Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Sunday 10th July 2016
Songs From Behind the Front was presented by State Opera of South Australia in their home, the Opera Studio, as part of the 2016
Flanders Fields Poppy Trail commemorations. It was a selection of songs, combined with a sensitive but honest narration, to commemorate the conflict in the trenches on the Western Front during the First World War. The performance was devised by State Opera's CEO and Artistic Director, Timothy Sexton, and Dr. Christine Rothauser, with Sexton as musical director and narrator, Dr. Rothauser as French language coach and interpreter, and the ever supportive repetiteur,
Carol Young, who was also co-musical director, accompanying at the piano. The insightful direction and the very effective design were by Velalien, whose set created three locations: a field hospital, the trenches, and an Australian home. Good use was also made of projections onto a large screen above and behind the main set.
The performance began with Sexton entering, dressed in well-worn clothes of the period, carrying an old Gladstone bag, and with his cap at a jaunty angle. He played the part of an old soldier, tramping his way around Australia and recalling details of the Great War, the War to End all Wars. His commentary included a number of pieces of poetry about the war, letters, and more, with further examples recited by
The Four Singers. The remainder of the performance, of course, was songs of the time, both Australian and French, some well-known and some obscure.
Desiree Frahn was an Australian soldier's wife, back at home in her kitchen, and
Courtney Turner was a nurse in the field hospital, tending two badly injured soldiers. Hew Wagner and Andrew Turner were playing soldiers in a trench in Flanders, facing the horrors of this new style of warfare, including gas attacks, the beginning of chemical warfare. With Sexton's character looking back on the war, and these four charactersintimately involved with it, we have five points of view to give us some understanding of how it affected almost everybody in some way.
Patriotism was high, the British fighting for King and Country. Australia was still strongly linked to England, and went to war for King and Empire. Boys lied about their ages, desperate to put on a uniform and go to fight. Many Australians never came home, many more returned no longer whole. The production presented both the highs and the lows. They did not go overseas and defeat the enemy, with it all over in a few weeks, as they expected when they sailed from Australia. It dragged on for years, with 10 million dead, 20 million wounded and maimed, and another 8 million civilians dead.
The scene is set by the first item, the 1917 poem
The Glory of War, by Peter Austen, that begins, "Once they sang uv th' Glory uv War...". This was followed by a rousing South Australian song from 1900,
The Empire's Own, with words by Noel Webb and music by Hans Bertram.
It's a Long Way to Tipperary was in there, along with the French song,
Quand Madelon, about the soldiers' affection for the serving girl at a nearby cabaret
Henry Lawson's poem,
Billy Boy, takes a darker look at the fate ahead of soldier going to war, and
Claude Debussy's
Noël des Enfants is the Christmas prayer of orphaned children. Charles Sablon's
La Chanson de Craonne tells of the weariness of the soldiers and the fear that the war might go on forever, with death the only and inevitable ending.
Keep the Home-Fires Burning, had an optimistic tone, with soldiers expecting to eventually "come marching home", but those hopes were soon dashed.
Queenslander, Peter Austen, who was born Rudolf Novak Augstein, was with the Australian Army Medical Corps (1st Field Hospital) and his poem,
The Field Hospital, is included. Interestingly, he later changed his name once more to Aly Azir-el-Dinh and converted to Islam. He published two books of poems about his experiences in the First World War, Bill-Jim in 1917, and
The Young Gods in 1919.
Bill-Jim, or Billjim, was a name given to the soldiers, in the same way as the term Digger was used later, and then ANZAC. Austen's poem,
Bill-Jim, was followed by Jack Fewsters song,
Brother Bill-Jim, with the concert closing with Leon Gellert's poem depicting the tragedy and futility of the war,
The Last to Leave.
The Last To Leave
The guns were silent, and the silent hills
had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze
I gazed upon the vales and on the rills,
And whispered, "What of these?' and "What of these?
These long forgotten dead with sunken graves,
Some crossless, with unwritten memories
Their only mourners are the moaning waves,
Their only minstrels are the singing trees
And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfully
I watched the place where they had scaled the height,
The height whereon they bled so bitterly
Throughout each day and through each blistered night
I sat there long, and listened - all things listened too
I heard the epics of a thousand trees,
A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew
The waves were very old, the trees were wise:
The dead would be remembered evermore-
The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies,
And slept in great battalions by the shore.
Desiree Frahn,
Courtney Turner, Hew Wagner, and Andrew Turner are young rising stars in the company and, as one would expect, all four possess excellent singing voices but, for this production, that alone was not enough. High levels of acting skills were required, both when speaking and singing and, being part of the new breed of opera performers, they have had the training and developed the necessary abilities. Movement was also a part of the production, especially for Hew Wagner and Andrew Turner as the two soldiers who must perform military actions, including working with rifles. All of this added up to a strong degree of authenticity, increased by Timothy Sexton's wonderful portrayal of the returned serviceman, the Bill-Jim.
One would hope that this production will be repeated before too long.
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