Three short operas. Three emotional worlds. One shared humanity.

At its core is Francis Poulenc’s The Human Voice, a groundbreaking monodrama that strips opera back to a single voice and a final phone call with a lost lover—raw, exposed, and devastatingly human.

The program continues with the Australian premieres of two works by internationally acclaimed composers Iain Bell and Jake Heggie. Bell’s Comfort Starving is a revolutionary portrait of teenage anorexia, capturing the physical and psychological turmoil behind an outward condition. Heggie’s Facing Forward / Looking Back explores a mother–daughter relationship shaped by memory, distance, and the search for understanding.

Placing the voice and the mind centre stage, this is opera at its most intimate; where emotional truth takes the stage.