Who was Alexander Pearce ...

Just four years after he was transported to Van Diemen’s Land for stealing six pairs of shoes, Irishman Alexander Pearce (d.1824) was hanged for murder. The story of Pearce is contained in a narrative by Reverend Robert Knopwood (1763-1838), who interrogated the convict in 1824.

In 1822, Pearce and seven other convicts escaped from the penal colony of Macquarie Harbour and headed east across the mountains toward Hobart. Three men dropped out. After 15 days without food, the remaining members of the party began to kill, and eat, each other. Pearce was the only survivor. He made his way to the Derwent River, where he joined some bushrangers.

Pearce was later captured but the authorities did not believe his grisly story. He was sent back to Macquarie Harbour, escaped again and once more reverted to cannibalism. Again he was captured. This time he was sentenced to death.
Cannibal Pearce - An Opera in a Prologue and Five Scenes by Adam Yee


A Note on the Texts

All of the text in the opera is taken from source documents, ranging from 1822 to 1977. Editing of the texts for the purposes of constructing the libretto has preserved as closely as possible the word order, intent, and event-context of the originals.


Synopsis of Scenes

Prologue

Overture
Pearce is seated on the edge of a dissection slab, facing the audience.

Aria One - "There is a calm for those who weep"
Like the final aria, this text is taken from anonymous poetry submitted to the Hobart Town Gazette during the period of Pearce's final imprisonment, awaiting execution.

Scene One
First Escape
Pearce, together with fellow convicts Cornelius, Brown, Dalton, Bodenham, Travers and Greenhill, escapes from Macquarie Harbour, towards the settled districts near Hobart Town. During the course of this scene (which takes up well over half the opera) all the escapees excluding Pearce are murdered and cannibalized.

Scene Two
Macquarie Harbour.
Pearce is perched on Sarah Island, heavily ironed. This scene is a meditation on Macquarie Harbour, the fragments of text a reminiscence on the prison settlement. This scene is composed for spoken voice and piano left hand alone (melodrama), with a final arioso section.

Scene Three
Second Escape.
Pearce and one other convict, Cox, escape Macquarie Harbour. Cox is murdered and cannibalized, but Pearce gives himself up after being driven to madness by the ghosts of his victims.

Scene Four
Hobart Town.
Like Scene Two, this scene is a melodrama for voice and piano alone. Pearce is tried and executed, assuming in turn the personas of the Hobart Town Gazette reporter who recorded the trial, the Judge, the Clerk of the Court and the Priest who delivered his final confession.

Scene Five
Sinfonia
Pearce is on the slab, being dissected by two surgeons. The musical core of the opera, the Pearce Sinfonia, accompanies this static, though grisly, tableau.

Final Aria - "Unfading hope! When life’s last embers burn"
The head of Pearce lifts majestically off the slab, pulled upwards on a noose. The head is a crystal skull, illuminated from within by burning magnesium. It is blindingly bright; almost impossible to look at. The singer is positioned close to the final hover-point of the skull so that the voice seems to emanate from it.




BIOGRAPHIES

Adam Simon
Director

Adam Simon is a veteran of the Roger Corman film factory where he wrote and directed cult-classics Brain Dead (1990) and Carnosaur (1993) among others. His award-winning plays for Tim Robbins’ and The Actors Gang have been staged in L.A., Chicago, New York’s Public Theater and the Edinburgh Festival.

He has written and rewritten scripts for Oliver Stone, John Schlesinger, James Cameron and many others; created miniseries and pilots for HBO, Showtime and USA networks and Sony television; and directed award winning documentaries for BBC, Channel Four and the independent Film Channel - The Typewriter, the Rifle and The Movie Camera’ (1995) on maverick director Sam Fuller, and ‘The American Nightmare’ (2000) on the traumatic North American Horror films of the late sixties and early seventies.

Most recently he wrote the film, ‘A Haunting in Connecticut,’ based on the true story, for Gold Circle and Lions Gate films which is currently in production. And he’s currently directing ‘Three Warriors’ for producer Tim Robbins, a portrait of Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and Kurt Vonnegut highlighting the impact of their World War Two combat experiences on their writing and their politics



Adam Yee
Composer

Adam Yee (b.1974) is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, where his principal study was oboe. As an undergraduate he founded KleZeyn Theatre, who have produced his three completed operas at the renowned experimental theatre space, La Mama. The composer Chris Dench has been a significant mentor since their meeting in 1993.

Adam has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the Melbourne based Libra Ensemble, both as an oboist and composer. He has also written several works for ELISION. Adam has received a number of awards, including the 2MBS FM Young Composers' Award, the Nescafe Big Break, the University of Melbourne Dwight's Prize (Faculty of Education) and a Queen’s Trust Travelling Scholarship.

This last award enabled him to take private lessons with Michael Finnissy and Richard Barrett in December 2000. Adam's work has been performed at the Sydney Spring and Melbourne International Festivals, and is regularly featured as part of Libra's annual concert series. Adam has been active in the field of music education since 1998, when he commenced teaching at Melbourne High School. In 2001 he was appointed the foundation Director of Music at Beth Rivkah Ladies’ College.



Mark Knoop
Conductor

Mark Knoop studied piano with Stephen McIntyre at the Victorian College of the Arts and in Europe with various mentors including Herbert Henck, James Avery and Peter Feuchtwanger. He studied conducting in Melbourne with Robert Rosen. He performs as pianist and conductor.

Mark has performed throughout Europe and the United Kingdom and in New Zealand, South Korea, Mongolia, United States of America, Canada and throughout Australia and at festivals including the Huddersfield, Melbourne and Adelaide Festivals, the Sydney Spring Festival, and the ISCM World Music Days. He has appeared with such groups as Libra Ensemble (Melbourne), ELISION Ensemble (Brisbane), Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), plus-minus London/Brussels), Ensemble Expose (London), 175 East (Auckland), WDR Rundfunkchor Keln, Ensemble Offspring (Sydney), and ensembles of The Australian National Academy of Music. With Libra, Mark has conducted premieres of works by Jason Eckardt (Tongues) and and the Australian premieres of Elliott Carter's Clarinet Concerto, Hans Werner Henze's Kammermusik 1958, and Michael Finnissy's Various Nations.

He also performed the Australian premieres of Finnissy's mammoth piano cycle The History of Photography in Sound and Richard Barrett's Tract. Mark has worked with many respected composers including Michael Finnissy, Chris Dench, James Dillon, Liza Lim, Adam Yee, Benjamin Marks, Richard Barrett, David Young, Matthew Shlomowitz, Thomas Meadowcroft, Erik Ulman, and many others. Solo works composed for him include Chris Dench's into the wormworks and the heart's algorithms, both members of the Phase Portraits cycle, Benjamin Marks' La Chete, and Dominik Karski's Streams Within for piano and ensemble.

Current commissions include a new solo work by Michael Finnissy and Flechtwerk by Richard Barrett for clarinet and piano. Now based in London, Mark performs regularly in a duo with cellist Christina Waldock as well as other chamber music and as a soloist. He recently recorded the piano music of David Lumsdaine for the Tall Poppies label.



Phillip Pietruschka
Sound Engineer

Phillip Pietruschka is a sound engineer and composer from Melbourne, Victoria. He graduated with honours from the RMIT Media Arts course, where he majored in electro-acoustic music in 2003. Since then he has been working as a freelance engineer, recording music, and working in live music, and theatre, and installation audio in galleries and museums.

He has worked with companies including Outlook Communications, Greenland Audio, LSS Productions, the Melbourne Museum, and the Darebin Arts and Entertainment Centre. He has recently been involved in the recording of the free jazz group Embers, and the Fresh Water trio. A cd of his compositions titled Itineratnt Labours has been published by Cajid Media.

He is presently touring Australia and Europe with Back to Back Theatre, mixing for the production of Small Metal Objects.



Will Sheehan
Executive Producer

Will Sheehan has been an arts administrator for over fifteen years, most recently as the principal of Wilburforce - a freelance business management consultancy for the performing arts with clients in the theatre and dance small to medium sector.

Previously, Will was the General Manager of Griffin Theatre Company (2000-2004), a company dedicated to new play development and production, managing the Stables Theatre in Kings Cross and touring nationally.

Will has also been a producer of documentaries and worked in the Opera industry both in Australia and abroad.