Melbourne’s boutique opera company challenges the fine line between reality and theatre with new production.

In the early 1950s, Aaron Copland wrote an opera for the NBC Television Opera Workshop. The premiere of The Tender Land was to be a televised production, but instead took place on the stage at the New York City Opera in 1954. Since then, it has never made the leap to the small screen, instead being performed solely as a traditional stage opera.

This May, boutique opera company Lyric Opera of Melbourne will challenge the line between reality and theatre with an innovative new production of The Tender Land at Chapel Off Chapel.

Inspired by the Great Depression-era photographs of American photographer Walker Evans, The Tender Land, sung in English, tells the story of an isolated rural family’s struggle for control when two unwelcome drifters arrive in town. On the eve of her graduation, the family’s eldest daughter Laurie faces a battle between the life that is planned for her and her forbidden relationship with a mysterious outsider.

Director John Kachoyan explains that there is a lot for a modern, Australian audience to relate to in The Tender Land. He describes it as “a moving and...