Written for string quartet and two voices across 15 songs, Kaminsky’s music is an evocative experience that raises each scene thoughtfully while constructing an embracing acoustic collage. Joshua Erdelyi-Götz) as Hannah Before and
And the horror of assault is powerfully intertwined by the pair who together notch up a couple of splendid performances. A rich and luminous-voiced Campbell shares a touching ballad-like song in one of the work’s highlights when Hannah gets her first kiss from a young man. From first realising he was not like other boys, then realising he was not alone and onto final acceptance, life is sung with meaning and vigour.Įarly on, you can sense the fire within as a vocally muscular Erdelyi-Götz is determined to conceal himself in a male stereotype. There is Hannah Before ( Joshua Erdelyi-Götz ) and Hannah After (Marie Campbell), baritone and mezzo-soprano shadowing each other through her internal struggles. Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed’s libretto map her journey chronologically through episodes sprinkled with wit and generous with feeling. It’s the story of Hannah and told through her eyes as she grows up as a boy, eventually understanding that she cannot identify living with the gender she was born with. Poignantly achieved in American composer Laura Kaminsky’s 75-minute 2014 chamber opera, As One, it’s also the first time the protagonist is transgender.
Opera has a history of gender-bending roles in the service of art but it has taken until the 21st century for a work to zero in on the issue of gender itself. Published in Herald Sun Melbourne, 28th January 2020 in edited form
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