ABSTRACT

The opera raises issues such as the role in a postcolonial society like Australia of the essentially European artform of opera. Voss is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by the Nobel Prize-winning Australian writer Patrick White, a pivotal work in the Australian literary canon. Voss combines aspects of the tragic hero of the ancient Greek epic tradition such as Odysseus, Heracles and Jason with strong elements of the Grail legend. The immensity of the brooding land is powerfully suggested by the open triads in the orchestra and in the men of the expedition's widely spaced vocal lines, and the pomp and ceremony of the departure preceding this is made to look, and sound, rather tawdry. This is an opera of immense ambition and achievement and, like the final mythical image of Voss, casts a long shadow over later Australian opera; it is often invoked as a model that might be successfully imitated.