While many Melbourne opera lovers lament the lack of lavish productions of the classics here, the city’s own Australian Contemporary Opera Company (aka ACOCo) gets on with business of performing works by living composers. This one-off presentation of two recent, one-act American chamber operas marked their Australian premieres. Spartan, semi-staged offerings directed by Linda Thompson, and lit by Sidney Younger, they weren’t lavish, but certainly delivered contemporary musical and emotional intrigue.

Christopher Hillier in The Loser, Australian Contemporary Opera Company, 2022. Photo © Hamish Brown

Premiering in New York in 2016, The Loser was adapted by David Lang from Thomas Bernhard’s 1983 novel of the same name. Part fiction, part autobiography, the book reflects on how pianist Glenn Gould’s virtuosic genius led two fellow students to abandon music. Wertheimer, whom Gould dubbed ‘the loser’, commits suicide, while the unnamed narrator, ‘the philosopher’, falls down a rabbit hole of self-reflection and memories. Lang’s austere take reduces the characters to one, the narrator, interpreted here by baritone Christopher Hillier.

His supple voice, compelling articulation and subtle physical interpretation captured the narrator’s sense of aimlessness, self-inflicted loss and deadpan, self-deprecating humour. Hillier was dressed...