“Music assumes an integral role in Helen Garner’s The Children’s Bach. Each character finds solace in its embrace, none more than the unlikely adultress, whose stiff, unfeeling rendition of Bach preludes provokes the memorable line: “If only those birds sang – that sang the best – how silent the woods would be.” It’s Garner’s gift to have an ear for the lyricism and complex drama of life’s second-rate warblers, and to weave them, with the lightest of touches, into elaborate harmonies.Athena (Kathryn Grey) and Dexter (Andrea Carcassi) are happily married, their lives tinged with sadness by a profoundly autistic son, Billy (James Christensen). By contrast, Elizabeth (Dimity Shepherd) and Philip (James Egglestone) are loose-living bohemians. When the couples converge, Athena and Philip embark on a mad fling that cannot last.Schultz and Perry’s opera faithfully recreates the novel’s inner- suburban world and its central romantic collision. The score plays on the book’s musical references while remaining utterly original. It employs everything from jazz-inspired riffs to fugal structure to accompany the progression of romantic entanglements. A wild arrangement for marimba evokes the disorienting jungle of Billy’s mind. In a striking scene straight from the book, Elizabeth’s sister Vicki (Tess Duddy) sings the Skye Boat Song while Billy hums wordlessly along. And the novel’s conclusion is sung, effectively, as a rising, speculative duet…The production is imaginatively staged…and succeeds in creating the sort of intricate interiority (a difficult thing to do in opera) that ultimately does justice to the book.”

[Cameron Woodhead, The Age, 23 June 2008.]

“The opera begins as very much an ensemble piece. Each character’s themes are clearly introduced, as if in a fugue. But the story gradually focuses in on Athena, and her desire to do something different in her life. Athena’s feelings are reflected in her periodic attempts to learn the piano: ranging from being contented to slowly persevere, to the frustration of being trapped by her own limitations.

While music from The Children’s Bach is a constant presence in both the book and the opera, Schultz uses only one direct quotation. As the adults become increasingly wrapped up in their own emotional lives, Billy puts his energy into learning the piano, and his surprisingly rapid improvement goes almost unnoticed. Towards the end of the second act, however, as he plays an excerpt from a two-part invention by Bach, his achievements come suddenly into focus.

Musically though, this doesn’t come as a surprise. Using source material from the invention for most of the second act, Schultz builds carefully towards that moment. ‘Hopefully by the time you hear it, it doesn’t sound like Bach at all, it sounds like Schultz: it should integrate seamlessly’, he says.

Schultz first used Bach’s music as a substantial framework as part of a project initiated by Luciano Berio – a collection of contemporary rewritings of Bach’s The Art of Fugue. Shortly afterwards, Schultz began writing Journey to Horseshoe Bend, in which Bach’s music also makes a significant contribution, particularly in marking the plot’s critical turning point.”

[Rhiannon Cook, “The Children’s Bach,” Resonate Magazine, 25 June 2008.]

The Children’s Bach, original ChamberMade production at the Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, 2008.

“For those unfamiliar with Helen Garner’s novella, this review shall not spoil the details of the story as retold in this operatic adaptation. Not that plot is so much a driving force in this tale, but the developments of the fragile relationships depicted are an essential part of its dramatic strength. In essence, it is a tale about emotional isolation in suburbia, the loneliness and disappointments within relationships, and the escape and damage of seeking solace or excitement outside of them.

As Dexter (Andrea Carcassi), one of the main characters, keeps pondering, is this “modern life”? Is this all it amounts to? What kind of abstraction is love in the face of seemingly far more potent pain and disaffection? Needless to say, this is not a particularly cheerful piece, but whether it is actively depressing or alienating depends very much on the temperament (and experiences) of the audience members themselves. Mercifully avoiding high angst, The Children’s Bach is a slow-burn exploration of some of the less dramatic or glamorous facets of “modern life”.

The score is certainly quite beautiful, powerful and oftentimes even rather haunting. A rich, surprising and complex piece of composition, the music alone is worth the price of admission, and Andrew Schultz is to be congratulated. Librettist Glenn Perry has taken on the challenging task of adapting Garner’s often quite prosaic words into something compatible with the operatic voice, while never betraying the essential flavour of the suburban doldrums. All this may seem “a bit too modern” for more traditionalist opera patrons, and any of those still suffering from a bit of Cultural Cringe may have trouble accepting such fine singers passionately intoning lines about Hills Hoists and Video Hits.

The cast is uniformly of a high standard, as much a well-rehearsed ensemble as the excellent musicians who back them. Although each of the performers got some shining moments, the most cumulatively prominent role was that of Athena, powerfully portrayed by Kathryn Grey. An engaging performer, Grey was both powerful and understated, emoting a range from disaffection to despair while never seeming for a moment to be extravagant. Indeed, for a character who could come across as fairly unsympathetic, Grey, rather than attempt to make the role more likable, has the confidence to simply be compelling enough that any such judgmental perceptions quickly slide away.

One aspect of this production that particularly stood out was the set design, with no walls or boundaries in the large empty space afforded it in the Merlyn Theatre, but rather… islands. Islands of furniture, little set-pieces (literally) as though individual rooms reduced to their barest essentials of function. A television and a couch. A dining table. A bed and wardrobe. A rabbit cage. All these little nuggets of naturalistic living spaces plopped down in the dark, featureless landscape of the theatre made them seem almost as though suspended in space and time. It served as a tremendously effective visual metaphor, perhaps, for the isolation and emotional distance between the characters, and even the compartmentalisation of different parts of each individual’s life. Many have used a similar approach to set design before, but have rarely achieved it so evocatively. If anything, it seemed that the sprawling set was under-utilised, but perhaps the extra “settings” that were not really used provided a visual purpose as much as a practical one, as though to suggest that this isolation spreads on forever.

While it has the potential to leave some viewers cold, others may well find this new opera to be a very compelling and moving experience. The Children’s Bach might be exploring the seemingly mundane, but in many respects it is within reaching distance of the sublime.”

[Jack Tiewes, Australian Stage Online, 27 June 2008.]

“Schultz’s songs however often catch the ear, almost at times like a musical, … as when Philip sings to Poppy about his beloved Paradise Bar, or Dexter about ‘lerv.’ While the score is not accessible in the manner of Glass or Adams or, more conventionally, Golijov, nor is it the jagged modernism of an earlier Schultz opera, Black River (1989, film 1993). The composer’s score is lyrical and pervasively melancholic, save a joyous, dancing, unsung passage and the opera’s baroqu-ish duet coda. Not surprisingly it’s the Bach-ian texturing and pulsing of the score that gives the work warmth and drive. Each of Poppy’s readings from her ‘Children’s Bach’ seem to trigger the requisite realisation of the theory from the orchestra, driving the opera on but also adding to the sense of moment, a certain thoughtfulness, a musical reflectiveness. Schultz’s score sings, muses and dances and is superbly realised by the onstage conductor (Nicholas Carter alternating with music director Brett Kelly) and fine instrumentalists on piano, cello, clarinet, double bass, marimba, vibraphone and violin.”

[Keith Gallasch, Real Time Arts, 2008.]

“Garner’s poetic and elusive book “translated very effectively into a lightly –scored and evocative chamber opera which took the central metaphor of the fugue from the novel. This became a meditation on the messiness and complexity of human relationships, one given a sense of structure by music.”

[Michael Halliwell, “Fly Away Peter: when Australian literature goes to the opera,” The Conversation, 1 May 2015.]

“In 2008, however, a chamber opera, based on The Children’s Bach, composed by Andrew Schultz to a libretto by Glenn Perry played for fifteen days at The Merlyn Theatre in Melbourne. Garner attended one rehearsal expecting to feel little more than intellectual interest in the adaptation of her book, but when Dexter stood up and sang she was powerfully moved: ‘this rush of emotion came over me and it plunged me into the past, because people that you’ve written about die. The idea that Dexter, that character I wrote, that a young man who’s young enough to be the real Dexter’s son, is now getting up and singing…that’s thrilling to me.’

[Bernadette Brennan, A Writing Life – Helen Garner and Her Work (Text: 2017), p.78.]

“A new production of an Australian opera is an unusual event. The performance of Andrew Schultz and Glenn Perry’s 2008 opera, The Children’s Bach, as part of the Canberra International Music Festival, was refreshing and welcome….

This is an opera essentially about music, and the role it plays in the lives of the characters. Roland Peelman – one of Australia’s most versatile musicians – conducted the small ensemble with flexibility and precision, neatly segueing through Schultz’s stylistic musical amalgam.

Peelman also staged this concert performance, always a challenging task given a lack of stage space. Schultz’s expressive and highly varied score was vividly brought to life in what is a challenging venue, not ideally suited to operatic performance. Peelman expertly brought out the myriad colours and rhythmic variation in this highly engaging music.

The incorporation of Bach’s music into a variety of musical idioms in Schultz’s opera echoes Garner’s use of music in the novel, as a meditation on the vicissitudes and challenges of contemporary urban existence. These characters are all are a complex mix of conflicting desires and emotions, reflecting the deep humanity of the novel.

The final poignant moments as Elizabeth and Vicki sing an extended duet describing how future events in the house will play out – a musical ending with strong undertones of Bach – will long linger in the memory.”

[Michael Halliwell,  “Helen Garner’s musical metaphors come alive in a new production of the The Children’s Bach. Review: The Children’s Bach. Canberra: Fitters’ Workshop. Friday May 10, 2019,” The Conversation, May 14, 2019.]

Natalie Christie Peluso in The Children’s Bach, at the Canberra International Music Festival, 2019.

“Schultz produced his 90-minute score in just seven months. It was commissioned by Chamber Made with the aid of a Project Fellowship from the Music Board of the Australia Council and the R.E.Ross Trust Playwrights Script Development Awards. It was first performed by Chamber Made at The Malthouse, Melbourne, in June 2008. The Canberra performance, just over a decade later, is the work’s first outing since its premiere.

In a sense, that is both sad and revealing, because The Children’s Bach should be a gift to Australian regional opera companies. It has a contemporary Australian setting with which many of us can identify and is scored for modest resources, a cast of seven and a chamber ensemble of six. Unlike the astringency of Schultz’s earlier opera Black River (1988), this work has a softer palette and invites comparisons with the likes of Bernstein’s A Quiet Place, both in terms of its musical language and domestic setting…..

The ensemble sextet was centre stage, with director Roland Peelman conducting from floor level. Without enlarged stage settings and direction, lighting and costuming, the focus fell squarely on the music. As it should be, one might say: Schultz is a deeply thoughtful composer, with a sophisticated yet not intimidating language of his own. His music throws up ideas and debate long after a performance has ended.”

[Vincent Plush, “The Children’s Bach (Canberra International Music Festival),” Limelight, 11 May 2019.]

“At last, a recording of the 2008 chamber opera by Andrew Schultz…It was the towering highlight of the Canberra International Music Festival in 2019…and the same expert cast of seven singers and six instrumentalists is heard here…The title is derived from a volume of 20 short piano pieces by Bach, the sort of publication that nestled near piano stools across Melbourne for decades. Unlike Schultz’s earlier operas, this one is more soft-edged and interior, with undulating melodies and gracious accompaniments…The music and subterranean, seething drama unfurls over 29 tracks, providing the kind of introduction to Bach’s music imparted by generations of suburban music teachers. Memories of our musical past will spring from concentrated experience of this masterly score, which deserves to be taken up by companies throughout the country.”

[Vincent Plush, “Music Reviews,” The Weekend Australian, 10 September 2022.]

“The music is beautiful, powerful, complex, and haunting. It faithfully recreates the novel’s inner-suburban world. The score plays on the book’s musical references while remaining utterly original. It employs everything from jazz-inspired riffs to fugal structure to accompany the progression of romantic entanglements….It is a profound and masterful contemporary chamber opera that is engaging and thought-provoking.”

[Theatreworks 2024 Melbourne, June 2024.]

The cast of the Lyric Opera of Melbourne production of The Children’s Bach, Theatreworks Melbourne, 2024. (L-R: Kate Amos, Lucy Schneider, Chloe James, Michael Honeyman, Juel Riggall and Adrian Li Donni; photo by Jodie Hutchinson.)

“The Children’s Bach sets in motion a domestic undoing of disquieting magnitude, building with accumulative intensity as music’s “fugue” metaphorically supports it…Inner suburban married couple, Athena (Kate Amos) and Dexter (Michael Honeyman), live with the difficult task of raising their severely autistic son, Billy (Ben Touzel alternating with Chris Touzel). When the permissive, ideologically confident pair of Elizabeth (Juel Riggall) and Philip (Adrian Li Donni) come into their lives – as do Elizabeth’s needy sister, Vicky (Lucy Schneider) and Philip’s precocious daughter Poppy (Chloe Taylor) – Athena and Philip become involved in a wild fling unhidden to all…[The conductor, Patrick] Burns brought compelling energy to the piece and his small ensemble of six, on piano, violin, cello, double bass, clarinet and percussion, were faultless. Similarly, Katy Maudlin’s overall savvy direction certainly does justice to the complexities revealed.

The dynamics established bristle with substance as the concept of family stability is juxtaposed with inner isolation, sexual desire and betrayal. And during its course, there’s much to ponder on about “modern love”. Three governing devices shape Perry’s libretto: characters interact with each other, they communicate personally to the audience and the fugue is sporadically referenced to and highlighted by astute young Poppy. These create the work’s overarching form while dramatic developments mimic the three main sections of a fugue as Schultz’s music explores the form’s possibilities.

Among other elucidations on the fugue, Poppy tells us that two-thirds into it all hell breaks loose. And it does. As the work progresses, you’re never sure where the various unfurling entanglements will end…It’s a dense work, daubed with moments of ethereal reflection and lyrical beauty amongst an array of bold dissonance, quirky inventiveness and unsettling jaggedness….Powerful it is on one hand, exhibiting hallmarks of a strict intellectual exercise on the other, The Children’s Bach is rich in substance.”

[Paul Selar, “The Children’s Bach – Lyric Opera of Melbourne at TheatreWorks, Melbourne, September 2024.”Australian Arts Review, 1 September 2024.]

“Andrew Schultz’s score is clever and evocative, and though it stands in Bach’s shadow, is obstinately original.”

[Bridget Davies, “The Children’s Bach,” The Age, 2 September 2024.]

“I found the real heft in the work came as the narrative developed. I was intrigued and engrossed. Nicely paced, most of it is sung, although there are also a few spoken elements.”

[Alex First, “The Children’s Bach (Lyric Opera) – opera review,”The Blurb, 3 September 2024.]

“A captivating chamber opera….The title itself alludes to the collection of simple Bach pieces for piano that Athena occasionally plays. But also running through the story are references to music composition as a craft which Poppy helpfully explains to the audience at various points in the show as well as the metaphor of tension between order, chaos and the resolution of the two….Lovers of operatic voices will get to hear excellent execution of the craft with just enough musical instrumentation for it not to be overwhelming.”

[Richard Ong, “Theatre Review – The Children’s Bach,” TAGG, 1 September 2024.]

“Schultz’s music qua music carries The Children’s Bach…. With its skilful mixture of styles, it evokes moods and ambiance – sprightly, dark, urban – creates tension and builds to what otherwise would be a muted climax.”

[Michael Brinkdley, “The Children’s Bach,” Stage Whispers, 4 September 2024.]

“Told in one act and eighty-five minutes in length, The Children’s Bach packs quite the punch. A snapshot into private domestic life, what makes this chamber opera so distinctive is that it has no discernible start or finish. Meaning, as both viewers and voyeurs, we are asked to deep dive into proceedings full force. Furthermore, the show’s biggest strength is that audiences could know (or be) any one of these people….While it took several moments to adjust to the world being presented to me, The Children’s Bach is experimental musical theatre at its best.”

[Nick Pilgrim, “The Children’s Bach,” Theatre Matters, 3 September 2024.]

“…beginning with ominous sounds of thunder overlaying spaced chords with shivering marimba, Schultz’s score is interestingly varied as it traces the melodic concord and atonal discord of the characters’ lives, incorporating some of their musical tastes. A small chamber orchestra comprising violin, cello, double bass, clarinet/bass clarinet, percussion and piano, provided an evocative minimalistic soundscape, as soloists or together, the versatility of the keyboard being particularly useful…..Lucy Schneider made a most appealing Vicki, bringing warmth to the role with both her personality and voice. Her interactions with Billy, played with commendable composure by one of the young Touzel twins, were oases of kindness. Her beautiful sparsely accompanied singing of The Skye Boat Song stood in stark with Athena’s frustration and rejection of the burden of Billy – an attitude to neurodivergence that has become more enlightened since 1984….Schultz’s thought-provoking opera is well worth seeing.”

[Heather Lewiston, “Lyric Opera of Melbourne,” Classic Melbourne, 4 September 2024.]

Click here for a free download of the libretto and detailed synopsis.

Click here to buy the CIMF CD recording of the opera directly from the publisher.  The opera can also be listened to on all the normal streaming platforms (YouTube, Spotify,  Apple Music etc).

To download a PDF of Rhiannon Cook’s composer interview-article about The Children’s Bach from Resonate Magazinefrom 2008, click here.

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