Some memories are meant to be forgotten. Or not? That’s just one of the various take home elements laid bare in American composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer’s affecting and thought-provoking two-act opera, Two Remain.

On Saturday evening, it was Melbourne’s good fortune with the work making its Australian premiere in a small but absorbing production at fortyfivedownstairs presented by Nightingale Performing Arts Australia in collaboration with USA-based counterpart Nightingale Opera Theatre.

Two Remain at fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne. Photo © Cameron Grant, Parenthesy

The work’s road to the stage is an interesting one. After germinating from a commission back in 2007 to create a one-act opera about the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust — based on the memories of gay German Jew Gad Beck (1923–2012) — another commission several years later followed concerning the life of the Polish dissident Krystyna Zywulska (1914–1993). After a third commission (a song cycle based on Krystyna’s lyrics), the idea to combine the parts resulted in a final, fluidly arranged version which premiered in 2018 at Atlanta Opera.

As ageing Holocaust survivors, Krystyna and Gad are front and centre of a work that essays unresolved memories of...