Queer desire, mortality, and dancing scorpions: Sydney Chamber Opera’s Gilgamesh

The gods are unhappy with a despotic king (Gilgamesh). They create a half-man, half-beast to topple him (Enkidu). They meet, Enkidu doesn’t topple him. They fall in love, destroy a forest, there’s retribution from the gods. Enkidu dies and Gilgamesh wonders what the point of life is. He searches for immortality. And of course there are dancing scorpions.

That’s the shortest possible version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, as summarised by composer Jack Symonds, who’s taken on the tale for its first English language opera adaptation. Gilgamesh brings together Sydney Chamber Opera with the Australian String Quartet, Ensemble Offspring, and support from Opera Australia to stage this enormously ambitious piece at inner-city post-industrial venue Carriageworks.

Andy pops into rehearsal to talk to Jack, Jeremy Kleeman (Gilgamesh), and Mitchell Riley (Enkidu), and to hear a live performance from Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and those dancing scorpions. 

And with the sad news this week that Australian-Tatar singer, folk musician and director of The Boîte, Zulya Kamalova has died, The Music Show remembers her energy and her music with a live performance from Zulya and the Children of the Underground, and an interview from the archives.