Gastroenterologist - a review

This morning I attended the debut of a bold new opera, Gastroenterologist (2009), by Australian composer F. Linders. It is of note that this most recent work of Linders is hardly original. It is strongly derivative of his previous works including Gastroenterologist (2002), Gastroenterologist (2005), and the notoriously difficult Gastroenterologist (2008). After reviewing and comparing so many similar works in the past week, I eagerly look forward to moving on to something new.

The production was well attended, with all seats occupied as far I could see. However, it was disappointing to see the same old faces in the audience as always. Surely a new work such as this could be expected to appeal to newcomers? Compared to last year's groundbreaking Human Homeostasis which was attended almost solely by novices, this opera was surely lacking in accessibility. I suspect that today's show may be the first and the last, unless a special performance is put on later in the year for those who missed today's.

The libretto is ambitious. Written in English, it is nevertheless almost incomprehensible, favouring a polysyllabic and numeric vocabulary which even this reviewer found daunting. Scoring it must have been hell.

Structurally, the opera is divided into two acts. The first act is a simple detective story, revolving around the trials and tribulations of a young woman, Simone Milligan, who has been suffering with malaise, wasting and diarrhoea for several months. The first scene is substantially devoted to exploring her mysterious symptoms and hearing her lamentations over her upcoming exams. It seems likely that Linders included this detail of the exams as a superficial appeal to the expected audience, perhaps thinking that this would endear her to us. However, apart from this thin detail, little else is shown to us of Simone. What of her family history? What of her diet? Was she in pain? What was the consistency of her stool? I was left with so many questions.

The second scene largely dispenses with Simone, and focuses instead on the Doctor. He spends the entirety of the scene brooding ghoulishly over a sample of Simone's blood. He inspects it with such intensity that we await a revelation. What clues can he extract from this vital spirit? Yet all the Doctor can manage is some mumbles and a bleating gasp. He gives two possible diagnoses and pleads for the assistance of the eponymous Gastroenterologist as the lights go down.

The only other significant character is the Gastroenterologist himself, who is presumed to be able to solve all of Simone's problems, if only he would see her. He is frequently referred to by the Doctor, yet we spend a lot of time waiting for him in vain. In the third scene, when he is about to arrive, Simone is rushed to surgery and operated upon, and the Gastroenterologist is never seen. The paternalistic Gastroenterologist can be seen in many roles: as a father, as Messiah, as a Godot-esque absence on the stage, and this ambiguity is the most successful part of the production. The contrast of his presumed (yet never manifested) power versus the ineffectual rambling of the Doctor is worth pondering.

In the second act, the characters are dispensed with in favour of an ensemble cast. Rather than sing in chorus, they group themselves in fives and each group sings in turn. This was the part of the opera that had me guessing. The melodic lines were frequently overly complex, even contradictory, and the overall effect was overwhelming and incoherent, with little if any connection, apart from the thematic, to the first act.

It was only made intelligible by choosing to listen to only one performer at a time, but the availability of multiple appealing choices meant that this was hard to do quickly and decisively. I confess that at times my choice was arbitrary and that this definitely impinged on my enjoyment of the production. In the end I left early, and noted that many others did the same.

In summary, Gastroenterologist was a tedious production that asked far too much of its audience. It was overly academic and intellectual and offered little for any save the most avid fan of the composer's previous work. I, for one, would not care to repeat the experience.