When a little nugget of an opera emerges to explore a curious neurological case study, it speaks to the art form’s marvellous variety and merit. More often than not, it takes a small-scale independent company like IOpera to illuminate that point.
Across just 4 performances, the company’s latest production – English composer Michael Nyman’s chamber opera The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat – is likewise a testament to Melbourne’s hardworking, multi-layered opera scene. As a case in point here, no one is harder working than Robert Macfarlane, who wears the hats of director, designer and soloist.
At a little over one hour long – to an informative, lush libretto by Christopher Rawlence – Nyman’s fluidly crafted six-part work is based on one of neurologist Oliver Sacks’ case studies published as part of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales in 1985.
It begins much like a public clinical presentation, with the neurologist Dr S (Robert Macfarlane) introducing the case of singer and music teacher Dr P (Christopher Hillier). Dr P is afflicted with visual agnosia, otherwise known as mental blindness, which prevents him from recognising everyday objects – even faces, including his wife’s, Mrs P (Elena Xanthoudakis).
From the first examination, to house calls and rigorous testing, Dr S eventually admits that he doesn’t know what is wrong with Dr P. But he knows what is right – that it is through music that Dr P sees. As such, music becomes the only meaningful prescription.
That aspect hits home, indeed unintentionally, due to clarity of the sung text suffering in its own way, but is buoyed by a musical language, expressive depth and three of the city’s more accomplished artists’ performance sensibility.
Under Peter Tregear’s attentive musical direction and that of his 7 adroit musicians, Nyman’s score reveals its thoughtful blend: rhythmically charged, with poignant, repetitive passages in the vein of Phillip Glass.
It remains pleasantly accessible, occasionally comical, and is punctuated by excerpts from Robert Schumann – including Ich grolle nicht, a favourite of Dr P, which Hillier delivers with immense gravitas and nuanced baritone muscularity.
Never far from a signature bowler hat, Hillier also sinks his teeth into several biscuits while singing a non-lexical stunner in a performance that proves priceless. At other times, Dr P could seem to be in the service of some alien authority, tasked with reporting what he sees on the distant planet Earth – a notion rendered with comic lightness and genuine endearment.
Hillier adapts brilliantly to the role’s peculiar demands, from becoming acquainted with a rose to rattling off the names of complex geometrical solids and demonstrating his mastery at blind chess manoeuvres.
Whether bow-tied in lab coat or in a suit, Macfarlane excels in embodying Dr S’s scientific inquisitiveness and respectful approach. Crisp and forthright of tenor, he also distinguishes himself at the piano as Dr P’s accompanist in Ich grolle nicht.
As the ever-devoted, immaculately coiffed Mrs P, Xanthoudakis flits across the stage and through her soprano lines with striking elegance and beauty, evoking a sense of steadfast humanity and love.
While a sense of glumness and puzzlement washes through, pity is never entertained, highlighting normal and abnormal not as contradictory states but as points on a spectrum shaped by circumstance.
It’s no accident that Macfarlane draws on Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte’s frequently painted bowler-hatted man, whom Hillier conjures with sympathetic intrigue.
An artist who frequently obscured his subjects’ faces and painted a tobacco pipe captioned “this is not a pipe,” Magritte highlighted the gap between representation and reality, a concept that closely mirrors the associative breakdown in agnosia and which Macfarlane references intelligently.
In front of the raised stage where the musicians sit, the open performance area – subduedly lit by Maria Woolford – features a small table and chairs, a coat stand, a piano, television and a scattering of paintings to suggest Dr P’s home, while two screens on either side show projections of abstract patterns and footage of Dr P’s behavioural quirks.
Seemingly set in Magritte’s later mid-20th-century period when television made its way into the sitting room, the staging’s overall effect is ultimately convincing, though somewhat limited in aesthetic judgement and details.
Taken together, IOpera’s production of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is intellectually stimulating, emotionally resonant and unexpectedly comic, as well as exemplifying the enthusiasm, talent and resourcefulness that make up Melbourne’s independent opera scene.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat
Athenaeum Theatre Two, 188 Collins Street, Melbourne
Performance: Friday 20 March 2026
Season: 20 – 21 March 2026
Information: www.iopera.com.au
Images: The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat – photos by Robin Halls
Review: Paul Selar