Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Karna is the second opera in my operatic trilogy, Mahabharata, which will consist of a Prologue, the operas Draupadi (completed in 2014), Karna, and Krishna (yet to be composed). The whole story describes the rivalry between two branches of a ruling family in ancient India, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and culminates in a terrible war. Just before this war the sacred text of the "Baghavad Gita" is given by Krishna to Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers.

The Prologue is written from the point of view of the refugees from this war, which is then described, with the events leading up to it, by Draupadi (the wife of five of the Pandava brothers), Karna (the sixth and eldest Pandava brother), and the divine Krishna.

Karna is brought up as a Sudra (low caste) but finds out, in a beautiful duet with his mother Kunti, that he is the eldest of the Pandava brothers, and therefore of the Kshatriya (warrior) caste. His conflict is between the truth of his birth and his sworn loyalty to the other branch of the family, the Kauravas.

Work Details

Year: 2018

Instrumentation: Eleven principals, SATB chorus, orchestra.

Duration: 170 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — This work is conceived for a professional opera company

The composer notes the following styles, genres, influences, etc associated with the work:
The musical style includes a great many elements. These range from music of the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, especially Renaissance and nineteenth century styles, but excluding high modernism. Influences include operas by composers such as Mozart, Wagner, Puccini, Berg, and Britten, as well as Brett Dean's Bliss and Hamlet.

The libretto of this work is composed by Nicholas Routley, following various redactions of the Indian epic 'Mahabharata'.