Our Little Inventor

The World Premiere of Our Little Inventor is presented by the West Australian Opera, Wesfarmers Arts, West Australian Young Voices, and the Western Australian Youth Orchestra as part of the AWESOME Festival. A home-grown musical that despite an obviously Asian feel, features broad Aussie accents. Sung and surtitled in English, this lovely little opera with its simple story and strong feminist and environmental themes, is an ideal first musical for young people.

Grace Chow leads the cast in the central role as Nell, the little inventor. Performed with conviction and charm, Nell has invented a machine that will clean the air in the immediate vicinity of the machine. Supported by her community, Nell takes a journey to the city, an industrial hub that desperately needs her invention, but political denials mean that her work is overlooked, and her efforts belittled. Grace’s voice is more musical theatre than opera, which is a deliberate choice and works well with the show, and Grace is believable as a keen but less than confident 15-year-old.

Beautiful operatic voices from Yann Kee as Nell’s mother, Xiaojia Zhang as grandmother Mama and ally Aunty Myra, and Rachelle Durkin as aspiring politician Mrs Livingston Li - three strong performers playing great female role models and commanding the stage. Villain of the piece, the Mayor, is played with strong voice and wonderful ‘humph’ by Brett Peart, who received hearty and admiring “boos” at his curtain call.

Excellent performances from the youth cast in this show. Jordan Scott was impressive as younger brother Didi, with other young performers filling all the minor-principal roles – including some ‘adult’ characters. Solid vocal work and acting performances from Liam Fitzpatrick, Harris Goh and Harriett Dawson as Chet, Declan and Hani, Hao Chen-Zhang as Aunty Myra’s asthmatic son and the Councilmen - Joshua White, Thomas Lovegrove, Caleb Rochester and Rigby Barnes. A strong youth ensemble provides very effective support throughout, beautifully trained by Perry Joyce and Katie How.

Our Little Inventor features the talents of the Western Australian Youth Orchestra, sounding superb conducted by Kate McNamara.

This production has a lovely look, with Matt McVeigh’s set design inspired by Victorian lithography – with black and white designs brought to life by coloured lighting from lighting designer Kristie Smith. Costumes, also by Matt McVeigh, are a twisted, slightly steampunk variation on Victorian style, all influenced by the original illustrations from Sher Rill Ng’s book.

While some of the younger audience were a little wriggly, this gorgeously composed, inspiring story was an entertaining hour or so of opera, that may just have awakened a new generation of operaphiles.

Kimberley Shaw