ABSTRACT
The physical setting for the opera Batavia is on the periphery of Australia, and the events represented occur nearly two hundred years before European settlement. The opera Batavia, with music by Richard Mills and libretto by Peter Goldsworthy, was first performed by Opera Australia in Melbourne in 2001. In Batavia, the narrative trajectory is from the reality of the voyage towards myth with a sense of paradise lost, and finally, a provisional paradise found or perhaps regained. Batavia displays great ambition both musically and scenically. It employs large orchestral forces, a full-sized chorus and a wide array of principal singers. The various performances of the opera provoked some divergent views on the success of Mills's work. Sandra Bowdler suggested that Batavia addresses universal themes of good and evil, retribution and forgiveness; it covers a wide musical vocabulary and provides a vivid portrayal of dramatic events involving humans at their best and at their worst.
