Sydney Chamber Opera’s triple bill earth.voice.body is a portrayal of humans on the brink. Humans on the brink of self-realisation, of self-destruction, of shattering disintegration, of crumbling relationships.

Sung in English and French with English surtitles, three single singers with accompaniment, present three short operas whose protagonists experience age-old entanglements and existential doubts in a contemporary setting.

Jack Symonds. Photo © Daniel Boud

The opening work, The Shape of the Earth, for male voice, piano and electronics composed by Sydney Chamber Opera’s Artistic Director Jack Symonds, sets a text by Pierce Wilcox. Electronic artist Benjamin Carey and director and designer Alexander Berlage, add to this abstract re-imagination of Patrick White’s novel Voss.

Soloist Mitchell Riley delivers a gripping and eviscerating multi-faceted performance, journeying through an agonising and humorous pursuit of self-realisation, supported by Berlage’s versatile single-set representing celestial bodies, “up there” and “below”, and a mirror which channels Riley’s growing self-knowledge.

Symonds at the piano accompanies the jangling text. Spare in melody, but richly textured, it fleshes out the action, providing a framework for the words. Riley negotiates a vocal range of some two octaves, leaping from chest voice to...