“The Visitors”, Victorian Opera. At the Arts Centre, Melbourne, until October 21. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

ANU composer Christopher Sainsbury’s new opera in one act, “The Visitors”, enjoyed a warm reception when it opened on Wednesday night in Melbourne.

Based on a play of the same name by Jane Harrison, who wrote the libretto, it is less a story than an operatic debate as a group of Aboriginal elders meet in Warrane (Sydney Cove) on a sizzling summer’s day, January 26, 1788, ironically referred to as “this auspicious day”.

Along with the surtitles projected at the top are the time of day and the temperatures – it rises to 45° at one point.

From a high vantage point, perfectly evoked in Richard Roberts’ set of ghost-gums against an oval sky, the elders observe “the visitors” disembarking from their tall  ships and wonder if they will stay.

For, as we are reminded throughout the evening, there have been “visitors” before in 1770, but they didn’t stay long.

Harrison uses the convention of giving the elders English names – Gordon (Zoy Frangos), Gary (Elias Wilson), Jacob (Marcus Corowa),  Albert (Eddie Muliaumaseali’i), Winsome (Shauntai Sheree Abdul-Rahman), and Joycie (Jess Hitchcock).

This makes it easy to distinguish the six markedly different personalities of the elders as they negotiate on how to greet the strangers. This and Roberts’ eclectic mix of western and tribal clothing act as harbingers of  what is to come.

Suddenly Lois (Canberra singer Lillian Fromyhr), from another mob further south, appears.
She has already had contact with the visitors and is in the grip of a nasty cold, something disturbingly unfamiliar to the elders. Fromyhr’s portrayal of a very young victim of first arrival was most poignant.

The rest of the opera is taken up with a round of arguments and negotiations on how to respond.

Each player mounts a powerful argument. Gordon, the leader of the group, has good reason to be suspicious, as his own father was shot in 1770, eventually succumbing to his words.

The  youthful Jacob is up for a fight, but the older women, Joycie and the more outspoken Winsome, are torn between the traditional sense of hospitality and the need to protect themselves.

Director Isaac Drandic masterfully creates a curious ebb and flow to the opera as each point of view is presented, consensus looks to be achieved, but then a dissenting voice stops that in its tracks.

Sainsbury’s pleasing music echoes the ebb and flow of the debate through substantial passages of recitative – sung dialogue – interspersed with several songs, the most powerful of which to me was where the elders sing to Gordon about the “sorry business” of his late father.

While Sainsbury has incorporated elements of jazz, a traditional short chant “Away From Our Country, birdsong and even a Commedia d’elle Arte touch – for this is not a humourless show – the resulting composition had a seamless musical feel.

One of the most exciting achievements from an operatic perspective was the balancing of the operatic voices of Muliaumaseali’i and Wilson with the musical theatre, folk and soul voices of the others.

This contributed light and shade, and added to Harrison’s delineation of character, showing how these are not faceless  people, meekly giving in.

As the opera draws to a conclusion, they first decide to fight off the unwelcome intruders.

Here Sainsbury’s music, conducted by Phoebe Briggs, turns lively and aggressive with the percussion and the strings interacting in an exciting way as they prepare for battle.

But then, just as suddenly, the natural grace and hospitality of these owners of the land return, as they face the audience, substantially composed of “visitors”, to bid them welcome.

The irony of that welcome on “this auspicious day” was not lost on audience members, who rose to their feet to applaud.