A story in The Washington Post in 2018 described an almost unbearably moving scene in Tunisia.
“Chamseddine Marzoug placed a red toy car atop an unmarked grave. Under the small mound of yellow dirt lay the sea-battered bones of a child migrant. Next to it was the grave of a woman,” Post journalist Sudarsan Raghavan wrote.
Marzoug is then quoted: “I found their bodies washed up on the beach, the child next to the woman. Perhaps, she was his mother. So out of consideration for her, I decided to bury them next to each other.”
He told the journalist that before he started caring for the refugee dead, the bodies were put in trucks and taken away to be dumped.
Marzoug is now a crucial character in Three Marys, a 75-minute chamber opera by composer Andrée Greenwell and librettist Christine Evans. He grounds a work that takes as its starting point a medieval legend about three woman said to be present at key moments in the life of Christ and then exiled by being pushed out to sea.
Hera Pinkasova and Samantha Hargreaves in Three Marys. Photo © Mikki Gomez
The primary focus is on the plight of asylum seekers but the Marys are also concerned with the fate of being female in this world. Present too is a group existing outside of time, singing with the radiance of youth and the poignancy and insight of those who will never grow old.
Those three layers illuminate different aspects of the never-ending human narrative of injustice, inequality and loss, underpinned by eternal hope. It’s wonderful material that speaks to our times, even if approached a tad too cautiously for matters of such moment.
Greenwell’s music is full of interest and drama, ranging from stretches of serene beauty to agitated atonal sections and hard-hitting slabs of sound, occasionally augmented by electronica.
The choice of violin, cello, tuba, percussion, keyboards, double bass, flute and oud created intriguing and forceful combinations but equally the eight-member ensemble was up to the task of delivering streams of plush melody.
The temperature, however, was lowered by word-setting that was quite restrained in effect, particularly in relation to the women who give the work its name. There was exemplary clarity but the deep passions described in the libretto not given full rein.
Each of the three Marys – Maria (Heru Pinkasova), her daughter-in-law Magdalena (Jessica O’Donoghue) and granddaughter Sarah Marie (Samantha Hargreaves) – had exceptionally beautiful passages of text that they delivered admirably, but admiration didn’t seem a strong enough response to this powerful cast. Only right at the end did the fusion of music, voice, text and direction (by Angela Chaplin) set the pulse racing.
Jessica O’Donoghue in Three Marys. Photo G Mikki Gomez
That’s not to say there weren’t many absorbing moments. Greenwell gave the 16-strong Teen Chorus lustrous harmonies that suited their young voices perfectly as they weaved in and out of the piece as commentators on themselves as anonymous lost souls, as scene-setters for others and, in the opera’s most mystical section, as ones who lure Sarah-Marie to join them. “The moon has made you a staircase,” they tell her. “A shimmering path over the dark-drowned sea.”
The libretto by the US-based Evans really is a thing of beauty, a poetic and often greatly affecting collage of impressions, memories and emotions.
The young singers were drawn, it is incredibly heartening to say, from the NSW Department of Education’s Arts Unit and directed impeccably by Elizabeth Scott. Among their number was Charbel Moussa as featured vocalist. He delivered, along with the oud player Philip Griffin in the eight-member musical ensemble, striking Middle Eastern textures to the score.
Striking too was Eddie Muliaumaseali’i as salt-of-the-earth Marzoug. He was a sturdy yet sensitive presence with an earthy bass that had impact in a sound world dominated by the splendid higher voices of Pinkova, O’Donoghue and newcomer Hargreaves, who is soon off to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is a soprano of huge promise with a captivating stage presence.
Eddie Muliaumaseali’i in Three Marys. Photo © Mikki Gomez
Chaplin’s production was a modest affair in the small Playhouse. The three Marys were confined mostly to a small platform representing their rudderless boat, there was a hanging tangle of detritus and a lot of stage space necessarily given over to the musicians.
That meant that things looked cramped as the chorus moved in and out of the action but there was a plus. There is something magical about seeing a fine ensemble at work and Simon Kenway’s impeccable direction was also highly visible.
Three Marys is at the Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, until May 13.
