Opera Review: Bernstein & Busoni/ Endangered Productions

Opera Review: Bernstein & Busoni

Endangered Productions

Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst, Thursday 28 November, 2025

By Victoria Watson

This newly minted chamber opera company Endangered Productions, presented a double-bill of two one-act operas by Ferruccio Busoni and Leonard Bernstein. Busoni is primarily remembered in the operatic canon for his opera Doctor Faustus. He was also a noted concert pianist and editor of the works of J.S. Bach. Bernstein was as well, a broadly gifted musician and intellectual – a pianist, educator, conductor, composer of both Broadway and classical genres and an important figure in musical politics in the 20^th century. His other works that challenge definition in the genre include the operetta/musical Candide. His most popular work is the Broadway masterpiece West Side Story with lyrics by a young Stephen Sondheim.

Dysfunctional marriage is the theme that links the two works. The first opera Busoni’s Arlecchino, was translated from Italian into English and deals with this subject matter in a comedic and absurdist fashion. The Dada elements – a reaction to the horrors of World War 1 – included a mute part for a donkey comically portrayed by Kerwin Baya. Director Christine Logan added a pole dance to the absurd elements impressively performed by emerging soprano Brea Holland. Ambitiously the production also featured an on-stage 14-piece orchestra conducted by Peter Alexander.

The sound world of this performance was unfortunately marred by the decision to amplify the singers and at times, parts of the band (notably the string bass in the second opera). While an understandable attempt to balance voices with the wind and percussion sections of the instrumental ensemble, the result was not a great success on opening night. The venue is intimate and has a reverberant acoustic and previous productions viewed there without amplification of voices have been well received. It may have been wiser to sacrifice some audibility to hear the natural timbre and projection of operatically trained voices without the distortion of condenser microphones. This was especially true of the larger, more resonant voices of baritone Ziggy Harris as the Abbot, bass baritone Matthew Avery as the doctor and soprano Brea Holland as Colombina. All three possess fine vocal colours and operatic line .

At times the text was obscured and given a lack of a synopsis, making the storyline of the little known Busoni work very difficult to follow. This is always a challenge in opera even in translation, and every opera company faces the task of conveying meaning and theatrical intent effectively when text can be obscured by ensemble singing and operatic vocal style and tessitura. Overuse of reverberation when amplifying can compound these problems. Richard Strauss even wrote a fine opera about the task of writing and performing opera and achieving the tricky balance of text ,music and theatre in his Capriccio.

Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti is more suited to amplification as its jazzy styles match a more defined blend of Broadway vocal style and classical voice. It also blends comedy with tragic undertones. The trio of chorus voices that comment on the action benefited from the use of microphones and well achieved the 1940 Andrews sisters style of harmonised commentary.

Peter Coleman-Wright effectively portrayed the role of a 1950s husband more focused on baseball than his disintegrating marriage. He handled the amplification well and his burnished baritone was a highlight of the performance. Cheryl Barker as his long suffering wife yearning to escape into a fantasy dream life to help her bear her oppressive relationship brought decades of operatic experience on the world’s stages into play and painted a sympathetic and affecting portrait.

The reduced orchestra under Peter Alexander played with rhythmic vigour and featured a number of fine wind solos including the saxophone solos from Gabriel Wright.

Taking on the challenges of performing the most complex of theatrical art forms that is opera and providing opportunities to hear rarely performed works is important. Sydney benefits from groups that take these risks and allow performers and audiences alike to broaden their knowledge and experience of this fascinating blend of music and drama.

Victoria Watson

A graduate of Melbourne university and VCA, Victoria appeared regularly as a soprano with the Victoria State Opera and has toured and served as artistic director of many chamber ensembles.

She has performed with Sydney Symphony Orchestra and for ten years, was artistic director of a major opera education project with Opera Australia. Since 2015 she has moved into directing opera including Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte at the Independent theatre.

Victoria has lectured in voice at the major universities in Melbourne, and is currently a tutor at UNSW. Having taught at major Sydney secondary colleges, she now runs a busy private singing studio. She is a published author on opera and a popular freelance music and theatre lecturer and advocate for Australian artists around the world.