BY DR HOLLY CHAMPION
This month, I sat down to chat with emerging mezzo-soprano Xenia Puskarz-Thomas and baritone Oliver Boyd.
Xenia and Oliver are singing two lead roles in the premiere season of clarinettist-composer Paul Dean’s first opera Dry River Run, set in a rural Queensland town near a farm of the same name.
This is the singers’ story ahead of the September season with Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.
Xenia and Oliver, can you give us the lowdown on the plot and characters of Dry River Run?
Xenia Puskarz-Thomas: Sure. So, it’s set in a small, rural Queensland town near a farm called Dry River Run. The opera follows certain individuals’ struggles with death, inequality, independence, religion, and personal ambition, as their future irreversibly changes with the [1901] Federation of Australia. It begins the year before Federation.
Oliver Boyd: It revolves mostly around the Callaway family. I am Reverend Callaway. Xenia is playing Mrs Gladys Callaway; she’s my sister-in-law.
What are you learning through the process of embodying your characters and giving them a voice?
OB: For me personally, my character is quite dark and he has a lot of conflicting emotions within himself.
I’m really learning so much about myself as a performer by having to create this character that is quite far removed from how I see myself. He has these rather large mood swings within the space of a couple of sentences – he has this very public persona as a priest, but also a very different personal persona when he is out of the limelight. So I’m really enjoying getting to do that dramatisation of those two conflicting characters within the one character.
It sounds dangerous for a clergyman to have that kind of instability.
OB: Yeah. A little immoral.
What about you, Xenia?
XP: Very different. Gladys is very grounded, and actually is this amazing woman that I think a lot of people would look up to. She is really strong and, no matter the hurdle that comes her way, she somehow manages to keep on persevering and being the best mother she can be.
She’s got lots of dreams of equality for women. Her goals are something that a lot of women will identify with today.
And what about the other characters and your co-stars? What is it like for you to see them working through these characters?
XP: All of us have studied classical voice and opera at the conservatorium together. It’s got a huge cohort and we are very close with each other, and it’s lovely to work with friends and to have that rapport and support from your colleagues.
What is it like working with the composer and the librettist on a brand new work? Xenia, how are you finding that?
XP: It’s been a dream. It’s a different process obviously being able to have the composer tailor our parts to our voices, range and colour. Working with a director who is also the librettist has been wonderful; just being able to ask and understand why a character does certain things, why they’re the way they are, and their relationship with others, and these aspects of things that go beyond just the written text that’s on the page. We can really get to the nitty gritty of the characters.
So what is it like doing productions generally at the Queensland Conservatorium? I mean, I imagine it’s not usually like this!
OB: Musically, it’s so much more challenging than a lot of the other music that is in the students’ canon of work. But the productions and the opportunities that are afforded the students at the conservatorium in Queensland are just amazing (and I’m not paid to say this stuff)!
I know personally, just from being there in my early years, I’ve been seeing the development of the opera program, and the emphasis that they have put on quality performance opportunities, and the amount of resources that they put in to their opera productions— it’s just phenomenal. They’re almost like professional productions, and they are getting in some of the best directors from Australia and internationally to come and work with the students. So the experiences and the professional contacts are just invaluable, and it just puts us on the best foot, doing that within the safe environment of a student production.
Where you’re allowed to learn and make mistakes?
OB: Yes, exactly.
It sounds fantastic. So I assume that this production would be part of your course, is that correct?
XP: Yes, I’m in my fourth year studying Honours, so it is one of my electives to do the opera project. And in the end, yes, I will get a mark for the whole rehearsal process and my performance. So it’s an assessment. It’s a wonderful assessment, one that you want to be doing, and it really allows you to do what you love— which is performing.
What do you think Dry River Run means for Australian opera more broadly?
OB: I think it’s really interesting. Paul Dean’s brother is Brett Dean, who is a renowned Australian opera composer; yet Paul himself in his own right is a fantastic musician and composer, but this is his first opera. So, I guess this is just another –
Sibling rivalry?
OB: [Laughs] It’s another family thing, that they will be adding to the legacy of Australian opera as composers. Hopefully we’ll see more Paul Dean operas in future.
XP: Yes, also the fact that it’s very uniquely Australian, so Dry River Run is quite important in terms of Australian history. There are cultural things that are unique to Queensland that we are showing in this production. So it’s really exciting for us Queenslanders, to have a historical Australian opera being created and putting Queensland culturally on the map.
When I was doing my undergraduate degree, I did a project on Australian opera history. I think there is a shortage of real Australian stories that are told in opera. It’s slowly changing, but of course it’s very hard with the huge expense of opera to get any of them performed. So it’s incredible that the Queensland Conservatorium is doing this, and so lavishly! Tell us why people should come to see your show.
XP: Obviously because it’s new, and uniquely Australian and Queenslander; but it’s also going to be very moving and dramatic. There are some adult themes in the story, and the style of music and the style of direction that we are getting are mixing together to make a really unique opera.
It’s nothing like what I have ever done or even seen before, and I really think it will challenge your perception of opera, and maybe also highlight some things about the human condition itself.
Why would it challenge people’s perceptions of opera?
XP: Well, the direction is kind of surreal, and usually drama and plot centres the work. But this opera is more about revealing our characters: who they are, and what their values and their ambitions are. It’s done in a different way that I don’t think I’ve ever really seen before in opera […] It’s like putting on a different pair of glasses, and that’s why I said it’s going to change the perception of opera.
It is tonal, or atonal, the musical language?
OB: The more you listen to it, the more tonal it becomes.
XP: I think it’s hard to categorise Paul Dean’s work. It’s a modern style of composition, but there are more traditional operatic elements. There are still legato lines and still some beautiful melodies that will be very affecting.
I wish you absolutely all the best. It’s very exciting and I hope – as I’ve heard rumours – that it’s recorded for posterity, and broadcast so that the whole country can see you and hear you!
OB: Thanks.
XP: Thank you so much.
See Dry River Run from 1-9 September at the Queensland Conservatorium Theatre, Griffith University. The opera has libretto and direction by Rodney Hall, and music direction by Nicholas Cleobury. Tickets available online.
Shout the writer a coffee?
[purchase_link id=”15166″ style=”button” color=”orange” text=”Pay what you like”]
No amount is too much or little. Thanks for supporting Holly as she volunteers her time for Australian arts journalism.
This interview has been edited for publication in CutCommon. An extended version will also be published on Dr Holly Champion’s website – be sure to give it a visit!
Pay what you like through PayPal. 80 per cent of your contribution will go to the writer who composed this piece, and 20 per cent to our volunteer editor for getting this show on the road. (You don’t *actually* have to take them out for a coffee.) We protect your personal information.
Images supplied.
