Knocking at the Hellgate

Amanda Holden (E)

Knocking at the Hellgate is a suite of three orchestral movements interspersed with three arias from my first opera, Bliss, based on the powerfully dark and satirical novel of the same name by the Australian author Peter Carey to a libretto by Amanda Holden and premiered in 2010. This suite loosely follows the chronology of both book and opera. Published in 1982, Carey's Bliss relates the life of a happy innocent, Harry Joy, a story-telling advertising agent, father of two and universally admired "Good Bloke" who at the outset dies of a heart attack. What follows is a form of morality play full of colourfully bizarre characters and events. Though clinically dead, Harry is revived, convinced however that he has awoken in hell. In this tormented vision of his own life, Harry meets the wonderful healer, whore and bee-keeper Honey Barbara, a fellow traveller with whom Harry manages to conquer hell, regain his sense of love and faith, and retire to a paradisiacal forest.

The opening movement, Heart of the Matter, is a depiction of cardiac trauma and arrest. Here we find ourselves in the opening pages of the drama. Our hero Harry suffers a massive heart attack, the sweat and nervous energy coursing through the entire orchestra with a particular focus on the woodwind instruments as they scream through emphatic repeated figurations, themselves struggling to find opportunities to breathe. A pounding climax of panic and struggle gives way suddenly to a floating realm, high string harmonies accompanied by the crystalline "flat-lining" of his heartbeat in piano and triangle. The music again finds traction and starts tumbling irrevocably downwards in a series of short wind interjections towards the second movement, Knocking at the Hellgate.

Here, Harry's arrival in Hades is portrayed by that most devilish of modern sound worlds, the television game show. Like the proverbial drowning man, Harry revisits in quick succession former moments of glory from the crass commercial world that has been his spiritual home. Messages from sponsors vie for attention, contestants scramble for answers in dollar-laden quiz shows, whilst promises of a cleaner, whiter world and sound bites of a life of luxury, fame and fortune ring out in every direction.

Where is the perfect holiday destination? Do you want the lounge suite or are you still going for the car? Have, have, have…

Harry discovers in hell the real emptiness that lies smirking behind the façade of his day-glo, prime-time profession, the realisation that advertising and its inane assurances of a better life aren't the answer to everything, or indeed anything.

Harry's grand entrance into hell gradually gives way to disillusionment and doubt as the solid, corporate edifice of the orchestral strings gradually yet irrevocably lays down the ground rules by which the game must be played.

There follows two of Harry Joy’s three main arias from the opera. In the first song, Harry’s Vision, he describes to his wife, Betty, the vision he had when he "left his body and flew up into the air" and saw "heaven and hell". Harry, renowned in the novel as a raconteur, then tells a story, the boisterous and energetic Ballad of Little Titch, a tale of childhood torment which has oblique parallels with Harry’s own predicaments and which he tells in order to charm his way out of police custody after being arrested for drunk driving.

Then follows another instrumental movement, Hotel Room (Awakening), a scene from about halfway through the story's telling: the magical moment of the awakening of love between Harry and the young prostitute, Honey Barbara. Harry has arranged for Honey to join him in the opulent hotel room in which he has ensconced himself. Though initially embarking on the purely commercial and relatively anonymous relationship of hooker and client, their ensuing conversation reveals genuine empathy and sympathy for each other. Set against the mindless drone of TV programmes from neighbouring hotel rooms, the movement captures this awakening, eventually evoking a smoky, erotic atmosphere of mutual attraction through the sounds of a late-night-piano-bar combo.

By the end of the opera, Harry has started to emerge from hell. He has left advertising and settled for a quieter life in the Australian bush, planting trees to attract his new lover’s honey bees. This Sonnet is both a serenade to Honey Barbara and an existential farewell to the life he has left behind.
Brett Dean and Amanda Holden © 2004/2008