For composer Mary Finsterer, opera has to be “something larger than life”.

“I really believe it has to be telling you something extraordinary, make you witness to a kind of storytelling that feels almost mythical. That’s what I’m drawn to – being a storyteller.”

Mary Finsterer: “Writing opera feels like an expedition”. Photo © Dean Golja

In late May, the Australian composer’s storytelling finds a new audience. Her latest work, The Rising World, an ambitious new opera commissioned by the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea has its world premiere on 25 May. It is something of a double milestone being Finsterer’s third opera written with librettist Tom Wright in under a decade, and the first English-language opera to be staged by the South Korea’s largest art performance and exhibition space.

Like Finsterer and Wright’s earlier works – 2017’s Biographica and 2023’s Antarctica – The Rising World is expansive in scope and imagination. It is a fable, a myth, and a meditation on time, memory, and transformation – rendered in music that merges Western and Korean traditions, ancient and modern.

At its heart lies a tale of chaos and restoration. A mysterious...