Queensland Conservatorium Theatre
September 1, 2018

“The law must take its course,” sings Reverend Callaway in Paul Dean’s new opera Dry River Run. “Right now we’ve got nothing but a baseless accusation.” It’s an attitude we’ve been hearing a lot in the wake of the #MeToo movement, but the power imbalances that have traditionally seen the law offer little justice for victims of sexual violence were even more striking in 1900.

Dean’s first opera, with libretto by two-time Miles Franklin Award-winning author Rodney Hall and commissioned for the Queensland Conservatorium’s Opera School, is set in Western Queensland on the eve of Federation, and it’s these gender imbalances that form the crux of the work’s drama and tragedy.

The cast of Queensland Conservatorium’s Dry River Run. Photo © Patrick Adams

The scene is set with a dawn funeral, flies buzzing in the violas as the lights gradually reveal a stark, desert stage – Peter Mumford’s semi-abstract set is raw and open (along with lighting designer Nigel Levings, he gives the work a sharp visual unity), a simple timber platform the only landmark as a dry, clacking ostinato underpins the music. Archie Callaway, an outspoken advocate of...