‘I’m a thread in a garment, a leaf on a tree.’

Laura Lethlean

Operas come in all shapes, sizes, and venues. Having just returned from a visit to New York’s Metropolitan Opera House to see the final performance of an outstanding production of American John Adams’s new opera, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, it was quite an adjustment to see fellow American Nico Muhly’s latest opera, Aphrodite, commissioned and staged by Sydney Chamber Opera at their usual venue, Sydney’s Carriageworks. Adams’s opera calls for many soloists, supplemented by a large chorus and orchestra; Muhly’s work involves two singers and seven instrumentalists. The Metropolitan is the largest opera house in the world; Carriageworks is rather more intimate. 

Muhly has established himself as one of the most innovative young composers working in contemporary opera today. He is no stranger to large-scale operatic works; two of his operas were commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and premièred at the English National Opera before further performances at the Metropolitan Opera House. His first opera, Dark Sisters (2011), is a bleak exploration of religious fanaticism – the story of the mental and physical abuse of young women trapped in a cult. His second, Two Boys (2013), explored the dangers of the early internet and chat rooms where a web of deception is constructed, an opera which evolved into a detective story. Two Boys is as current as today’s shock headlines, which often resonate unsettlingly with the recent Netflix juggernaut Adolescence (2025). 

Muhly’s third opera, Marnie (2017), is a fascinating and highly skilful adaptation of the little-known but deeply intriguing 1961 Winston Graham novel of the same name, a work which became infinitely better known through the 1964 Alfred Hitchcock cinematic adaptation starring Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. Marnie has the scale of a grand opera, with an extensive array of soloists, a large and important chorus, and an expansive orchestra. But it is simultaneously a profoundly intimate and ultimately revealing portrait of the enigmatic and fascinating title character. 

Why settle on Aphrodite as an operatic subject? Opera is steeped in myth with Orpheus the founding figure of the genre. Aphrodite was one of the most widely worshipped deities in Greek antiquity. Monica Cyrino describes her as a ‘goddess of love who is not afraid to enter the battlefield; a goddess of bodily adornment who is the first to appear totally nude; a goddess born of the sea who emerges into the open sky: Aphrodite is a polyvalent deity, plural in nature and meaning, but never fragmented.’

Aphrodite, in various incarnations, has featured in several operas from the inception of the art form. Muhly has recently worked on a new realisation of the first great opera, Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607), where he attempted to ‘reinforce Monteverdi’s brilliant music with colour’, without getting in the way of his ‘brilliant use of chromaticism or the pacing of the work, the subtly calibrated disposition of the dances and arias’. Commenting on his new opera, Muhly notes that the ‘actual “story” of Aphrodite is buried in it almost as a given; we breeze over her biography in favour of understanding the effect of the myth on a specific woman living in modern times. In this sense, I felt quite liberated … to try to conjure specific mythological elements through highly stylised gestures.’

Aphrodite’s excellent librettist, Laura Lethlean, is a playwright and recent NIDA graduate. The work is structured as a form of monodrama where the figure of Aphrodite might well be conjured by the imagination of the protagonist, Ava. The hour-long opera is divided into eleven scenes with four musical interludes and takes place in the present as we meet Ava, self-described as a ‘divorced mother of three and obscure academic’ who has recently published a very successful book, The Aphrodite Complex. She arrives at her hotel after a launch event for a documentary series based on the book. Her opening lines describe the project taking ‘years of research and a lifetime of living’, the book now ‘regarded as The Second Sex for the next generation’.

She recalls her relationship with the documentary director, Hector – a name full of resonance – which culminated in a meeting at Athens airport after filming had finished. There he ‘shook my hand and my heart followed’. She described to him the emergence of a naked Aphrodite from the sea onto the beach on which they were standing, her ‘influence instantaneous’ and her name representing the essence of ‘fertility, beauty, love’. She goes on to tell him the story of the ‘golden apple’ which Zeus awards to the most beautiful god. The mortal, Paris, Prince of Troy, chooses Aphrodite.

At the airport Ava contemplates a possible furtive sexual encounter with Hector on her way home, ‘trading dignity for passion’, but instead opts to tell him a story about her experience with some friends at a wedding. The young girls judge the beauty of the bridesmaids, Ava recounts: ‘ever since the golden apple, everyday it is some form of pageantry, everyday we rank ourselves quietly and the prospect of winning is haunting’. Back in her room she reflects on her ‘sagging cheeks and deepening lines’. 

Jessica O’Donoghue and Meechot Marrero in Sydney Chamber Opera’s Aphrodite (photograph by Daniel Boud)

Aphrodite’s ‘entrance’ is preceded by a vision of her in a TV beauty commercial. Dressed in an identical pink gown to Ava, she sings, ‘I Am Desire Manifest,’ a passionate aria about her transformation into ‘a marble statue, a pinup girl, a figurine, a goddess reduced to stillness’. Aphrodite asks Ava what she wants and Ava replies, ‘I want to hold the golden apple’. Aphrodite drily responds, ‘We have work to do,’ warning ‘with desire comes trouble’. She admonishes Ava, saying, ‘It will be your fate to be eternally desirable in a world that is insatiable.’

In the final part of the opera, Ava unsuccessfully tries to FaceTime Hector. After a wordless vocalise she looks into the mirror and asks, ‘she once resembled me, who is she? To be human is to want despite everything I’ve got … perfection promised connection, did it not?’ Ava confronts Aphrodite: ‘Looking at your ivory, all I feel is pity.’ Aphrodite resists: ‘To be desired is to have power.’ Ava finally comments: ‘There is life inside my chest’, asking, ‘Why did you allow it? The pageantry, the ranking … why do we allow it, still?’ The work ends with Ava’s repeated comment: ‘Close your eyes.’ 

Carriagework’s playing space is filled by a rather impressive functional three-room hotel suite, designed by Isabel Hudson. Directed by Alexander Berlage, the action moves between these spaces as well as utilizing a balcony and further backstage spaces. There is highly effective use of several video cameras designed by Morgan Moroney, through which we see a wide array of projected close-ups of Ava as her psychological journey unfolds, some even filmed by Aphrodite herself. The work is permeated by the idea of the gaze; this is emphasised by the omnipresence of video images and mirrors which provide close-up and intimate access to the churning emotions of Ava.

While one is drawn inexorably into the unfolding of Ava’s thoughts and desires, there is a conscious breaking of the fourth wall as we observe all the mechanics that contribute to an opera performance, including the instrumentalists on the side of the playing space. On one level the work is a self-reflexive, meta-operatic meditation of the nature of opera itself, which draws attention to the inherent artificiality of the art form while addressing our cultural fixation with beauty and desirability.

The Omega Ensemble consists of clarinet (David Rowden), piano (Vatche Jambazian), percussion (Rebecca Lloyd-Jones), and string quartet (Vėronique Serret, Mark Ingwersen, Neil Thompson, and Paul Stender), and is expertly conducted by SCO’s Jack Symonds, who fully explores the variety of colours and energy of the score. A highlight of their expressive playing are some exquisite clarinet solos in the musical interludes.

The two vocal performers offer strong and well contrasted performances. Puerto Rican soprano Meechot Marrero is a fascinating Aphrodite with a luscious, rich tone matching the fabled beauty of the goddess. It is a voice that has a full soprano range but much of the warmth and fullness in the lower tones of a mezzo. Particularly impressive was a barn-storming arioso near the end of the work in which she rebukes Ava for pitying her. Marrero sang with a limpid line and finely-shaped phrasing, offering a vivid contrast with Ava, performed by Jessica O’Donoghue, a soprano stalwart of SCO as well as a fine composer in her own right.

O’Donoghue expressively conveyed the tensions, brittleness, and frustrations of a character who is confronting middle age and the demands of the ever-present beauty myth. It is a vocally and dramatically demanding part in which she reveals her outstanding musicianship and solid technique. While the voice does not possess the richness and steely brilliance of her colleague’s, O’Donoghue gave a finely judged vocal portrayal of this complex character. Some of the vocal writing is jagged and extremely demanding which she delivered with aplomb; perhaps the most moving of all was her lament towards the end – ‘In the mirror do you see her?’ – where a wide range of vocal colours and nuances were apparent. Equally fine and moving were the lyrical closing moments of the opera when Ava seems to come to terms with her life in a gentle berceuse, during which she repeats the words, ‘close your eyes’, which finally end the opera.

This is a fascinating collaboration between a renowned young composer, the Omega Ensemble, and Sydney Chamber Opera. Muhly again demonstrates why he is regarded as one of the most innovative voices in the operatic firmament. He has collaborated with excellent librettists who have provided the firm scaffolding for four very different, intriguing works. His music reveals a wide range of assimilated influences, including the music of Stephen Sondheim which he acknowledges in the final moments of Aphrodite. He has a similar ability to Benjamin Britten in creating vivid, colourful, and distinctive orchestral and vocal soundscapes full of textural complexity out of which characters emerge. There are also elements of John Adams’s evolutionary development of minimalism (originating with Steve Reich and Philip Glass), which reveal a wide range of harmonic colour and a rhythmic variety which provides a constant sense of momentum and musical energy. Muhly’s is a highly distinctive musical voice, which avoids the temptation to indulge in a neo-romantic idiom that is prevalent in much contemporary opera. One awaits with great anticipation his next operatic project.

Aphrodite (Sydney Chamber Opera and Carriageworks) continues until 28 June 2025. Performance attended: June 20.