Opera Prometheus

Bernie Leon - Monsoon

I identify myself as a Straits-Chinese Australian. The upbringing from four different cultures

(Tang Chinese, Indonesian, Malaysian and Australian) strongly influenced my passion in using my creative skills to express myself and the world I live in. I am your hospitality part-timer, Theatre-maker, Opera Singer, Graphic Designer, and Cultural Activist. Initially, I wanted 'Monsoon' to be just a self-development project; a way for me to develop myself as a musician and to understand why opera struggles to connect to our contemporary audience. Throughout my experience performing and producing opera, I learned that this art-form is the ultimate medium for creative expression, much less for story-telling. What made me want to write this piece is the desire to sustain the immediacy of the drama from top to tail.

It also affirmed my belief in creating a work that is truly myself; regardless of how inferior or intellectually lacking it could potentially be. In order to make a work that is honest, I must only use the limited skills I have at this very moment. I believe that the work must be something that is difficult to express, something that should be really hard to discuss in daily lives. Why? Because that is the purpose of this art-form: to express the inexpressibles. I wanted to understand how it felt for a mother to lose a child, but I realised I will never be able to do that. It reminded me of my experience coming out, and how some people claimed that they know how it felt. They don't. They can try to understand but they will never know how it feels. I felt the same regarding to 'Monsoon'. What I could do as an artist is to use my life experience to bring some truth to the work. I used the turmoil of my relationship with my mother when I came out years ago (and ongoing). Instead of creating a work that says, 'I know how it feels', I would like to end up with one asking, 'Are you okay?'

Luke Cummins - Timor

Opera Prometheus' festival of new Australian chamber works. On 4 October, join us for moved readings

of two short chamber operas and a composers' and performers' panel: and Bernard Leon's 'Monsoon'

and Luke Cummins' 'Timor' . These haunting new scores deal intimately with the personal grief of

miscarriage and the public trauma of warfare. Semi-staged, in piano reduction and with a cast of

professional and emerging opera artists and children's chorus