Eyers Soldier - Innocent, Idealist Joyce Madison Nonoa Young Woman - Flighty, ‘Easy’ NZ Opera Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist Fred Wade Kernot Soldier - Wry, Skeptical Lucy Mary Newman-Pound Slightly Older Woman Turk Andrew Glover Doubles as The Patriot Dancer Ben Mitchell Taniora Motutere STROMA NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE Cor Anglais Bede Hanley Cornet Matthew Stein Clarinet James Fry Bassoon Ben Hoadley Double Bass Evgueny Lanchtchikov Violin Andrew Beer Percussion Sam Rich Acoustic Guitar Dylan Lardelli Dumbek Eric Renick Accordion Tatiana Lanchtchikova 6 CREATIVES BIOGRAPHIES COMPOSER – ROSS HARRIS DIRECTOR – Arts laureate Ross Harris is JONATHAN ALVER one of New Zealand’s After graduating in vocal leading composers. He has studies (baritone) from the written more than 200 UK’s Royal Northern College compositions, including of Music, Jonathan turned opera, symphonic music, his attention to directing, chamber music, klezmer and he has been directing and electronic music, and has won the and producing operatic, theatrical and prestigious SOUNZ Contemporary Award screen work in New Zealand, Europe and more times than any other New Zealand the USA for over 25 years. In the late 1990s, composer. Ross received a QSM in 1985 Jonathan became General Director of for his opera Waituhi with libretto by Witi Opera New Zealand (subsequently New Ihimaera and the CANZ Citation for Zealand Opera), where among other Services to New Zealand Music in 1990. His productions he directed Lucia di major works include six string quartets, six Lammermoor and Macbeth, which were symphonies, a violin concerto (premiered subsequently sold to Los Angeles Opera by Anthony Marwood in 2010) and a cello and Minnesota Opera respectively, with concerto (premiered by Li-Wei Qin in Jonathan invited to the USA to direct 2012). His collaborations with poet Vincent them. Between 2002 and 2012, Jonathan O’Sullivan have included two operas, a moved away from opera to commercial symphony, three song cycles and theatre and television. The London West Requiem for the Fallen, premiered at the End production of Jailhouse Rock — The 2014 New Zealand Festival, and Musical ran for a year. Since 2012, performed at the Auckland Arts Festival in Jonathan has returned his focus to the 2015. stage, becoming Artistic Director of the National Youth Theatre Company. He is LIBRETTIST – also Director of the New Zealand Opera VINCENT O’SULLIVAN School. Freelance projects include the Vincent O’Sullivan has Opening Ceremony of the ICC Cricket published widely as a short- World Cup and directing Ross Harris and story writer, novelist, Vincent O’Sullivan’s Requiem for the playwright, poet and editor.

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