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An Australian Opera by Barry Conyngham

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An Australian Opera by Barry Conyngham an Australian opera by Barry Conyngham | libretto: Murray Copland Victoria State Opera Orchestra conducted by John Hopkins Luigi Maria D’Albertis, naturalist totalling 13 minutes. Both the composer John Wood and the librettist were closely involved Clarence Wilcox, protégé of D’Albertis in this editing process and are satisfied Robert Korosy that the resulting recording loses nothing Clergyman Malcolm Robertson as a listening experience. What little action is lost is more than made up for by Recording produced by the Australian the creation of a continuous piece with Broadcasting Corporation flowing transitions from scene to scene. ABC producer Paul Petran ABC technical production Peter Thorp and Lou Szabolics 1 The kite 4’36” Post production and preparation for CD 2 The parcel 4’04” an Australian opera by Barry Conyngham Martin Wright (Move Records) libretto by Murray Copland 3 The marriage 4’08” Cover painting (from the first performance 4 The picture 0’31” © 1984 Australian Broadcasting Corporation poster) Shaun Gurton P 1987 Move Records Photographs David Parker 5 The flight 2’15” and Ok Tedi Mining 6 The waltz 4’21” move.com.au Publisher Universal Edition 7 The goal 3’31” (in Australia: Boosey & Hawkes) Premiere performance 8 The hat 4’07” FLY This project is assisted by the Australia 9 D’Albertis 4’48” an opera by Barry Conyngham Council, the Federal Government’s arts 10 The blame 4’05” Victoria State Opera Orchestra funding and advisory body. conducted by John Hopkins 11 Geoffrey 1’55” director and librettist: Murray Copland 12 The explorer 4’22” designer: Shaun Gurton 13 The course 4’04” lighting designer: John Beckett Fly was first performed at the State vocal preparation: Graham Cox Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre on 14 The plunder 6’00” assisted by Helen English 25 August 1984. On 29 August, the 15 The undertaking 4’43” stage manager: Ann Reid Australian Broadcasting Corporation 16 Darwin 2’51” produced by the Victoria State Opera presented Fly in a direct broadcast on ABC FM. The present recording was edited 17 The sunset 4’50” Lawrence Hargrave Anthony Roden from the 27 and 29 August performances. 18 The clergyman 5’15” Maggie Hargrave Margaret Haggart The complete opera, in two Acts runs 19 The shears 5’33” Margaret and Olive (their children) for 86 minutes; in order to contain it on Val Mills and Christine Ferraro compact disc, ten cuts were necessary move.com.au A note on the opera genesis of all the linear elements of Fly, even where the lines are partitioned Claims for musical or structural into small two- and three-note motives, uniqueness in a recent opera are not and presented in a free rhythmical or commonplace these days. Usually opera speech rhythmical way. For example, is seen as a conservative form bounded by the relationship between the set the expectations of its public, a public that “songs” (mostly sung by Hargrave) has apparently rejected the considerable and the material of the dialogue and experimentation of the first half of this group moments may be obscure at first century. True, the content and theatricality hearing against the continuous and often of opera has been extended by recent tangential orchestral flow. works, but here the change is propelled Finally, while the colour and texture by the theatre and its development. The of the orchestra owe much to recent pursuit of spectacle on one hand, with developments (particularly the work works involving elements of circus and of the Polish School and of my teachers entertainment, and complex modes and friends Peter Sculthorpe and Toru COMPOSER of presentation on the other — dream, BARRY Takemitsu), they are used here in a fantasy and other non-narrative methods CONYNGHAM technique of layering, harnessing streams — are the usual means of extending the of musical imagery beyond the familiar to boundaries of opera. security of the “set piece”. Aims are not a continuous flow, supporting the text but Thus, rather than speaking of the always results, dreams not always made always tantalisingly ambiguous. many ways in which Fly absorbs the real, but I wish to point the listener to BARRY CONYNINGHAM existing tradition, in this short note I the particular musical texture and the would like to focus on those unusual relationship between voice and orchestra aspects of the piece that are very much that evolved in an attempt to encompass conscious attempts to extend the form. all the above elements. From the beginning, Murray Copland The orchestra and the voice in Fly are and I wished to pace the drama of the often in a very free temporal relationship: piece close to real life, to approach real the instruments pursuing a particular speech rhythms. Not an original aim by gesture or texture, the voice guided by any means — but it was also my desire to the drama and the rhythm of the text avoid the urgency and relentlessness of suspended above it. This relationship was the declamatory style, and the barrenness to enable control of the mood on the one of continuous recitative. I wished to hand, and preserve the natural pace and capture some of the melodic freshness of richness of human drama on the other. the “popular” song, the dramatic impact Melody, with its magical ability to of post-serial rhythmic fluidity, the formal communicate and reverberate, is the A note on Lawrence Hargrave Familiarity breeds, if not contempt, a kind of invisibility. A picture of Lawrence Hargrave, alongside a few examples of his delicate aeronautical draughtsmanship, embellishes one side of the Australian twenty-dollar banknote; but his personality and achievements can hardly be said to form a vivid image in the minds of many Australians. The blame for this state of affairs may arguably be said to be Hargrave’s own. There was a streak of self-defeating waywardness in his nature which, over and over again, stood in the way of his longing for fame and recognition. THE ORIGINAL DESIGN FOR THE AUSTRALIAN $20 NOTE, ISSUED 1966, BUT NO LONGER IN CIRCULATION Contributing, as he did, to so many fields of endeavour, his refusal ever to patent his inventions, his insistence on many commentators who have failed tell Hargrave’s story with truthfulness staying stranded in the comparative to fall under the spell of Hargrave’s and clarity, and to imply a coherent isolation of Australia, and a perverse considerable charm, his titanic energy, and interpretation of his sometimes quirky unwillingness to push certain lines of the unmistakable signs of originality and but always fascinating personality. The scientific enquiry all the way to their downright genius evident at every turn in libretto is obviously very indebted to logical fruition, have combined to his career. Hargrave’s various biographers, yet may impart a certain nebulous quality to his One still, from time to time, stumbles itself make claim to a certain originality, in achievements: it is not always easy to across the assumption that only silly that it seeks to explain clearly the probable estimate their intrinsic excellence, or stories will do for opera — as if Da Ponte, emotional nexus between Hargrave’s early the extent of their influence, or even Boito, and Hofmannsthal had lived experiences on the D’Albertis expedition exactly what they are supposed to have and laboured for nothing. Lawrence up the Fly River and his later refusal to been. Thus one recent biographer has Hargrave’s story is anything but a silly cash in on his inventions by taking out felt himself justified in pooh-poohing one. Properly understood, his life was patents. Hargrave’s aeronautical contribution as one of extraordinary inner heroism Every attempt has been made to make of far less worth and significance than his and moral integrity. Selective as this the opera self-explanatory — able to stand earlier explorations in New Guinea. opera has obviously had to be in the by itself, even for those who have never That is an extreme and exceptional number of specific incidents it could heard of Hargrave. However, it may be view, however. There have not been hope to dramatise, it does attempt to convenient here to set out a few of the basic biographical facts. Navigation Company, where for the adherence to it, have puzzled some of One of the main motives that induced next five years he acquired an invaluable the biographers. Yet there is no lack of Hargrave’s father to migrate from England practical groundwork in engineering and evidence as to the complex characters to Australia was, without a doubt, an various maritime skills. of the two men, nor as to the nature of intense desire to put as much distance as Then, in his early twenties, the tensions that built up between them possible between himself and his wife, there began a period of restless during their long ordeal. These tensions Hargrave’s mother. As a struggling young adventurousness. He joined one after may never actually have exploded in the barrister, hardly able to support his wife another of the expeditions, which kind of verbal show-down dramatised and children, John Hargrave had suffered happened to be proliferating just at that in this opera; this scene may be, strictly some form of breakdown which led his time, aimed at opening up the unexplored speaking, as apocryphal as the encounter, wife, on her own initiative, to have him interior of New Guinea. This culminated in Schiller and Donizetti, between Mary admitted to a new public lunatic asylum in 1876 in his spectacularly successful Stuart and Elizabeth. Yet Hargrave and at Colney Hatch in Middlesex. In a very trip up the desperately hazardous, D’Albertis were at least actually present short time, he was released, completely malaria-ridden Fly River as engineer and in the same place together, cooped up in cured — but he never forgave his wife cartographer to the flamboyant Italian the same claustrophobic little steamer, and for what she had done to him.
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