Set on the banks of Merri Creek in suburban Melbourne in the 1980s, The Children’s Bach centres on Dexter and Athena Fox, their son, and the insulated world they’ve built together. When a friend from Dexter’s past resurfaces and introduces the couple to the city’s bohemian underground, Athena begins to wonder if life might hold more for her, and the tenuous bonds that tie the Foxes together start to fray. It is a piece about love in its many forms.

Given the metaphorical weight music is given in Helen Garner’s work, containing many references to music, both classical and popular, it is no wonder that the novella lends itself so well to becoming an opera. The music is beautiful, powerful, complex, and haunting. It faithfully recreates the novel’s inner-suburban world. The score plays on the book’s musical references while remaining utterly original. It employs everything from jazz-inspired riffs to fugal structure to accompany the progression of romantic entanglements. Performed by seven singers, and a chamber orchestra of six players, in the words of Michael Halliwell “the opera is an evocative meditation on the messiness and complexity of human relationships…” It is a profound and masterful contemporary chamber opera that is engaging and thought-provoking.

This opera was commissioned and premiered in 2008 by Chamber Made. This will be the second full production of the work.​

 

CAST

Athena – Kate Amos

Dexter – Michael Honeyman

Phillip – Adrian Li Donni

Elizabeth – Juel Riggall

Poppy / Angie – Chloe Taylor

Vicky / Girl  – Lucy Schneider

Billy – Ben and Chris Touzel