Queer voices illuminate the nature of identity in a world that continues to push such voices to the fringe. Despite continuing personal and social challenges, Queer musicians continue to rise in song to question, provoke, inspire and lay bare their stories in this mid-week concert presented by Lyric Opera as a part of fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival. The compositional voices of Queer Australians Kevin Marsh, Sally Whitwell and Meta Cohen set a diverse array of texts from the 17th century, 1930s Germany and the present day, resulting in a curious synergy in programming: Two Song Cycles and an Opera in its first trimester of creative evolution.
“Songs for Dark Days”, by American-born Australian composer Kevin Marsh, is a deeply meditative work that struck a nerve for its evocation of contradictory mood states with appropriate light and shade. Following the re-election of Donald Trump as American President in 2024, Marsh was compelled to set the rhetorically laden introductory piece of Bertold Brecht’s poems of moral resistance, Svendborg Gedichter, named after the Danish town where Brecht was living in exile during Nazi regime in Germany. Marsh’s choice to set this and other “degenerate” texts of the 1930s reaped rewards in a lyrical yet direct setting, sung by soprano Livia Brash. Brash’s rich, full-voiced soprano, well supported by Coady Green on piano, evoked the Brechtian spirit of defiance that is a clear repudiation of Trump’s Queer-phobic agenda.
Sally Whitwell’s Song cycle “(He)]art Songs”, with a text by the composer and tenor Alex Gorbatov, explored the nature of queer identity in a very personal performance. Born of a commission gifted to Gorbatov by their partner, Gorbatov approached Sally Whitwell – a lifelong mentor since childhood – to compose a song cycle; Whitwell reciprocated with a request that Gorbatov write the text in turn. The result is a set of four contrasting songs exploring Gorbatov’s Queer identity in varied contexts: sacred, musical, personal and physical. Whitwell’s dynamic fusion of post-minimalist influence, a penchant for theatrics and nods to everything from Vivaldi to popular music was executed with a disarming candour by Gorbatov – a natural performer. Coady Green’s accompanying (with some humorous “tsk-tsk” scripted moments for the accompanist) was always attentive and focused.
The final work in the program was ambitious in its chosen presentation mode. As an as-yet uncompleted chamber opera, composer Meta Cohen’s “Kiss my Sword” has much to get excited about. The vocal writing is fiendishly virtuosic at times with a sprawling text by Evan Bryson that appears to construct and then deconstruct the life of queer French contralto, lover and swordswoman, Julie d’Aubigny. Presented as a kind of eclectic mix of part-song cycle, part-chamber opera in almost workshop format, it was clear that this work-in-progress shows a lot of promise, particularly in Cohen’s evident flair for florid vocal writing that compellingly captures the essence of the protagonist – a fearless Queer icon whose life blurs the lines of myth and history. Cohen’s use of post-minimalist devices such as repetition, and sprawling lines that flow continually from the voices of the technically gifted sopranos Jessica Aszodi and Breanna Stuart were a highlight of the night.
While Lyric Opera’s Artistic Director, Patrick Burns, as the night’s resident couch host added some pertinent context, a more curtailed approach might have kept the audience more engaged with the music – where words alone can rarely match its impact.
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Stephen Marino reviewed “Their Voices will Rise: An evening of new Australian Queer Art Song”, presented by fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival and Lyric Opera at fortyfivedownstairs on May 14, 2025.
