Last night I saw Bliss – the Opera Australia production of a new opera composed by Brett Dean and based on the book by Peter Carey. The music was excellent, much of the singing very good and the lighting spectacular. The plot was flakey but if you’ve read the book or seen the film, you already know that.
The production has a few more nights to run in Sydney, then it goes to Melbourne. If you have any interest in or are just curious about modern opera, you should catch it.
It also gave me an idea for the next great Australian opera.
A senior union official has a sudden heart attack. After his bypass operation he believes he has gone to hell. His only chance to escape is to apologise and atone for all the harm he has caused in his career – the businesses he has destroyed by unreasonable strikes, the unemployment caused by high wages demands, the jobs driven offshore. He begins to talk about all this on Radio National and the TV chat shows.
The union is understandably concerned and decides to have him committed to a health spa to keep him off the air for a while as there is an election soon. By mistake it is the federal president of the union who is taken away to the spa. This is a problem because she is a vegan and the spa follows the Atkins diet, with lots of meat protein. (There is an interesting sub plot I will develop here).
Meanwhile our man discovers that his wife is having an affair with the Parliamentary Secretary for something or other. He goes off and meets a beautiful Young Liberal and seeks preselection for the Liberal Party. The wife is appointed to a government committee inquiring into the site of the next nuclear power station.
That’s about as far as I have got. I am sure I can work through to a happy ending.
I am sure I can get an Australia Council grant to finish the work and find a composer and a librettist.
Does anyone have any casting suggestions?
It seems a bit too derivative to get a grant.
AndrewL
18 Mar 10 at 9:54 am
Have to think on the casting, but would be very happy to write the Aust Co grant for you….
Anna
18 Mar 10 at 2:03 pm
Then I’ll get corporate sponsorship.
The story is too important to be left untold.
Ken Nielsen
18 Mar 10 at 2:12 pm
I don’t know Ken. You need to have Australian voices telling Australian stories. So something like, I don’t know … how about an Afghan refugee drowing after his SIEV gets straffed by the RAAF or deliberately sunk by the RAN discovers his inner aborigine. This could be about the accidents of birth that separate us ….
Sinclair Davidson
18 Mar 10 at 2:21 pm
I had a left-wing mate at uni who was always demanding a “super tax on opera tickets.”
Peter Patton
18 Mar 10 at 2:34 pm
David Hicks is quite good at singing. There should be a part for him. Perhaps he could be a health spa attendant who has a passionate affair with the union federal president. (Note, cast someone with nice tits for the union president. Maybe Cheryl Kernot.)
Paul Williams
18 Mar 10 at 7:47 pm