Above: Jane Sheldon as Ishtar, the goddess of love. Featured image: Jeremy Kleeman as Gilgamesh. ‘Gilgamesh’ Presented by Opera Australia, Sydney Chamber Opera & Carriageworks. Photo Credit: Daniel Boud.
Our modern society would do well to heed the epic epithets described in the ancient Mesopotamian poetry concerning Gilgamesh.
These epithets could be said to include:
Don’t be a leader that oppresses or kills others.
Don’t let materialist greed make you harm the environment.
Don’t think your actions will go unpunished.
Converting the themes discovered within the Epic of Gilgamesh and including them inside very modern musical language and packaging, as the final event in a diverse 2024 season for Opera Australia, staged away from the Sydney Opera House is a brave undertaking.
But like the hero and King of Uruk in this epic poetry, the absolute skill and theatrical impact displayed here show us how bravery pays off, and how elaborately it can be rendered.
Jack Symonds’ score is a through-composed epic in itself. The angular intricacies and seemingly endless options for colour and vocal support in the long string of successive sound worlds will stand the test of time.
The collaborations between artistic and musical groups across Sydney are vast and successfully networked in this tale
Opera Australia joins Sydney Chamber Opera, with its Artistic Director and here composer plus conductor Jack Symonds at its resident space, Carriageworks, a venue so suited to modern music and theatricality.
Librettist Louis Garrick, harnessing the poetry and bringing it from cuneiform to current day, was a co-founder of Sydney Chamber Opera. His bio shows that in the past the also curated the new music programmes at Carriageworks.
Above: Mitchell Reilly as Enkidu. ‘Gilgamesh‘ Presented by Opera Australia, Sydney Chamber Opera & Carriageworks. Photo Credit: Daniel Boud.
Over to the side of the performance floor space, the Australian String Quartet perform alongside new music experts from Ensemble Offspring and additional musicians.
Clearly advertised is that the production contained depictions of violence, nudity, haze, blood and simulated sex. This historic tale of the gods and earthlings mingling, hating, loving, wanting is quite the mythological soap opera.
Luckily for the audience, our experience contains also such an accessible, streamlined libretto, so effectively joined with Symonds’ soundscapes, performed so well by the musical teams working brilliantly together.
Also unapologetically brilliant is the costuming by David Fleisher. An eclectic romp, this wardrobe is as exciting and changeable as the tale we encounter whetting our visual appetites for this world and way beyond.
Lighting design (Amelia Lever-Davidson) also exposes us to otherworldly glare and gradations of atmospheric nuance as stunning as the outfits and characters in states of vulnerability desabillé.
Kip Williams’ direction of this longer opera moves in measured, broad strokes. In this way, intimacy, violence, pain and even bloody murder ring with admirable realness and the timeless epithets of Gilgamesh’s hunger for power on many levels fails him.
Mitchell Riley’s depiction of the half-man creature Enkidu, which starts with a gasping, writhing release and ‘birth out of silence’ is a perfect indication of his skilful dramatic range to be upheld throughout. It also sets the bar for the grisly emotional plus realism to follow.
Jessica O’Donahue and Jane Sheldon play a contrasting triplet of roles each. O’Donahue’s restrained-then-not priestess with a starling costume reveal leads the wild man to human endeavour.
Above: Daniel Szeisong Todd as Humbaba. ‘Gilgamesh’ Presented by Opera Australia, Sydney Chamber Opera & Carriageworks. Photo Credit: Daniel Boud.
Sheldon’s angered goddess of love, Ishtar brings a powerhouse trajectory of seething physicality and kaleidoscopic vocal prowess to this scintillating stage.
Visual effects and a great response to varied costume or choreography are stunning features of this pair’s characterisation. Their difficult vocal fireworks, such as the scorpion-guard duet are progressive treats fir opera goers old and new.
Every epic needs a hero, and the percentage of onstage presence for Gilgamesh (Jeremy Kleeman) is a role demanding nuance, nubile expression, stock-standard intrepid angst and nudity.
The energy required to trace Gilgamesh’s trip for self-realisation across this world and beyond is definitely possessed by Kleeman as his well framed character dares to anger the gods, to love, err, fight, kill and crave so much including self-change.
And this is all via athletic vocals. Kleeman, like all cast members, are comfortable with the musical style, complex costuming and using the large stage expanse well.
The attractive parts of the infamous ancient tale and the confronting ones leap out at us with well-packaged tenderness, terror and production values to bring opera a long way out of any perceived museum, into a realm of entertainment-of telling large stories through opera- between the world of what is commonly experienced and what we dare not attempt.
Gilgamesh will move and challenge you. It is a new opera we need to have in this world. The gods should be happy.
Gilgamesh sings its song for us at Carriageworks Bay 17 until October 5. Running time- 160 mins. Tickets available from opera.org.au and carriageworks.com.au
