The Prodigal Child at St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, New Plymouth

By WILLIAM DART

All has not been well at the inn in New Zealand composer Michael Williams' new opera The Prodigal Child, as singer Paul Whelan's publican character lets us know in his first aria. Against piano and string quartet, alternating between serene harmonies and scatter-gun rhythms, Whelan sings of the hopelessness of lost, barren pathways and bearing crosses.

Crosses seem appropriate in the venue. Playing to a full church at its Taranaki Festival premiere, the first of NBR New Zealand Opera's 2003 initiatives may well be its bravest. The Prodigal Child is a chamber piece, with Alan Riach's libretto introducing us to three life-beaten characters whom fate and geography have thrown together in a colonial pioneer backwater.

Weaving a tapestry of despair from the trio - Albert, his wife Mary and the wandering Anna - the opera draws its main impetus from a spirit child, borne by Anna and lost at birth. Deceptively simple on the surface, there are emotions and histories snaking away beneath, not all of which were resolved in the libretto. The relationship between the two women in particular remained elusive.

The Prodigal Child could not have been better cast. Whelan used his towering stage presence and dramatic authority to capture the mercurial mood-shifts of his character. Joanne Cole was heart-rending as Anna, catching all the sorrows of the world in a lullaby refrain. Stephanie Acraman, in fine voice, made the most of the wife's role.

The closing Trio, in which all three finally come together, offered a moment of spiritual transfiguration that could well have been extended.

Williams' score, finely crafted and beautifully realised by his singers, did not fare so well with the strings, despite John Rosser's able direction; intonation problems made the minimalist instrumental interludes threaten to outstay their welcome.

Colin McColl's direction was sharply drawn from within the characters themselves and Mark McEntyre's stylised set, with its beams and beer-bottle window, made resourceful use of ecclesiastical fittings when Amelia Williams' phantom child sprang from the pulpit like a ghostly Pre-Raphaelite waif.

The Prodigal Child is a mighty achievement for the festival and the opera company. The only question remaining is why this work is playing only in New Plymouth and (later this year) Christchurch? In the meantime, there may be time to catch its final performance tonight at 8.