This is a world premiere, a collaboration between Sydney Chamber Opera, Opera Australia and Carriageworks, in association with Australian String Quartet and Ensemble Offspring.
Yes, that’s a lot of talent and expertise.
It’s an adaptation of an old tale, seriously old, possibly the oldest written tale we have. The original source was created in ancient Mesopotamia and was bubbling around in different forms from around 2100 BCE. It settled into The Epic of Gilgamesh around 1800 BCE and was rediscovered in the late nineteenth century. Since then it has increasingly become an inspiration for modern artists, including the novelist Saddam Hussein.
A more skilled adaptation is this one by Australian artists composer Jack Symonds and librettist Louis Garrick. (Though you can imagine my disappointment when I found the libretto was in English, not Ancient Sumerian. Ten Tuesday nights at a community college for nothing!)
One of the attractions of the tale is its sheer age. But why does age create an aura? Age doesn’t automatically guarantee value. (Left Field Example: Though no longer young, I still have my appendix – but that ancient organ is still here not because it’s valuable; it simply hasn’t tried to kill me yet.)
But Gilgamesh’s tale is so old it seems to come from the dawn of civilization. It feels like an origin story, and that genre is often used to explain inherent, irresolvable tensions.
In this particular tale, the tension is between civilization and nature.
Gilgamesh is king of Uruk, but he has become a tyrant (a danger inherent to all civilization.) To weaken him, the gods create Enkidu, a wild man, a natural man. However, before Enkidu confronts Gilgamesh, he’s prepared for life in the community – by a temple priestess. (So much for our idea that sex is so rock’n’roll; it’s actually one of the great glues of human society. Nature? Or civilization?)
Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight, and are revealed as equals. They become close friends and lovers. United, they challenge the monster who guards the Forest of Cedar, a natural resource that Gilgamesh has long coveted. (Once again, civilization versus nature.)
Not actually being fluent in Ancient Sumerian (the community college brochure promising more than the course actually delivered) I’m not sure whether this nature versus civilization motif is a layering of modern concerns on an ancient tale. I’m not sure it matters.
Whatever the case, the environmental strand disappears for a while as the tale explores the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, using it as a lens to consider fundamentals of the human condition, such as longing and mortality. Perhaps the environmental strand of the story doesn’t so much disappear as deepen, as human ambition and desire for dominance are questioned at an existential level.
Symonds’ score is superb, sufficiently traditional to evoke the past (or at least the relatively recent past in which opera was created and the ancient world was rediscovered) and sufficiently contemporary to give the tale a vibrant immediacy. Its performance is thrilling, emotive and utterly engaging.
Director Kip Williams elicits from the cast brilliant physical performances. Mitchell Riley as Enkidu, his wildness slowly tamed but never completely erased, and Jeremy Kleeman as Gilgamesh, his arrogant regal bearing tested by the gods, are both outstanding.
Williams’ use of space is a delight. With costumer designer David Fleischer, set designer Elizabeth Gadsby and lighting designer Amelia Lever-Davidson, he creates a stunning visual world. In the vast stage of Bay 17, symbols of nature gradually mix with those of civilized decadence, and the final scene that completes this portrait of perpetual tension is theatrical magic.
Paul Gilchrist
Gilgamesh by Jack Symonds and Louis Garrick
At Carriageworks until 5 Oct
Image by Daniel Boud
Theatre Red 