Remember July 23, 2020? Melbourne was in its second lockdown, concert-going was forbidden and nobody could travel beyond five kilometres, including musicians. When Melbourne Digital Concert Hall came to the rescue, a forever-grateful music community was given the chance to hear the premiere of Katy Abbott’s Return to Sender in the comfort of their own homes – in some ways a reminder of the freedoms most Australians experience and a tiny taste of the constraints experienced by asylum seekers detained on Nauru.
The initial impetus for the work came from Human Rights lawyer Julian Burnside QC, who in 2013 asked Australians to write letters of encouragement and support to asylum seekers on Nauru. Almost all of the around 2000 letters sent were returned in three large boxes, undelivered, unopened and marked “return to sender”. Wishing she had written one of those letters herself, Abbott asked him for access to those letters and began the task of sifting through about 400 of them, seeking to identify recurring themes, phrases and emotions to compile a libretto of these “hidden thoughts” alongside writer friend Maureen Johnson.
In 2020, we heard the Flinders Quartet, mezzo-soprano Dimity Shepherd and actor Richard Piper as Narrator give a riveting, heart-rending performance of Return to Sender, perhaps made even more intense because of the circumstances and its various challenges.
Four years later, almost to the day, we heard it in expanded form as the second part of Abbott’s Hidden Thoughts for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Metropolis series. Although substantially different, chiefly in orchestration, both performances were compelling in their own way.
Although Return to Sender was composed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Flinders Quartet, this later version for string orchestra of nearly 30 MSO players, including two double basses, enabled Abbott to employ a significantly extended range of colour and effects. Sonorous depth, with an emphasis on the lower strings, and shifts between the full ensemble and principal players – whether together, as a duo or as soloists – provided eloquent reflections of the text. Conductor Leonard Weiss CF was a necessary, and attentive, addition for the expanded forces.
As Narrator for both versions, Richard Piper repeated what was an outstanding performance. He captured the tone of each writer perfectly, never theatrically exaggerated, just reaching the core of the message. From upper class to working class, male to female, to even an Irish writer Piper’s vocal inflection imbued each letter writer with personality while never over-shadowing the content. If a performance can be called “honest” then his had an immediacy and “ring of truth” that would fit that description. Piper also has a decent singing voice, which he used to good effect towards the end of the work, adding a simple descant line to the final “Welcome” section. Designed to be sung by the audience too, the repetitions of “We welcome you here” were sung by members of the orchestra and featured another beautiful descant line from mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean, but the audience appeared a little shy about joining in.
The mezzo-soprano part had been written for Betts-Dean, so the vocal part was shaped around her considerable strengths in range, colour and musicality. Well-balanced amplification gave both Narrator and, especially, singer an opportunity to create a number of effects with ease.
Within the work’s 14 sections, a substantial part is unaccompanied narration. The orchestra enters halfway through the first, long section of several letters: “Everyone is Precious”, emphasizing the sadness in a series of throbbing crescendos, then singer and speaker weave repetitions of key phrases through the main narrative. The solo violin and warm cello solo are a fitting illustration of the section’s final words: “My heart goes out to you”.
A cheerful chord begins the next more upbeat section: “Where You Are”, part of a series of letters sharing the personal details of everyday life in Australia that are sometimes amusing, sometimes nostalgic and strike a chord with listeners in their particular references specific places, be they Woolongong or Geelong. Betts-Dean used her voice as an instrument in this and later sections with a sustained vowel or humming as well as contributing to the spoken narration.
One of the most moving sections was “vi: Shame (Hymn)”. Led by the excellent Rachael Tobin, the slow moving cello part, in the vein of Vaughan Williams and Barber, underlay letter fragments expressing the grief felt by many Australians at the treatment of the asylum seekers. Betts-Dean’s high note – a cry of anguish on “helpless” – was an emotional climax, as were similarly high notes for “Hope” later on.
Members of the audience might have been a little reticent about singing the final words, but they had no hesitation in jumping to their feet for a prolonged standing ovation at the end of the performance. It was a show of solidarity with the sentiments expressed in the letters and an appreciation of a splendid performance of a work that combined musical interest and complexity with emotional heart in its various forms.
Rehearsal photo supplied.
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Heather Leviston reviewed the performance of “Hidden Thoughts II: Return to Sender”, presented as part of the Metropolis series by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Iwaki Auditorium on August 1, 2024.
