A colourful menagerie of characterful Australian birds and animals, a potpourri of irresistible tunes from opera and classical music and a story that warbles, tweets, squawks, trills and delightfully sings a message of unity, goodness and kindness are the foundations for Victorian Opera’s (VO) latest family opera, The Lyrebird’s Voice. Just shy of an hour in length, it’s also quite a hoot – excuse the owl pun!
A story developed by Peter Rutherford and six youth participants of the New Work Opera Studio 2023, The Lyrebird’s Voice is set in an Australian forest, where animals band together to protect their new home after humans destroyed their old one.
Our fun-loving protagonist, Lyrebird, uses her mimicry to play pranks on other birds, isn’t believed when humans begin cutting down trees in their new territory and suffers banishment after being blamed.
Lyrebird reflects on her mistakes with help from wise beetles and after befriending Lord Emu, she uses her mimicry to outwit a cat named Kitcat to free her community of birds who had been captured. Though initially unrecognized, she’s eventually knighted for her bravery.
Jayde Kirchert’s smart and chucklesome libretto and lyrics are laden with witty rhyming couplets and slot in impeccably with Rutherford’s excellent arrangements and orchestrations – including snazzy use of electric guitar – drawing upon works by Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Orff, Bizet and Delibes. And possibly more. Others might say musical influences come from the ubiquitous world of advertising!
For the all-important visual side of storytelling, Truscott Foundation Prize Recipient 2025, Ishan Vivekanantham, deserves high praise with set, costume and projection designs adding stimulating, quirky and comic touches. Avian varieties are sumptuously realised and easily identifiable and Robert Brown’s lighting design works a treat in evoking the many moods.
Lyrebird’s sketches of plans to scare away Kitcat with a cucumber – I had no idea how much psychological harm a cucumber can do – and subsequent rush to salvage her reputation with Lord Emu in rudimentary animation to the tune of Rossini’s William Tell overture are priceless.
Directed by Elizabeth Hill-Cooper with an eye for detail, ample life and energy emanates from an ensemble of 20 singers from VO’s Emerging Artists and students from The University of Melbourne’s Master of Music (Opera Performance). Vocally, everyone rises to the challenge. The work is perfectly suited to young singers in development and their pleasure in performing is crystal clear.
OperaChaser Award-winning young soprano Michaela Cadwgan addresses the acting and vocal variety Lyrebird sings with much endearment and aplomb. Cadwgan effortlessly entwines the music of Verdi’s Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore with a little Rosina from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, while a revved up Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute reflects her state of despair in Lyrebird’s banishment.
A nerdy looking Lord Emu is handsomely sung by recent Green Room Award winner Douglas Kelly who opens with a snippet of Figaro’s iconic Largo al factotum and steals the moment with an hilarious reboot of the Major-General’s Song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.
More bubbly G & S is high on the pedestal with a trio of sweet-voiced honeyeaters (Erin Absalom, Chloe Taylor and Ashley Chua) drinking up their wattle cups and singing to Three Little Maids From School Are We from The Mikado.
The Beetles of the 60s are channelled groovily behind a rock by a quartet of multi-armed beetles (Sarah Amos, Samantha Anderson-Mayes, Mia Koutsoumidis and Sophie McGetrick) singing encouragement to Lyrebird to Delibes’ wafting Flower Duet from Lakmé and a swathe of crowd-surging choral music in Puccini’s Turandot provides meaty tension as Lyrebird faces the wrath of fellow birds.
A second young OperaChaser Award-winning artist, Bailey Montgomerie, is a cracking “Cack, cack, cack” calling Lord Kookaburra who replaces Handel’s jubilant Hallelujahs with Hoorays and Brittney Northcott is a wonderfully seductive presence, moving about stealthily as Kitcat while singing up Carmen’s Habanera with lush meows instead of l’amour.
Other notable performances include Alessia Pintabona and Joshua Morton-Galea’s Duchess and Duke of Wattle and Rachael Joyce’s Lady Lorikeet with Millicent Brake, Isaac Burgess, Leyland Jones, Zoe Lancaster, Tessa McKenna and Phoebe Tait all to be commended.
Rutherford’s pastiche comes together with a plump-sounding soundscape created by an expert-playing VO Chamber Orchestra of 12 musicians and churns away appealingly under conductor Carlos del Cueto’s leadership.
It shouldn’t be surprising that the signature celebratory Brindisi from Verdi’s La Traviata crowns the joyous outcome in a penultimate, splendidly sung affair. And when the curtain goes down, after a little didacticism thrown in for moral development, The Lyrebird’s Voice concludes after enchanting and entertaining no end.
The Lyrebird’s Voice
The Round, 379 Whitehorse Road, Nunawading
Performance: Saturday 10 May 2025
The Lyrebird’s Voice will also be presented at the Darebin Arts Centre (16 May) and Frankston Arts Centre (21 & 23 May). For more information, visit: www.victorianopera.com.au for details.
Images: Victorian Opera presents The Lyrebird’s Voice – all photos by Charlie Kinross
Review: Paul Selar