To Traverse Water

To Traverse Water is an opera that depicts a young Greek woman’s departure for Australia and her settlement there. Her tale is loosely based on that of composer Constantine Koukias’ mother, who tremulously departed from a small village in Northern Greece to Sydney, Australia, to marry a man from her home town, whom she barely knew. 

The work blends instrumental music, operatic singing, folk song, drama, dance, light sculpture, art installations and film to create a hybrid performance piece. Sung in Ecclesiastical and Modern Greek, the text is drawn from fragments of the Old Testament, the New Testament, Greek folk songs, the I Ching, the Divine Liturgy, and the writings of Kostas Gionis, Vasiliki Koukias (Constantine’s mother) and Koukias himself. 

Beginning at one end of Princes Wharf Shed – the audience follows the character Despina as she travels across the water to an unknown future – Australia in the 1950s. The narrative takes the audience from the ritualistic images of Greece to icons of suburban Australia, exploring the immigrant’s cultural displacement. The audience traverses water with her and re-enacts, with her, the great mythical journeys of antiquity, the odysseys that are a process of both internal and external discovery. 

1995 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts

1995 Greek Festival of Sydney

1992 Premiere – Abel Tasman Festival, Hobart

“… devastating in its restraint, simplicity and gravity… It demands your surrender, and deserves it.” 
Deborah Jones – The Australian 

“an extraordinary example of cutting-edge music theatre.” 
James Waites – The Sydney Morning Herald