Audio Sample
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Performance by Marilyn Richardson, Christine Draeger, David Miller from the CD Deep in my hidden country |
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Score & Part
Eliza Fraser sings : for soprano, flute and piano / Peter Sculthorpe ; text by Barbara Blackman.
Library shelf no. Q 783.6654/SCU 1 [Available for loan]
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Work Overview
There are a number of versions of the story of Eliza Fraser. The
following is the one that Barbara Blackman chose to use in this
work.
In 1836 the merchant ship Stirling Castle, under Captain Fraser,
was wrecked off the coast of what is now Queensland. Unable to
put to shore, the survivors took to the long-boat and sailed
southward. The boat leaked, and supplies of food and water were
soon exhausted. The captain's wife, Mrs Fraser, gave birth to a
baby, but it was drowned in the boat-water. After putting ashore
on a coastal island, later known as Fraser Island, the captain
and his crew were killed by aborigines. Mrs Fraser was taken
prisoner, stripped of her clothes, beaten and made to work in
what was to her a degrading manner.
The aborigines, the Kabi people, believed white men and women to
be returned spirits of the dead, having observed how black flesh
pales when burning. They called together a corroboree, in order
to bring about the ritual mating of their She-Ghost, Mrs Fraser,
with a He-Ghost, an escaped convict living with a neighbouring
tribe.
The corroboree caused Mrs Fraser to take refuge in a dream that
the convict would return as a lover and lead her away into a
paradisal existence. Immured in this fantasy, she was then able
to endure her miseries. Unexpectedly, she was rescued and taken
back to what she regarded as civilization.
Her dream shattered and her sanity shaken, Mrs Fraser later set
herself up in a showground booth in Hyde Park, London. There she
displayed her scars and told her stories to all and sundry for
the price of sixpence apiece.
In six parts, Prelude, Shipwreck, Capture, Corroboree, Interlude,
Escape, the work is concerned with Mrs Fraser soliciting
customers outside her booth, her mind wandering between the
then-present and the romantically-remembered past.
Work Details
Year: 1978
Instrumentation: Soprano, flute (doubling piccolo, alto flute), piano.
Duration: 18 min.
Dedication note: Dedicated to Barbara Blackman
Commission note: Commissioned by Lyric Arts Theatre.
First performance: by Mary Morrison, Robert Aitken, Marion Ross — 29 Apr 78. Walter Hall, The University of Toronto, Canada
Main source for information contained in the text is Michael Alexander: Mrs Fraser on the Fatal Shore, London, 1971.
Performances of this work
15 May 2010: at Barbara Blackman Concert (Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture). Featuring Nicole Thomson, Chris Latham, Tamara Anna Cislowska.
1 Jul 78: Seymour Centre, Sydney. Featuring Eileen Hannan, Geoffrey Collins, David Miller.
29 Apr 78: Walter Hall, The University of Toronto, Canada. Featuring Mary Morrison, Robert Aitken, Marion Ross.
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