Last week, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music played host to the inaugural Lotjpa Biyiya-Short Black Opera Winter Intensive, comprising two concurrent programs in composition and classical vocal training.

Led by Yorta Yorta/Yuin soprano, composer and the Conservatorium’s inaugural Elizabeth Todd Chair of Vocal Studies, Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, 10 First Nations artists (five composers and five singers from three different states) workshopped a brand-new opera based on traditional stories of the Dharug and Dharawal nations.

Deborah Cheetham Fraillon with Rochelle Pitt-Watson during the 2024 Lotjpa Biyiya-Short Black Opera Winter Intensive at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Photo © Stefanie Zingsheim

Cheetham Fraillon tells Limelight, “These traditional stories have existed for millennia, and where we intersected with those stories was last year, in December, when the five composers came together, and they each decided which of the stories they wanted to tell.”

“We have the story of the waratah and how it became red; we have the story of the lyrebird and the story of the eel spirit; and we have the story of Migdan, which is a kind of a mermaid.”

Muruwari cultural leader and language custodian Matthew Doyle shared these stories with his...