Our Little Inventor, West Australian Opera & Awesome Festival ·
His Majesty’s Theatre, 1 October 2022 ·

In over 20 years of attending performances by the West Australian Opera, Our Little Inventor is only the second opera I’ve seen by a local composer. The first was last year’s Noongar opera Koolbardi wer Wardong by Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse. 

Our Little Inventor – written by Emma Jayakumar, a specialist in children’s opera – is the third in the successful Opera for Young People series which has unfolded under visionary artistic director Chris van Tuinen. The opera, based on a book by Melbourne author/illustrator Sher Rill Ng, also marks a big step up for the artform in terms of diversity. 

The opera industry has been notoriously slow to shake off its patriarchal past but Our Little Inventor makes it look easy, with a youthful Chinese heroine whose desire to save the environment overcomes misogyny, bureaucracy, industrialisation and age discrimination! Add a female-dominant cast and creative team and this production shapes up impressively on paper.

But successful opera requires more than just worthy concepts. Fortunately, Jayakumar’s skill at using music and the human voice to build drama makes Inventor an enthralling ride, for audiences of every age.

In the opening moments we are taken back in time to 1900s Australia where the industrious Nell has worked all night building a machine to clean pollution from the air. Her friends greet the morning with a cheery chorus “How do you do, G’day”. 

Designer Matt McVeigh’s Victorian-era costumes and simple geometric set are supplemented by Roly Skender’s digital projections to convey trees or a smoggy industrial skyline. Jayakumar’s highly evocative music completes the atmosphere. The simplicity of Nell’s world is evoked with minimalist pizzicato arpeggios which evolve into a percussive cacophony as she arrives in the city. The score includes sweet lyricism (“There and back in a day”) and a fanfare of great pomposity for the City Mayor. 

Front and centre is the human voice, given every opportunity to shine. There is no dumbing down for a young audience; Jayakumar – a soprano herself – includes virtuosic coloratura writing, soaring soprano lines and a substantial role for the children’s chorus. 

A top-notch cast deliver the goods, led by WAAPA graduate Grace Chow who brings a delightful music theatre freshness to the role of Nell. Her enthusiasm is contagious and her dejection palpable when her invention is brutally dismissed by the Mayor. Chow’s hoarse “Is this what it means to be a girl?” is gut-wrenching theatre.

It is wonderful to watch WA Opera Chorus member Yann Kee inhabit the principal role of Nell’s mother so naturally, her bright, confident soprano spilling effortlessly through the auditorium. My daughter loved the forthright Mrs Livingston Li, sung by Rachelle Durkin, whose vocal acrobatics mocking the City Council procedures are tossed off with great disdain. Xiaojia Zhang is excellent in the dual roles of Nell’s grandmother and city resident Aunty Myra, while Brett Peart with his stentorian baritone voice is perfectly ostentatious as the Mayor. Jordan Scott also demonstrates impressive musical poise as Nell’s brother Di di.

The gentle tones of the West Australian Young Voices (rehearsed by Perry Joyce and Katie How) bring sweet crispness to the production and the young singers move well to convey bustling crowd scenes. The musicians of the West Australian Youth Orchestra navigate a transparent and at times complex score and conductor Kate McNamara keeps a firm hand, bringing together the disparate parts on stage and in the pit.

It’s a tough gig directing artists of such wide-ranging experience, but this is Matt Reuben James Ward’s speciality. Some moments feel like they require more rehearsal time but Ward has achieved a coherency that makes this production both heart-warming and insightful.

The modern messaging from Ng’s picture book, overlaid by a vintage set and conveyed through the highly evolved genre of opera, works a treat. The environmental and feminist messages are crystal clear and stingingly relevant, as was evident in my nine-year-old daughter’s vehement declaration: “I totally agree and I want to join them on stage and help tell people!”.

I suspect Inventor and Koolbardi wer Wardong are the only commissions of local composers in WA Opera’s 55-year history. What a way to end the drought! May they be the first of many.

WA Opera’s Awesome Festival run of Our Little Inventor has ended. Its next production is La Traviata from 20-29 October 2022

Pictured top: Grace Chow, with fist raised, heads a cast which includes (at front, from left) Xiaojia Zhang, Jordan Scott and Yann Kee and members of West Australian Young Voices. Photo by Rebecca Mansell.