BRUSH OFF!

SAVING THE GILT-EDGED KID FROM OBLIVION

GEORGE DREYFUS

Copyright © 2013 George Dreyfus

ISBN: 978-1-922204-73-8 (eBook)

Kindle Edition

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“Any play that doesn’t hurt you in some way has something wrong with it.”

Edward Albee

“He who dies without having settled his accounts is wicked, he will not go to Paradise.”

Céline, Bagatelles Pour un massacre

“The past is never dead.”

William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

“History is burnt porridge.”

Lynne Strahan, The Gilt-Edged Kid

thank you to Kay

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Other Books by George Dreyfus

Rogues Gallery

Brush Off!

Notes

Index

Other Books by George Dreyfus

The Last Frivolous Book (1984)

Being George and Liking It! (1998)

Don’t Ever Let Them Get You (2009)

ROGUES GALLERY

Phillip Adams

Claude Alcorso

Jean Battersby

Charles Berg

Bertolt Brecht

Moss Cass

Stuart Challender

Du Paty de Clam

Herbert C. Coombs

Roger Covell

Zelman Cowen

Clive Douglas

Edward Downes

Captain Alfred Dreyfus

George Dreyfus

Kay Dreyfus

Clemens August Graf von Galen

Eric Gross

Stephen Hall

Peter Hemmings

Hubert-Joseph Henry

Ken Mackenzie-Forbes

James Murdoch

Leonard Radic

Peter Sculthorpe

Larry Sitsky

Lynne Strahan

Kenneth Tribe

Felix Werder

Peter Wilenski

John Winther

The first bar of The Gilt-Edged Kid[1] is also the second bar. “How could you, George?”, remembering Anton Webern’s dictum, of fundamental influence on the younger generation of post-war composers, “Das Selbe immer anders”. But then Richard Wagner repeats the first two bars

of the Vorspiel to Act Three of Siegfried three times. I immediately feel better, both are a marvellous start to perfectly good operas, both completely relevant to the climate of the day, both fulfilling conductor Edward Downes’ pronouncement in the Opera Australia 1972 Year Book:

“Nevertheless each age must hold up its own mirror. That is what the theatre in general, and opera in particular, is for. We must produce new works which reflect the fears and aspirations of mankind now in the 70s, and here—in Australia. If we do not we abdicate one large part of the right of opera to survive as an art form. Without new works we shall surely be an expensive musical museum.

“We must not expect that every new work we produce will be a masterpiece. If one in the first ten is really good we shall be lucky indeed.”

So you can imagine I did not take it too kindly when Opera Australia’s[2] Artistic Director Stephen Hall wrote to say “We regret that we do not wish to perform the opera [The Gilt-Edged Kid] at this stage”.[3] Nor did I take it kindly for the following forty years; in fact I waged a “spirited campaign … against the company’s rejection of the work”.[4]

I had thought that I was on the right track, had the goods to be an opera composer. For starters, soon after leaving school, I had been bassoonist for JC Williamson’s Italian Opera tour of 1948–49. We travelled around Australia, playing the major works of Verdi and Puccini, Faust, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, Carmen. We even had a single orchestral rehearsal for Don Giovanni, but by then conductor Franco Ghione had well and truly given up, it was just not the La Scala orchestra, where he had recorded La Bohème with Beniamino Gigli in 1936. “Il Fagotti,” he called out in despair, wanted to go back to Milan, but Frank Tait would not give him his ship ticket back and after all, Italy had lost the war, Australia was a good place to be.

I could not really play the bassoon at the time, lousy instrument, lousy reeds and no teacher, and anyway, the bassoon was never meant to play in six flats as in Canio’s Aria in Act 2 of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, or so I thought until I went to study with Karl Öhlberger at the Vienna Academy in the mid 1950s.

We students could get a Stehplatz right at the top of the Wiener Staatsoper for one dollar. I heard Tristan and Isolde five times in a fortnight, Die Meistersinger, Frau Ohne Schatten, Die Zauberflöte.

As bassoonist in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra I greatly increased my operatic know-how. We played the major Mozart operas, Fidelio, the early Wagner operas, Ariadne, Benjamin Britten and Carl Orff. Karl Rankl, one of my cultural heroes, conducted Richard Straus’s Salome. I still have Rankl’s photo hanging in my music room, conducting the Arbeiterchor Gro-Berlin in 1930. I am addicted to Weimar Republic music.

Furthermore, I had inherited countless classic opera vocal scores from my mother’s friend, Austrian painter Robert Hoffmann.[5] I bought up Richard Edmund Beyer’s collection of Franz Schreker and Max von Schillings scores and, with my mother’s Wiedergutmachungsgelder, acquired the full scores of Richard Strauss’s operas and Kurt Weill’s Klavierauszüge. There can be no doubt … I was well armed with operatic know-how and experience.

In the past I had made multiple stabs at creating my own opera. I went to see John McCallum about the rights to Synge’s Riders to the Sea, little knowing that Ralph Vaughan Williams had already composed it. I made a start on setting a comic incident in the life of Giacomo Casanova, little knowing that Paul Burckhard had previously used this story, or that even Hugo von Hofmannsthal had been playing around with this subject to get Richard Strauss out of the gloomy barbaric Elektra world.[6]

Nonetheless, by 1966, I had finished my full-length opera Garni Sands.[7] Later that year I travelled to Germany on a UNESCO Travel Grant to study with Karl-Heinz Stockhausen at the Rheinische Musikschule in Köln, but he was only there for two weeks of my six month Travel Grant—he was enjoying worldwide renome at the time and was behaving appropriately. I filled out the time by imbibing contemporary opera most nights of the week, here is a list of operas I saw:

1966

September 28

Opernhaus Köln

Khovantchina (Mussorgsky)

September 29

Opernhaus Köln

Manon Lescaut (Puccini)

October 2

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Iphigenie (Gluck)

October 4

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Die Bassariden (Henze)

October 5

Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin

Das Rheingold (Wagner)

October 6

Städtisches Theater Dortmund

Der Krieg mit den Hölzchen (Čapek/Fischer)

October 7

Opernhaus Köln

Die Soldaten (Zimmermann)

October 8

Opernhaus Köln

Ariadne (Strauss)

October 9

Opernhaus Köln

Salome (Strauss)

October 10

Opernhaus Köln

Der Mantel (Puccini);
Die Kluge (Orff)

October 12

National Theater Mannheim

Hero und Leander (Bialas)

October 16

Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen

Harmonie der Welt (Hindemith)

October 17

Opernhaus Köln

La Bohème (Puccini)

October 17

Opernhaus Wuppertal

Die Macht des Schicksals (Verdi)

October 20

National Theater Mannheim

Ein Sommernachtstraum (Britten)

October 21

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Die Französische Stunde (Killmayer)
Aventures – Nouvelles aventures (Ligeti)

October 24

Opernhaus Köln

Billy Budd (Britten)

October 27

Opernhaus Köln

Manon Lescaut (Puccini)

October 29

Opernhaus Hamburg

The Visitation (Schuller)

November 1

Opernhaus Köln

Parsifal (Wagner)

November 2

Opernhaus Düsseldorf

Ein Sommernachtstraum (Britten)

November 4

Nationaltheater München

Nabucco (Verdi)

November 9

Opernhaus Wuppertal

Jacobowsky und der Oberst (Klebe)

November 11

Opernhaus Köln

Otello (Verdi)

November 13

Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen

Harmonie der Welt (Hindemith)

November 16

Opernhaus Düsseldorf

Elektra (Strauss)

November 19

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Tosca (Verdi)

November 20

Opernhaus Düsseldorf

Pelléas et Mélisande (Debussy)

November 22

Opernhaus Köln

Ein Maskenball (Verdi)

November 24

Opernhaus Essen

Preussisches Märchen (Blacher)

November 27

Staatsoper Stuttgart

Die Auferstehung (Ciker)

November 28

Nationaltheater München

Karl V. (Krenek)

November 30

Nationaltheater München

Die Zaubergeige (Egk)

December 1

Opernhaus Frankfurt

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Weill)

December 2

Staasoper Wiesbaden

Otello (Verdi)

December 3

Theater der Stadt Koblenz

Der Mantel (Puccini)
Der Feuervogel (Stravinsky)

December 4

Opernhaus Köln

Das Rheingold (Wagner)

December 6

Opernhaus Köln

Die Walküre (Wagner)

December 7

Opernhaus Wuppertal

Augstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Weill)

December 8

Opernhaus Köln

Siegfried (Wagner)

December 11

Opernhaus Köln

Gotterdämmerung (Wagner)

December 14

Opernhaus Köln

Otello (Verdi)

December 20

Staatsoper Hamburg

Arabella (Strauss)

December 22

Staatsoper Hamburg

Albert Herring (Britten)

1967

January 3

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Die Bassariden (Henze)

January 5

Opernhaus Köln

Ariadne (Strauss)

January 7

Opernhaus Wuppertal

Jacobowsky und der Oberst (Klebe)

January 14

Opernhaus Köln

Liebe der drei Orangen (Prokofiev)

January 17

Staatsoper Wiesbaden

Marienlegende (Martinu)

January 18

Opernhaus Frankfurt

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Weill)

January 19

Nationaltheater Mannheim

Ein Sommernachtstraum (Britten)

January 23

Theatre National Populaire Paris

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Weill)

January 27

Covent Garden London

Arabella (Strauss)

February 3

Sadlers Wells London

House of the Dead (Janáček)

February 8

Opernhaus Düsseldorf

Don Carlos (Verdi)

February 11

Opernhaus Nürnberg

Der Junge Lord (Henze)

February 13

Opernhaus Köln

Falstaff (Verdi)

February 14

Opernhaus Köln

Otello (Verdi)

February 15

Opernhaus Essen

Die Dreigroschenoper (Weill)

February 16

Opernhaus Düsseldorf

Lulu (Berg)

February 18

Theater der Stadt Bonn

Elektra (Strauss)

February 19

Landestheater Darmstadt

Lulu (Berg)

February 19

Opernhaus Frankfurt

Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Weill)

February 21

Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin

Elektra (Strauss)

February 24

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Elegie für Junge Liebende (Henze)

February 25

Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin

Elektra (Strauss)

February 26

Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin

Puntila (Dessau)

February 28

Covent Garden London

Turandot (Puccini)

March 4

Staatsoper Hamburg

Jenufa (Janáček)

March 5

Staatsoper Hamburg

Arden muss sterben (Goehr)

March 8

Staatsoper Wien

Der Rosenkavalier (Strauss)

March 12

Staatsoper Wien

Der fliegende Holländer (Wagner)

So when at the end of my Australian National University Canberra Creative Arts Fellowship in 1968, the Chancellor Nugget Coombs asked me to compose an opera based on Katherine Susannah Prichard’s novel Coonardoo, I was ready to go.

Perhaps I was foolish, embarking on another opera when my first one had not yet been performed, but Reserve Bank Governor Nugget Coombs was God of the Arts in Australia, Chairman of the Australia Council, though somewhat prone to high-minded superficialities in the press,[8] and better at the grand ideas than the practicalities of working them out.[9]

He mumbled something like “Opera Australia will perform it”. Crossing Aboriginal art themes with the local European, as in the Coonardoo story, was his passion,[10] what could go wrong? Full of optimistic enthusiasm I looked around for a librettist. Clem Christesen, my backer for the Creative Arts Fellowship, suggested author Lynne Strahan, who then devised a three act outline for an opera based on the novel, and posted it off to Nugget Coombs.

The reply was a call, not from Nugget Coombs, but from Claude Alcorso, Chairman of Opera Australia. Nugget Coombs had asked him to get in touch with me, he said. Could he come and talk to me about our idea? So I invited him and his family to lunch, only to hear him explain that the opera company didn’t want to commission me to do a full-length opera at all, as had been indicated at first. Nor did the company want to do Garni Sands. Instead they’d decided to commission five composers, each to write a one-act opera.

I didn’t say “Betrayal”, I just said, “Oh, Hell!” Take it or leave it, was his offer; if you don’t want to do it, there are plenty of other composers who’d love to accept.

Against my better judgement, I signed up for the job. Lynne Strahan was to work on the libretto while I was away on my US State Department Travel Grant. When I came back, she had six ideas ready and asked me which one I liked best. “The Gilt-Edged Kid”, I exclaimed. “That’s the one I like too”, she said and set to and finished it.

So, at the beginning of 1970, I was writing my second opera. The Gilt-Edged Kid was a big work, for a cast of ten singers and orchestra, which took me a year to complete.

The music I wrote is quite different from Garni Sands. It’s like my first symphony. Bluntly put, I wanted to appeal, particularly to Australian audiences who had limited exposure to contemporary European operas, like Alban Berg’s Wozzeck or Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten.

Lynne Strahan’s libretto mirrored my intention, intensely Brechtian, another of my cultural heroes. The master had a horror of emotionalism, false sentiment, fulsomeness or glossing things over. He could be convinced only by realistic attitudes, truth, and sobriety.[11]

Our opera is about a series of contests between the Administrator and the Kid, singing all the time, to decide who’s to have the power. There’s the strategy game, musical instrument with voice, poker machines, woodchop and archery. There are operatic precedents for all the contests including the basic struggle for power (Wagner’s Ring Cycle): Meistersinger (song-contest), Strauss’s Intermezzo (for card game read poker machine), Brecht/Weill’s Mahagonny (for boxing read woodchop), Rossini’s William Tell (archery). Not unlike Franz Schreker’s Irrelohe, with its allusions to Die Zauberflöte, Der Freischütz, Il Trovatore, and particularly F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu.

I can’t find a precedent for the opera’s strategy game, with its model warships and planes, except that it mirrors my addiction to Märklin model railways.

We knew what we were doing, writing an operatic opera. Here was a message for Edward Downes: this is the “one out of ten” that will crack the jackpot, the one you were looking for in the 1972 Year Book.

For a producer it’s a dream, but he couldn’t say, “I’m going to do it like Madame Butterfly, or the first act of Siegfried where there are only three people on stage for an hour and a half”. Lynne Strahan’s characters are on stage all the time, bustling about and singing their short sentences.

When I finished the score, it was 13 December 1970, I took it down to Lynne Strahan in North Carlton. We were very pleased with it. I had written it on dyeline transparencies and run off a beautiful copy on my machine. It looked marvellous. We wrapped it in tissue paper first and then in cardboard and brown paper and I took it to the local post office. The Gilt-Edged Kid was on its way!

I have every right to be uneasy, about anything to do with the arts in Australia, just take ABC staff conductor Clive Douglas’ sustained endeavours to remove me from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra,[12] a sort of Mozart and Salieri thing. He succeeded, in return I gave Australia

its alternate national anthem as some would call it.

My three minute much-loved evergreen classic is a thousand times more successful than any of Clive Douglas’ pathetic stabs at Jindyworobakism, Kaditcha, Carwolla or Wangadilla—bottler! as Frank Strahan would say.

From the outset, my unease about the whole Opera Australia commissioning project is evident in the early letter I wrote to Roger Covell.[13]

Perhaps I should not have been so suspicious, because the initial response from Stephen Hall had been quite positive, “I certainly like the title of your opera”, “the characters… sound colourful”, “your general idea… very theatrical”. He even asked when it might be completed,[14] and wrote to say that he “was looking forward to reading it very much”.[15]

“I am really excited about the progress you have made” he wrote in the New Year of 1970.[16]

Still, I was uneasy, in German you say “hatte einen Riecher”, when The Age reported that Felix Werder had been added to the list of commissioned composers.[17] Was Opera Australia going to perform all the operas in one go? Something unique in music history. Was it going to be, as in the best Australian sporting tradition, a competition? No wonder I was concerned, justifiably. Felix Werder was the reigning Age music critic, his librettist Leonard Radic the reigning Age theatre critic. Talk about a level playing field, they were socking it to Opera Australia in reviews and editorials in no uncertain terms.[18]

By the middle of the year, even Keith Humble had been added to the list of composers to write one-act operas,[19] it was a long way from my three Act Coonardoo. I felt dudded, but steamed ahead all the same, after all the first of the operas was to be produced next year,[20] the light might just still shine on The Gilt-Edged Kid.

A rule at the German General Staff Headquarters was “when in doubt, do nothing”, Stellungskrieg— mistake! No wonder they lost two world wars. I promptly set out on my own mistake. If only I could just redress at least some of the countless mistakes I have made through my life, they seem like the thousands of black dots in the third section of my Sextet for Didjeridu and Wind Instruments. I felt so insecure that I offered Stephen Hall a “performance” of the half-finished opera. I proposed to sing all the 10 vocal parts myself, Kay Dreyfus was to accompany, playing from the full score.[21]

The “performance” took place on 14 July 1970— mistake! However, all was not lost, there was still some interest, resident producer Bernd Benthaak came for dinner, we may have talked about the opera, perhaps even in German.[22]

At the beginning of December 1970 the completed score was in Sydney, I followed it in January 1971 to work on the score of the documentary film RAAF Heritage at Film Australia. After seven years as a film composer I was very confident indeed, but considerably less confident, even after eleven years, as an opera composer. I went to see Stephen Hall at his apartment in Woolstonecraft, the wheels were beginning to squeak and grind, I could tell.[23]

For the next six months my paranoiac unease continued. I drafted an article for The Australian’s Kenneth Hince[24]—mistake! The blow fell with Stephen Hall’s “We do not wish to perform The Gilt-Edged Kid at this stage”. It reminded me of Major du Paty de Clam offering Alfred Dreyfus a pistol in 1894 to shoot himself.[25] Now all of these were mistakes—Devil’s Island, the show trials—it took the French Dreyfusards twelve years to remedy the injustice.[26] It’s taken the Australian friends of The Gilt-Edged Kid forty to redress theirs—you hope!

There is a further similarity, namely to find a dummy, victim Opfer, like Alfred, Jewish, from German occupied Alsace-Lorraine. George—no clout, unlike The Age music and theatre critics, no friends in high places like Peter Sculthorpe. Even Nugget Coombs who initiated the whole project did not stand up for me.

However, like Mathieu Dreyfus, Alfred’s brother, I was not slow to respond.

The day following the Stephen Hall “disaster letter” I prepared a three hundred word position paper[27] and later that year composed a thousand word statement for public distribution far and wide[28]—shades of Emile Zola’s “J’Accuse”[29]—which relates “the story so far”, just like the three Norns do in the Vorspiel of Die Götterdämmerung.

But foremost I wrote to Jean Battersby, Executive Officer of the Australia Council[30] requesting “an inquiry into matters relating to the seven operas commissioned…”.[31] From Ken MacKenzie-Forbes I got the precedent-setting “Brush Off!”.[32] Undaunted, I tried again, accusing Opera Australia of impropriety;[33] once again I received the “Brush Off!”, this time from Jean Battersby herself.[34]

Undeterred, once again I responded, at greater length, the word ethics creeps into the correspondence.[35] In retrospect I think Kay Dreyfus had a big hand in drafting this letter, I’m not big on ethics. The reply came from Ken MacKenzie-Forbes—“Brush Off!”.[36] This may explain Jean Battersby’s complete lack of surprise at my and Lynne Strahan’s uninvited invasion of the Australia Council meeting in Adelaide.[37]

On 6 March 1972 we trundled up the stairs of No. 1 King William Street, and knocked on the door. Nugget Coombs was there in the chair, and Jean Battersby. She stood up when she saw us and I said, “Could I see you for a moment?” She came outside, leaving the door open. I could see that Nugget Coombs recognised me and that he was furious.

Jean Battersby said, “George, we won’t be able to see you now. Can you come back in an hour when we’re having a cup of tea?”

We went back in an hour. There were about twenty Council members sitting around. No one got up. Nugget Coombs was looking quite angry. He obviously didn’t like the situation, which was not surprising, I suppose, for somebody who had been running the Arts of the country and had taken it upon himself to prove to a Liberal Government that the Arts should have taxpayers’ money. That was a big thing: for the first time in the nearly 200-year history of Australia, taxpayers’ money was being used for the Arts in a relatively massive way.

Mildly, Nugget Coombs grilled me. After all, he had tried to get Garni Sands on in Canberra, he’d got me the commission for the Sextet for Didjeridu and Wind Instruments, and he’d suggested that I write an opera based on Coonardoo. I could see now that he didn’t want me to convince the Council that I’d been getting a rough deal from the opera company. He certainly didn’t want any instruction going out from the Council to Opera Australia as a result of this meeting, saying “Stop playing Tristan; tomorrow you are to start rehearsing George’s opera.”

In the end, Jean Battersby said, “We’ll let you know.” “Look”, I said, “We’ve come all this way and we’ve got nothing.” Kim Bonython asked a question. I felt he thought I was a joke. But you should always watch the funny ones. They’re the ones who are serious underneath. Goethe said, “It’s the half-mad who are dangerous, whom you’ve got to watch, not the idiots.”

“We’ve got nothing,” I repeated as I was leaving, and Jean Battersby said “We’ll write you a letter.”

“Why did we come here?” Lynne Strahan asked as we were going down in the lift. “We’ve achieved nothing.”[38]

Of course it was all a mistake, like Mathieu Dreyfus planting a fictitious story in the French press of Alfred’s escape from Devil’s Island.[39] All that did was ensure security on the island was tightened still further, the ex-Captain was now shackled to his bed, in the sweltering heat[40]—at least Lynne Strahan and I were allowed to leave the Adelaide meeting scot free—with tails between our legs. Nugget Coombs reminded us and the Council that we had been paid for our labours. Forty years later Opera Australia still used this justification. What a mind-set, like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion it just won’t go away.[41]

Opera Australia could commission dozens of Australian composers and not perform any of the works. It would be cheaper than staging one of them and yet fulfill its nominal obligation to support Australian content.

Lynne Strahan subsequently wrote to Nugget Coombs a poetic letter of personal explanation, “composers are not road-workers”.[42] He did reply ultimately;[43] it turned out to be yet another “Brush Off!”.

Not to be undone, Lynne Strahan wrote again a month later,[44] there was no reply, not even the “Brush Off!”, so like at the battle of Kursk, we brought up overwhelming forces, or so we thought. Lynne Strahan and I wrote together, two weeks later, to Nugget Coombs,[45] and this time were rewarded by the double-barreled “Brush Off!”, this time by the returning-to-the-fray Jean Battersby.[46]

Lynne Strahan and I went to see Federal parliamentarian Moss Cass, a friend from The Adventures of Sebastian the Fox television series days in 1963. He asked for a written report, another version of “the story so far”,[47] for forwarding to fellow parliamentarians Lionel Murphy and John Wheeldon. The Friends of The Gilt-Edged Kid were stirring!

In his book Australia’s Music, Roger Covell pointed to similarities between Australian sport and culture,[48] the emphasis on the competitive spirit. Imagine my delight when being made aware how far Nugget Coombs’ idea to commission me in 1968 for a full length three act opera, based on his vision of Coonardoo, had degenerated into competition.[49] Talk about a level playing field, the MCG being moved to the Australian Alps, Samson versus Delilah: The Age’s senior music critic, Felix Werder, and senior theatre critic, Leonard Radic, versus self-employed composer George Dreyfus and stay-at-home mother of three, poet Lynne Strahan.

Could this be the Aussie Rules version of opera? Much read Sydney cultural gossip columnist Musetta[50] had revealed public dismay that composer Peter Sculthorpe had renegotiated his opera commission. His was now to be a two-act opera with a guarantee of performance.[51] “How’s that?”, as one calls out in cricket, for a level playing field, ahead on points, social justice?

There is no doubt that by mid-1972, I had started to flail around wildly, obsessively, prompted by David Ahern’s report[52] that my opera had been rejected. I protested to the Company.[53] “No, no”, replied Stephen Hall, “We are just not going to play it”.[54] The ubiquitous “Brush Off!”.

I was well on the way to self-destruction à la Brunhilde, Cho-Cho-San—I do like Wagner and Puccini—but my opera protagonists didn’t think much of me, nor did I think much of them, obviously, shades of Kurt Weill’s attitude towards Nazi Germany in 1933.[55]

I next targetted Charles Berg, financial colleague of my brother Richard Dreyfus and Board member of Opera Australia. Would he bring up for discussion the rejection of my commissioned opera? My reputation was seriously damaged.[56] I wrote to Board member Zelman Cowen asking for his support.[57] Lynne Strahan wrote to Moss Cass again[58]—I particularly liked her line that I was “machinating like a top graduate from ASIO”. Fellow composer and stalwart champion Eric Gross wrote to Claude Alcorso on our behalf.[59] The return blow—opera as ping-pong, how more sporting can you get?—came from Stephen Hall: “the Company does not intend to give reasons for its decision not to perform your opera”.[60] The “Brush Off!” Aha!, the first stirrings of the empty envelope syndrome.[61] Eric Gross persevered with Federal parliamentarians Peter Howson[62] and Douglas McClelland,[63] and from the Australia Council I kept on getting the “Brush Offs!”.[64]

It was at this time that I was conducting my opera Garni Sands at the University of New South Wales in Sydney—you could not help but notice the event, there were press interviews and reviews, one of the singers was even a member of Opera Australia and to top it all off, the production was assisted by the Australia Council. Yet not one of their Board or staff members came to any of the five performances to judge for themselves the talents of the composer on whom they were shovelling dirt consistently. They deserve to be remembered, even forty years later, even posthumously, as many of them are quite dead by now.

But perhaps they were overseas at the time, attending high-minded, but devoid of reality, conferences, preparing statements like Nugget Coombs’ press interview[65] or his testament for Margaret Sutherland to support the performance of her opera at the National Gallery of Victoria?[66] What must Coombs have been thinking of, did he give the dilemma of my opera even a single thought, or did the event’s organiser James Murdoch just write it for him? One would have thought that Nugget Coombs at least would have come to judge Garni Sands for himself, see and hear if his own composer, who had brought credit to his very own idea, the Australian National University Creative Arts Fellowship, who had carried off with aplomb his dream of blending Aboriginal and white man’s culture in my Sextet for Didjeridu and Wind Instruments[67], knew what he was doing operatically speaking. But no, from the Australia Council more of the “Brush Off!”.[68]

In the final coup de grâce, my champion, Zelman Cowen, was thoroughly trounced when he moved at Board level that George Dreyfus should be given a reason for the rejection of his commissioned opera.[69] Minutes recorded that “acting on legal advice”, the Board resolved not to enter into any further correspondence on the matter.[70] Zelman Cowen was the only one who dissented. Good to know that decisions on Australian culture were being made by hiding behind faceless lawyers and empty files.[71] Did he recognise the similarities with the events of eighty years before?

Zelman had asked Stephen Hall to bring the files and correspondence to the Board meeting, but Hall came empty-handed. Just as at Alfred Dreyfus’ court martial, December 19 to December 22, 1894, the file of incriminating evidence was actually empty,[72] instead Major Hubert-Joseph Henry exclaimed “There are secrets in an officer’s head that even his kepi must not know”.[73]

Perhaps with his love for the law and history Zelman Cowen might have persevered, after all Alfred Dreyfus was ultimately proven innocent, even if years on Devil’s Island, further court martials and revisions intervened.

I thanked Zelman Cowen,[74] but persisted with my own attempts to bring the Gilt-Edged Kid back from Devil’s Island. I was particularly irked by Hall’s comment that the others were “ahead on points”[75] and Edward Downes’ “the best will be performed”.[76] After all, there I was, a full-time composer, living off my wits—films, television, symphonies and chamber music, not my mother Hilde’s Wiedergutmachungsgelder nor Kay Dreyfus’ university salary—as against the other two composers who had handed in their operas, Age Music Critic/Adult Education lecturer Felix Werder and piano and composition lecturer Larry Sitsky. It just didn’t seem right, or logical, to anyone who cared to listen.

After all of this, a normal person would have walked away, would have wanted to “move forward” as Julia Gillard is fond of saying, would have said “fuck the lot of them” as my third book[77] was going to be titled, but I lacked the courage, even if in its pages you can find my “Ballad of the Opera Stoppers”, very Brechtian indeed.

A fresh tack was required, to stop The Gilt-Edged Kid being damned into oblivion. I thought I’d try letters to the editor.

Philip Kurt obliged on my behalf,[78] as did Peter Mayfield,[79] George Tibbits[80] and Kay Dreyfus, stalwart supporter of the opera since bar one.[81] I fired off two myself,[82] all generated in response to its music critic Ken Hince’s unfortunate article[83]—I had been to see him. Mistake!

Eric Gross persevered relentlessly with a further letter to Peter Howson[84] and then to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam himself.[85]

Cliff Pugh enticed Nugget Coombs to a meeting of the Victorian Australian Labor Party Arts and Culture Policy Committee at Pugh’s house in North Melbourne, where I handed Nugget Coombs the Committee’s resolution asking the Federal Government to withhold immediately any further subsidy to Opera Australia until the company met its obligations to Australian composers. Nugget Coombs glanced at it, looking mighty thunderous. I shall never forget his contorted face, perhaps he thought “is this what I deserve from the boy to whom I gave his big chance in Canberra in 1967, saving him from penury?” But then to this day I think he should have given a chance to The Gilt-Edged Kid, whose life he started in Canberra in 1968 and whom he watched go under in a morass of operatic subterfuge, whether it be the Dreyfus affair or the Ring Cycle, there is no such thing as half-justice.

Nugget Coombs, collecting his composure, muttered something about a seminar in Sydney to discuss Australian operas, just as he had mumbled something like “Opera Australia will perform Coonardoo” three years previously. George, beware of well-meaning good-doers. I immediately wrote to Claude Alcorso, offering to take part; he immediately replied to say it had been postponed.[86] What a surprise! Just like Amonasro’s dramatic entry in Act Three of Aida. Librettist Antonio Ghislanzoni expected audiences to be surprised, but as they had all seen the opera many times before…

So the Friends of The Gilt-Edged Kid resolved to hold their own seminar, except they called it a symposium, “Opera and The Australian Composer”.

Intending not to do things by halfa the Friends of the The Gilt-Edged Kid had opened a Second Fronta forming the Australian Opera Reform Group in February 1973. But unlike the petition to rescue the Percy Grainger Museum in Royal Parade from the rampages of Melbourne University,[87] the Reform Group could not offer its Chairman Robin Grove world-wide support for its endeavours. Instead Phillip Adams came to entertain the assembled crowd of well-wishers.[88] The press reported on the Group’s ideals a number of times[89] and Noel McLachlan contributed mightily in support of the causea with copious press articles Australia-wide.[90]

As to the Friends’ second effort, the Symposium “Opera and the Australian Composer”,[91] everybody who was anybody took part, with fabulous papers and panel discussions, not to be missed, good newspaper coverage and excellent resolutions. Edward Downes, sent down especially from Opera Australia headquarters in Sydney, sat skulking at the back of the Pram Factory on the Saturday, “What the hell am I doing in Australia in the first place, among all these colonials?”, but then participated spiritedly in Sunday’s free-for-all discussion. I was congratulated by all for not saying a single word, making the tea and coffee instead.

It all lead to nothing as far as The Gilt-Edged Kid was concerned, despite the voluminous letters and reports in the Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney press—well, not quite, there were coups and counter coups at the Opera’s Head Office. Stephen Hall, out!—never to be heard of again—unlike The Gilt-Edged Kid and its composer. Claude Alcorso, out!—back to Tasmania with a good view of Antarctica—and in with John Winther and Charles Berg, not that they were of much use to the cause of social justice for my opera. Nor did any of them last that long anyway, shades of the Führerhauptquartier after the failure of the 20th July plot in 1944,[92] but obviously not dramatic enough for an opera scenario nor a Hollywood feature film.[93]

However, Gough Whitlam’s Principal Private Secretary Peter Wilenski did give the saga very serious attention.[94] His contribution is another “the story so far” summary, like Gurnemanz’s monologue in Act One of Parsifal,[95] ending with “Opera Australia has not stated that it has rejected the work in George Dreyfus, but rather that it has selected the two most suitable of the commissions.”

Whatever happened to “ahead on points” or “the best will be performed”, opera as a game with moveable goal posts, how unsporting can you get? And what’s so “unsuitable” about The Gilt-Edged Kid? Does it call for two sailing ships on stage simultaneously, like Richard Wagner in his Flying Dutchman? Does the vocal writing make extreme demands on the singers, like Aribert Reimann in his Lear? Does it call for unusual instrumentation in the pit like four Wagner tubas in the Ring Cycle, which the Company always dreams about, or harmonium, banjo, bass guitar, bandoneon, zither, like Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny, which was actually part of the Company’s 1976 season?

No, a normal Mozart/Beethoven orchestration is stipulated in the score. Nor does Lynne Strahan ask any of her characters to get undressed on stage, unlike the opera commissioned from Peter Sculthorpe under the same project. “Nude Opera” screamed the Melbourne Sun and The Australian[96] and The Sun even referred to “brutal Aboriginal rites”.[97] How’s that for suitability? Nugget Coombs must have loved this disclosure as he opened his morning paper, probably choked over his Weeties.[98]

I reckon that no-one ever looked at The Gilt-Edged Kid score itself, none of the Letters-to-the-Editor writers, no-one at the Australia Council, and I doubt if anyone at Opera Australia really ever did. No George, get it into your thick head, in the years after you had submitted your opera, suitability was no longer the point. Rather, the little tradesman, the composer sitting below the salt-cellar, the one overtly living without visible means of support, should accept the decision of authority, however mistaken it may be. “Basta”, as my authoritarian father Alfred would say, with his typical German upbringing, banging the table with his fist.

Well, nuts to all of you, I say. I have not lived in Australia for all these years for nothing, it’s rubbed off, anticipating the title of my third book. Successive Opera Australia staffers made a mistake. It should be admitted, just like American Secretary of State Robert McNamara’s admission about the futility of the Vietnam War, he was not too proud, and the Russian Parliament’s admission that the NKVD had perpetuated the Katyn massacre.[99]

In fact, revision is all the rage now, as it was with Alfred Dreyfus’ first retrial at Rennes in 1898–9,[100] or with the stolen generations court case in 1998–2002, Mark Dreyfus acted on behalf of the aborigines,[101] Opera Australia should not be too proud to redress its woeful decision.

I was not prepared to pay for this mistake, sleight of hand, for the non-performance of my opera. I was not going to give up, but then neither were Opera Australia and the Australia Council, Dreyfusards versus anti-Dreyfusards. George, you are a pain in the arse, there are higher principles at stake here, the honour of the French Army, the anticipated Revenge War against Germany, separation of Church and State a constant thread throughout the whole Dreyfus affair. No, George, we cannot let you win![102]

Talking about winning and loosing, young bloods Opera Board member Brian Donovan and Australia Council member Kim Williams joined the contest, convinced of the injustice done to The Gilt-Edged Kid, but unlike the opera’s main protagonist, who finished up with an arrow in his chest, they could leave the battlefield, undamaged and alive.

The turmoil in the Melbourne Branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music did not help the cause of The Gilt-Edged Kid one bit. My friends and supporters Frank Pam and Gregory Young accused Australia Council staff member James Murdoch of complicity in financial improprieties with Council funds by the Society’s new Committee.[103] I had been deposed as President at the stormy AGM at Tamani’s Restaurant in South Yarra, while the Council found no evidence of James Murdoch’s complicity.

Frank Pam and Gregory Young would not accept the “Brush Off!”. They wrote to the Federal Attorney-General Senator Lionel Murphy, the complaint went back to the Australia Council, who, having by now gained considerable experience with The Gilt-Edged Kid, gave them the “Brush Off!”.[104]

Understandably James Murdoch turned out not to be one of the Friends of The Gilt-Edged Kid. Already in 1972 Murdoch had referred to its composer as a buffoon with nihilistic attitudes,[105] no wonder I lampooned the entry in his picture book with a satiric version of the text in my song “Deep Throat”.[106]

In spite of the Reform Group, in spite of the symposium, by 1974 The Gilt-Edged Kid had got nowhere in his quest for justice. Some direct action was called for, despite memories of the futile drive to Adelaide and back in March 1972. “Be careful,” said both George Tibbits and Kay Dreyfus, showing considerable concern for my physical welfare. I flew myself to Sydney, invaded John Winther’s office, not unlike renowned German playwright Rolf Hochhuth, author of the landmark play Der Stellvertreter, who staged a protest invasion of the Theater am Shiffbauerdamm,[107] Bertholt Brecht’s own theatre after the War, one of my favourites in Berlin.

I demanded, “tell me when you are going to play my opera, you will have to get the police to arrest me”, not unlike celebrity gardener Peter Cundall getting arrested at Tasmania’s Parliament House in Hobart.[108] Originality is obviously not one of my characteristics.

All this being much milder than interrupting an Opera Australia performance, rushing down the aisle with a loud hailer screaming “Justice for my Opera” or “Bring The Gilt-Edged Kid back from Devil’s Island”.

Completely unfazed, John Winther responded, “You know George, this piece of yours that I hear on the radio all the time, I think it’s called ‘Rush’, skynde sig in Danish. It’s very attractive you know”.[109]

I slunk out of his office, deflated, tail between my legs, took the ferry to Manly and back to shake off my nervous tension, it was not the greatest day in my life. There was no response to my demand, of course, anyhow John Winther is considerably bigger than me, likes his food, could have thrown me out without a problem, whereas I diet.

The year passed by with considerable correspondence protesting the fate of my opera; there were the perpetual “Brush Offs!” from the other side.[110]

I was told of the formation of a panel to assess my opera, secret of course, like the faceless men of the Australian Labor Party Federal Executive that made Gough Whitlam wait outside the room during their policy-making deliberation. Secret except for its member Georg Tintner, who declared on behalf of my opera and never conducted for the Company again, and James Murdoch, representing the Australia Council, who reminded the panel that Opera Australia had no legal obligation to perform it at all. Murdoch was suitably rewarded by being moved sideways to head the Australian Music Centre, which he promptly sent into receivership.

It took John Winther six months to mail me 400 words of pseudo music-historical twaddle to justify his “I know this decision will disappoint you greatly…”.[111] Nor was there any mention of the social justice issues: “the best will be performed”, the Felix Werder/Larry Sitsky operas being “ahead on points”, the renegotiation of the Peter Sculthorpe contract.

And what’s the idea that my opera “had to ensure a long life time”? What “long life time” did Werder’s Affair, Sitsky’s Lenz or Sculthorpe’s Rites of Passage have to prove before their productions took place? None. In fact they have all bitten the dust, so why use this reason for disposing of The Gilt-Edged Kid?

And did these operas, and the other stage works of their composers, ever receive overseas production, seen to be of such significance by the local hierarchy? Unlike The Gilt-Edge Kid’s composer, who did attract considerable attention in Germany, some good some bad, with his operas Rathenau,[112] premiered at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1993, and Die Marx Sisters,[113] premiered at the Stadttheater Bielefeld in 1996:

Rathenau

Frankfurter Rundschau

Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Lotte Thaler

Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin

Bernd Feuchtner

Berliner Zeitung

Frieder Reininghaus

Freitag, Berlin

Albrecht Dümling

The Sydney Morning Herald

Roger Covell

The Age, Melbourne

Clive O’Connell

Südkurier Konstanz

Pedro Obiera

Hessische Allgemeine

Bernd Müllmann

Wiesbadener Kurrier

Jürgen Weishaupt

Die Zeit

Eckhard Roelke

Die Welt

Kläre Warnecke

Der Spiegel

Klaus Umbach

Hamburger Abendblatt

Carl-Heinz Mann

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Wolf von Lewinski

Neue Ruhr Zeitung

Pedro Obiera

Wuppertaler Rundschau

Peter Klaus

Weser Kurier

Michael Struck-Schloen

Neue Westfälischer Zeitung

Michael Beughold

Neue Zeit, Berlin

Hans Berndt

Hannoversche Allgemeine

Rainer Wagner

Neue Musikzeitung

Wolfgang Kühnen

Opera Australia

Elke Neidhardt

Rhein Main Presse

Wolf von Lewinski

Westfälischer Anzeiger

Pedro Obiera

General Anzeiger, Bonn

Frieder Reininghaus

Osnabrücker Zeitung

Hans Berndt

Opera Magazine, London

Roger Covell

Opernwelt

Manuel Brug

Westdeutsche Zeitung

George Scurla

Das Orchester

Bernd Müllmann

Trierischer Volksfreund

Pedro Obiera

Rheinischer Merkur

Frieder Reininghaus

Luxemburger Wort

Sonya Luyken

Mitteilungsheft Nr. 4 der Walther Rathenau Gesellschaft

Götz Küster

Deutschland Sender-Kultur

Ingo Dorfmüller

Deutsche Welle

Gudrun Stegen

Sender Freies Berlin

Albrecht Dümling

Die Marx Sisters

Süddeutsche Zeitung

Stefan Keim

Frankfurter Rundschau

Ulrich Schreiber

NDR Musikforum

Götz Bolten

Salzburger Nachrichten

Matthias Norquet

Nürnberger Nachrichten

Werner Schulze-Reimpell

Opern Welt

Wolf von Lewinski

Westfälischer Anzeiger

Helmut Fortmann

WDR III Kulturmagazin

Wolfgang Korruhn

General Anzeiger, Bonn

Christoph Zimmermann

Die Welt

Reinhard Beuth

Deutsche Welle

Johannes Spittler

Westdeutsche Allgemeine

Michael Stenger

Hessische Niedersächsische Allgemeine

Werner Schulze-Reimpell

Theater Rundschau

Christoph Zimmermann

Rhein Main Presse

Wolf von Lewinski

Wuppertaler Rundschau

Peter Klaus

Westdeutsche Zeitung

Olaf Weissenborn

NDR III Kulturjournal

Ulrich Schreiber

Rote Zone

Christian Scheuss

Trierischer Volksfreund

Pedro Obiera

Mindener Tageblatt

Udo Stephan Köhne

Die Glocke

Franz Hagendorf

Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung

Werner Schulze-Reimpell

Das Orchester

Wolf von Lewinski

Westfalen-Blatt

Jürgen Schmidt

Tips Bielefeld

Stefanie Gomoll

Neue Westfälische

Wolfgang Drees

Stadtblatt Bielefeld

Friederike Töpler

Bielefelder Universitäts Zeitung

Namen unbekannt

Handelsblatt

Ulrich Schreiber

Die Deutsche Bühne

Michael Struck-Schloen

Hamburger Abendblatt

Carl-Heinz Mann

Der Spiegel

Klaus Umbach

Sender Freies Berlin

Irene Tüngler

Berliner Zeitung

Frieder Reininghaus

Der Tagesspiegel

Albrecht Dümling

Westfälische Nachrichten

Marlis Fichtner

Ruhr Nachrichten

Marieluise Jeitschko

Neue Ruhr Zeitung

Pedro Obiera

Deutschland Radio

Frank Kämpfer

Giessener Allgemeine

Dieter Lechner

Das Opernglas

Alfred Brüggemann

Rheinische Merkur

Frieder Reininghaus

Rheinische Post

Albrecht Dümling

Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung

Pedro Obiera

Welt am Sonntag

Marielouise Jeitschko

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Frieder Reininghaus

AJR Information

Carl Flesch

In fact, the discrimination against The Gilt-Edged Kid becomes all the more blatant when one takes “on board”—very operatic when one considers that there are a fleet of ships in opera, The Flying Dutchman, Ariadne, George Antheil’s Transatlantic, John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer—Opera Australia’s publicly expressed “disappointment in the quality of all the works composed through the commissioning scheme”.[114]

Who could tell what demands on the skills of orchestra and singers, a reason for rejection given by John Winther in his twaddle letter, were ever evident in the score of Rites of Passage? The press had every reason to be perplexed, for had anybody ever sighted the score of Peter Sculthorpe’s opera?[115]

I screamed blue murder, sent a letter of refutation to Chairman Charles Berg,[116] got the usual “Brush Off!”.[117] The Australia Council and Opera Australia must by now have had pre-typed “Brush Off!” letters addressed to George Dreyfus.

An innocent bystander[118] could not but marvel at that one line response: “The Board resolved that your letter be received and its contents noted”.[119] Did not one single Board member even speak up and question “hey, wait a moment, is this not the issue that our Board member Zelman Cowen brought in front of our Board two years ago? If it’s still going, perhaps there is something more to it, perhaps the issue is more than just a musical one, where we would have to defer to our music staff, but the composer is looking for social justice, it’s a moral issue, and this we could discuss— after all, we are upright representatives of the Australian community, and our standing in these matters is as high as any of the music staff, why would we be appointed otherwise?” But all I got was the perfunctory “Brush Off!”, in one line, under the table. No wonder that Chairman Charles Berg and his Board were subsequently severely criticised for disregarding the public interest.[120]

stands not only for loud but also foreboding. Had not the Chairman Charles Berg and the Board, like Wotan, brought it upon themselves

for their malevolent treatment of The Gilt-Edged Kid?

For there was turmoil at headquarters. “Opera head may be facing sack”, trumpeted The Age.[121] “Curtain rising on operatic takeover fight”, trumpeted The Australian.[122]

Heads were rolling, just not mine. I changed direction, leaving The Gilt-Edged Kid behind me—but not forgotten. I went to New York City to conduct Garni Sands, not at the Met, not at City Opera, but with the Bel Canto Opera Company, corner Madison Avenue and 31st Street. “Well done” wrote The New York Times,[123] “Keine Australische Bohème”, wrote Wolfgang Breuer in the German-language Aufbau.[124]

The Gilt-Edged Kid did not enjoy being in limbo, it’s not his nor his composer’s style. Much encouraged by my New York experiences and completely unmoved by “the unsuitability for musical setting” of Lynne Strahan’s libretto[125]—on the contrary, I revel in its quirky, acid one-liners, just as Julia Gillard revels in sending up Tony Abbott for his three-word slogans—I set to, keeping the ten vocal lines and text unchanged, but arranging the orchestral score for a similar complement to Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale.

I thought my opera would go well as a double bill with the Stravinsky, there are after all successful precedents in the opera world, such as Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Florentinische Tragödie coupled with his Der Zwerg. There was great enthusiasm among the singers and instrumentalists of my specially formed GEKKO company. No-one got paid, no-one ever cancelled, we rehearsed for half a year, Elke Neidhardt directed, ABC producer Brian Adams came and filmed. I recall performances at Montsalvat, Ballarat’s Begonia Festival, The National Gallery of Victoria, The Sydney Conservatorium, but not one of the opera stoppers or their minions ever came to judge for themselves, in “real time” as one would say today, nor made use of the pre-typed Dreyfus “Brush Off!” letters, of which there were surely many lying around in their offices. What a waste, or saving on postage, but then backstage and Boardroom squabbles[126] could have made the licking of poisoned postage stamps fatal.[127]

John Winther’s short-tenured successor Peter Hemmings had other things than The Gilt-Edged Kid on his mind, abrupt dismissal, virtual sacking[128] for being “hell bent” on performing the Ring Cycle,[129]

is still at work. Perhaps he could have saved his skin by being hell bent on performing The Gilt Edged Kid, the full score and libretto are in the Company’s library, the opera is ready to go, it calls for a boyish Siegfried-like tenor for the Kid, a manly Wotan-like baritone for the Administrator, and has a composer prone to touches of self-immolation like Brunhilde. And it is much cheaper to put on, a smaller orchestra—four Wagner tubas not required, minimal sets, no Magic Fires that could burn down the opera house, and cheap to produce, it is ideal for an opera company engaged in endless rows,[130] the Kid would be its Erlöser.[131]

Unusually extensive turmoil induced the Australia Council to begin an opera inquiry.[132] I rushed to take part, forgetting, prize amnesiac that I am and ever hopeful to boot, that all my own previous attempts to get an inquiry had failed, been ignored, a recipient of the “Brush Off!”.

I appeared before the committee,[133] was too obsessive, single-minded, it’s not what they were looking for. In its final report there is reference to The Gilt-Edged Kid, but no reasons are given as to why this commissioned opera had not been performed, one straight in the kisser for Zelman Cowen.

Full marks to Opera Australia, we have come full circle, it escaped its responsibility yet again, like Cesare Angelotti escaped from Castel Sant’ Angelo, except he was shot in the end, whereas the opera stoppers got off scot free, like most of the Hadamar perpetrators.

There are more changes at the top, Kenneth Tribe appears as Management Co-ordinator for Opera Australia and Stuart Challender joins the music staff. New parameters are set, the goal posts have moved again, very sporting: The Gilt-Edged Kid was found unlikely to have “either the artistic success or public acceptance to justify a major production by this company”.[134] Did the Felix Werder, Larry Sitsky or Peter Sculthorpe operas ever need to prove that? Nor did I ever ask for a “major production”, and just in case we had forgotten Lynne Strahan’s libretto is yet once again declared “unsuitable for musical setting”.

Perhaps lawyer Kenneth Tribe and conductor Stuart Challender, before letting forth with their “suitability” claptrap,[135] would have been better to inform themselves about the “suitability” of Stefan Zweig’s libretto for Die Schweigsame Frau[136] or better still, the “suitability” of Peter Ruzicka’s libretto for his opera Hölderlin at the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, venue of five George Dreyfus performances since 2007,[137] except that both were dead by then, well and truly beyond being informed.

I tried once more—low in spirit by now, well done Opera Australia, Australia Council, that’s how to deal with a recalcitrant composer—with yet another new Opera Australia Manager, Patrick Veitch, but nothing much came of it.[138] He was not going to be pressured, he didn’t even bother to use one of the pre-typed George Dreyfus “Brush Off!” letters, there must still be boxes full somewhere in their offices.

By mid-1981 I had given up, temporarily anyway. It was no longer about my opera, it was me or them. Over the ten years a tradition, inherited by successive management, had grown up that “we are not going to let Dreyfus win, it sets an unhealthy precedent”. This can be deduced from Australia Council General Manager John Cameron’s well meaning but inopportune letter to me,[139] the coup de grâce, the stripping of Alfred Dreyfus’ epaulets and breaking of the sword, held fast in that striking print of the degradation:[140] “À mort” one can hear the held-back crowd scream outside the École Militaire.[141]

Really unfortunate is the final comment “let The Gilt- Edged Kid sleep in peace” which awakens memories of Bishop of Münster Clemens August Graf von Galen’s protest about the nefarious activities at Hadamar in 1941.[142] Not for nothing had I played my one man show Surviving, including the Ballad that nails the opera stoppers,[143] at the Institution there in the late 1990s to an audience of three somewhat perplexed Germans. No, I shall never forgive them, unlike the end of Garni Sands.[144]

But it’s not over yet![145]

Alexander von Zemlinsky waited seventy five years for the Uraufführung of Die Traumgörge, he was dead by then; Ottorino Respighi waited ninety years for the Uraufführung of Marie Victoire, he was dead by then; Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek waited eight decades for the Uraufführung of Benzin, he was certainly dead by then. The American rock group System of a Down sing about the Armenian Genocide ninety five years after the event. I can wait out the operacide which Opera Australia is perpetrating against The Gilt-Edged Kid; I’m not dead, yet!

Opera Australia talks about “rebirth and renewal process”,[146] “harmony and stability”.[147] Sorry, I don’t quite fit into “the developing of ‘a family’ of young composers”[148] but was one of them when this sorry episode of Australian cultural bastardry started in 1968, and, guess what, the Ring Cycle, Peter Hemmings’ undoing, raises its head again. And so, instead of

we might hear the Rainbow,

symbol of eternal hope and reconciliation, and with our heart and soul, like Elektra,[149] exclaim “The Gilt-Edged Kid lives”, just as the whole congregation sings at the end of my Australian Folk Mass, in full voice,

Notes

The complete files of correspondence and newspaper articles relating to Opera Australia and The Gilt-Edged Kid, are held at the State Library of Victoria and the National Library of Australia.

The scores of all George Dreyfus’s operas are held at Matheson Library, Monash University; Australian National Library; State Library of Victoria, Australian Music Centre, Sydney and the Musikarchiv, Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

1 Opera in one act (1970). Libretto by Lynne Strahan, music by George Dreyfus. Full score, 197 pages.

2 For the sake of consistency, the name “Opera Australia” is used throughout.

3 Stephen Hall to George Dreyfus, 19 August 1971.

4 Thérèse Radic, “George Dreyfus”, in Warren Bebbington ed., The Oxford Companion to Australian Music (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1997).

5 Hoffman’s portrait of the author is reproduced on page 24 of The Last Frivolous Book (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1984).

6 Walter Panofsky, Richard Strauss: Partitur eines Lebens (Munich: R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1965), p. 153.

7 Opera in two acts (1965–66). Libretto by Frank Kellaway, music by George Dreyfus. Vocal Score, 226 pages.

8 The Age, 30 June 1965; “National Review”, The Age, 26 July 1971.

9 See “Jenny, Make It Happen”. In George Dreyfus, Don’t Ever Let Them Get You (Melbourne: Black Pepper, 2009), pp. 63ff.

10 Ibid.

11 Klaus Volker, Brecht, A Biography (London: The Seabury Press, 1979), p. 328.

12 Papers relating to the author’s dismissal are to be found in the files of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Australian National Archives.

13 George Dreyfus to Roger Covell, 10 February 1969.

14 Stephen Hall to George Dreyfus, 29 September 1969.

15 Stephen Hall to George Dreyfus, 13 October 1969.

16 Stephen Hall to George Dreyfus, 9 April 1970.

17 The Age, 19 September 1969.

18 The Age, 21 August 1970; The Age, 5 September 1970; The Age, 10 April 1971; The Age, 30 August 1971; The Age, 4 September 1971; The Age, 13 November 1971; The Age, 26 February 1972; The Age, 18 March 1972; The Age, 6 May 1972; The Age, 16 December 1972; The Age, 12 May 1973.

19 The Bulletin, 18 July 1970.

20 The Australian, 7 August 1971.

21 George Dreyfus to Stephen Hall, 31 May 1970.

22 Stephen Hall to George Dreyfus, 17 September 1970.

23 Report of meeting, 5 January 1971.

24 Draft for Kenneth Hince, early August 1971.

25 Michael Burns, Dreyfus, A Family Affair 1789–1945 (London: Chatto & Windus Ltd., 1992), p. 122.

26 Wilhelm Herzog, Der Kampf einer Republik: Die Affäre Dreyfus (Zürich: Europa-Verlag, 1932), p. 960.

27 Position paper, 20 August 1971.

28 Statement, late 1971.

29 George R. Whyte, The Dreyfus Affair: A Chronological History (Houndmills, Basingstok, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 153.

30 For the sake of consistency the Council is referred to as “Australia Council” throughout this text.

31 George Dreyfus to Jean Battersby, 29 November 1971.

32 Ken Mackenzie-Forbes to George Dreyfus, 8 December 1971.

33 George Dreyfus to Jean Battersby, 12 December 1971.

34 Jean Battersby to George Dreyfus, 31 December 1971.

35 George Dreyfus to Jean Battersby, 10 January 1972.

36 Ken Mackenzie-Forbes to George Dreyfus, 14 January 1972.

37 Pamphlet for distribution to Australia Council members, 6 March 1972.

38 For Lynne Strahan’s eloquent zeitentsprechend version of “the story so far”, see her “The Long and Winding Road”, in Being George and liking it! Reflections on the life and work of George Dreyfus on his 70th birthday (Richmond: Allans Publishing, 1998), pp. 57–68.

39 Guy Chapman, The Dreyfus Trials (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1972), p. 76.

40 Ruth Harris, The Man on Devil’s Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair that Divided France (London: Allen Lane, 2010), p. 2. See also Alfred Dreyfus, Briefe aus der Gefangenschaft (Berlin: Verlag Siegfried Cronbach, 1899).

41 Adrian Collette to George Dreyfus, 3 August 2009.

42 Lynne Strahan to H.C. Coombs, 7 March 1972.

43 H.C. Coombs to Lynne Strahan, 17 March 1972.

44 Lynne Strahan to H.C. Coombs, 28 April 1972.

45 Lynne Strahan and George Dreyfus to H.C. Coombs, 10 May 1972.

46 Jean Battersby to George Dreyfus, 19 May 1972.

47 Report to Moss Cass, 24 June 1972.

48 Roger Covell, Australia’s Music: Themes of a New Society (Melbourne: Sun Books, 1967), pp. 244–5.

49 The Bulletin, 18 July 1970; The Australian, 7 August 1971.

50 Alias Maria Prerauer.

51 The Sunday Australian, 28 March 1971.

52 The Bulletin, 24 June 1972.

53 George Dreyfus to Stephen Hall, 21 June 1972.

54 Stephen Hall to George Dreyfus, 23 June 1972.

55 Der Protagonist, opera by Kurt Weill; Kim Kowalke, Kurt Weill in Europe (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfims International, 1979), p. 40.

56 George Dreyfus to Charles Berg, 5 July 1972.

57 George Dreyfus to Zelman Cowen, 5 July 1972.

58 Lynne Strahan to Moss Cass, 6 July 1972.

59 Eric Gross to Claude Alcorso, 7 July 1972.

60 Stephen Hall to George Dreyfus, 21 July 1972.

61 Whyte, The Dreyfus Affair, p. 45.

62 Eric Gross to Peter Howson, 24 August 1972.

63 Eric Gross to Douglas McClelland, 24 August 1972.

64 Ken Farnham to George Dreyfus, 28 July 1972.

65 The Herald, 17 November 1971.

66 Extract from program, November 1972. Coombs said, “Today our opera companies are becoming increasingly aware of the need for Australian works. It is widely recognized in music that the future vitality of the performing arts depends in part on this evidence of relevance to our own life and environment.”

67 “Jenny, Make It Happen”, p. 76.

68 Ken Farnham to George Dreyfus, 30 August 1972.

69 Zelman Cowen to George Dreyfus, 8 November 1972.

70 Document entitled “Summary of points”, 13 December 1972.

71 Zelman Cowen to Claude Alcorso, 9 November 1972.

72 Guy Chapman, The Dreyfus Case: A Reassessment (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1955), p. 89.

73 Whyte, The Dreyfus Affair, p. 45.

74 George Dreyfus to Zelman Cowen, 6 December 1972.

75 Statement made by Stephen Hall to the Australia Council in October 1971. See report prepared for Mr Moss Cass, MHR, 24 June 1972.

76 The Australian, 7 August 1971.

77 Don’t Ever Let Them Get You.

78 Philip Kurt to Sydney Morning Herald, 15 December 1972.

79 Peter Mayfield to The Australian, 15 December 1972.

80 George Tibbits to The Australian, 15 January 1973.

81 Kay Dreyfus to The Australian, 13 January 1973; Kay Dreyfus to National Times, 18 April 1973.

82 George Dreyfus to The Australian, 13 January 1973; George Dreyfus to The Age, 15 April 1973.

83 The Australian, 13 January 1973.

84 Eric Gross to Peter Howson, 20 November 1972.

85 Eric Gross to Gough Whitlam, 30 January 1973.

86 Claude Alcorso to George Dreyfus, 25 January 1973.

87 Relevant material held in the George Dreyfus collection, State Library of Victoria.

88 Advertisement, The Age, 7 April 1973.

89 The Australian, 10 February 1973; The Australian, 22 February 1973; The Herald, 11 April 1973; The Herald, 11 April 1973.

90 The Sun, 17 April 1973; The Herald, 17 April 1973; The Canberra Times, 18 April 1973; The Australian, 21 April 1973; Nation Review 18–24 May 1973; The Age, 19 May 1973; Nation Review, 26 October–1 November 1973.

91 Kay Dreyfus ed., Report of Symposium ‘Opera and the Australian Composer’, Pram Factory, Carlton, 24 and 25 February 1973 (Melbourne: ISCM, 1973).

92 Joachim Fest, Staatsstreich: Der lange Weg zum 20 Juli (Berlin: Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag, 1997), p. 258.

93 Bryan Singer’s 2008 film Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise.

94 Peter Wilenski to Douglas McClelland, 27 April 1973.

95 Full score, p. 93.

96 The Sun (Melbourne), 27 September 1972; The Australian, 28 September 1972; The Australian, 5 November 1972.

97 The Sun, 27 September 1972.

98 “Jenny, Make It Happen”.

99 BBC World Service, 26 November 2010.

100 Siegfried Thalheimer, ed., Die Affaire Dreyfus (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1963), pp. 237ff.

101 See http://www.markdreyfus.com/speeches/apology.html, viewed January 2010.

102 Jean-Denis Bredin, The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus (New York: George Braziller, 1983), p. 14; Herzog, Der Kampf einer Republik, p. 960.

103 See Clinton Green, “The International Society for Contemporary Music in Melbourne: Forerunners, Foundation, and Decline”, Musicology Australia 32/2, pp. 256–7. Green sources correspondence held in Gregory Young private papers.

104 Ibid., p. 256.

105 James Murdoch, “George Dreyfus”, in Australia’s Contemporary Composers (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 85–6.

106 Dreyfus, The Last Frivolous Book, p. 116.

107 Rheinische Post, Düsseldorf, 21 August 2009.

108 The Age, 20 November 2009.

109 Recorded by ABC Melbourne Show Band (Hammard LP 002).

110 Lynne Strahan and George Dreyfus to Jean Battersby, 1 March 1973; John Winther to George Dreyfus, 27 March 1973; John Winther to George Dreyfus, 26 April 1973; George Dreyfus to John Winther, 12 March 1974; John Winther to George Dreyfus, 20 March 1974; George Dreyfus to John Winther, 22 May 1974; George Dreyfus to Charles Berg, 5 August 1974; Charles Berg’s secretary to George Dreyfus, 12 August 1974; John Winther to George Dreyfus, 14 August 1974; Charles Berg to George Dreyfus, 11 October 1974; George Dreyfus to Charles Berg, 31 October 1974; Charles Berg to George Dreyfus, 13 November 1974; Charles Berg to George Dreyfus, 10 January 1975; George Dreyfus to Charles Berg, 15 January 1975.

111 John Winther to George Dreyfus, 15 January 1975.

112 Opera in one act (1993). Libretto by Volker Elis Pilgrim, music by George Dreyfus. Full score, 346 pages.

113 Opera in one act (1996). Libretto by Volker Elis Pilgrim, music by George Dreyfus. Full score, 463 pages.

114 Peter Howson to Eric Gross, 9 November 1972.

115 The Sunday Australian, 26 March 1972; i, 9 June 1972; The Sun (Melbourne), 27 September 1972; The Sun, 29 September 1972; The Australian, 28 September 1972; The Sunday Telegraph, 5 November 1972; The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 December 1972; The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 December 1972; The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 1972; The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 December 1972; The Australian, 15 December 1972; The Australian, 13 January, 1973; The Australian, 10 February 1973; The National Times, 16–21 April 1973; The Sunday Telegraph, 10 June 1973; The Sunday Telegraph, 19 August 1973.

116 George Dreyfus to Charles Berg, 27 January 1975.

117 Charles Berg to George Dreyfus, 4 February 1975.

118 The Gilt-Edged Kid, full score, bar 1592.

119 Charles Berg to George Dreyfus, 4 February 1975.

120 The Age, 31 May 1980.

121 The Age, 25 March 1977. Trouble was not new; see The Australian, 19 February 1972; The Sunday Australian 27 February 1972; The Age, 22 March 1972; The Sunday Australian, 7 May 1972.

122 The Australian, 3 June 1978.

123 The New York Times, 5 May 1975.

124 Aufbau, New York, 9 May 1975.

125 Kenneth Tribe to George Dreyfus, 3 March 1981.

126 The Age, 23 October 1979.

127 See Verdi’s Simone Boccanegra.

128 The Age, 23 October 1979.

129 The Age, 26 October 1979.

130 The Age, 9 October 1979.

131 Parsifal Act 2, full score, figure 189; Laurence Dreyfus (no relation), “Hermann Levi’s Shame and Parsifal’s Guilt: A Critique of Essentialism in Biography and Criticism”, Cambridge Opera Journal 6/2, pp. 125–46.

132 The Australian, 13 October 1979.

133 Submission to the Inquiry into Opera/Music Theatre in Australia, 18 December 1979.

134 Kenneth Tribe to George Dreyfus, 3 March 1981.

135 Joseph Goebbels screaming at Richard Strauss, 28 February 1941, in the Propaganda Ministry, Berlin: “Be quiet Herr Strauss! You have no conception of who you are, or who I am! … Stop your claptrap about the importance of serious music, once and for all … Tomorrow’s art is different from yesterday’s! You, Herr Strauss, belong to yesterday!” Kurt Wilhelm, Richard Strauss: An Intimate Portrait (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989), p. 255; Werner Egk, Die Zeit wartet nicht (Munich: Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, 1981).

136 Gerhard Splitt, Richard Strauss 1933–1935: Ästhetik und Musikpolitik zu Beginn der national-sozialistischen Herrschaft. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987.

137 Sebastian’s Greatest Adventure (2007), Ein Kaffeekonzert (2008), The Prize (2009), Drei Kästner-Gedichte (2010), Sextet for Didjeridu and Wind Instruments (2011)

138 George Dreyfus to John Cameron, 27 May 1981.

139 John Cameron to George Dreyfus, 29 May 1981.

140 Norman L. Kleeblatt ed., The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth & Justice (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), p. 158.

141 Chapman, The Dreyfus Trials, p. 52.

142 Gerhard Baader, Johannes Cramer und Bettina Winter, “Verlegt nach Hadamar”. Die Geschichte einer NS-‘Euthanasie”-Anstalt. (Kassel: Historische Schriftenreihe des Landeswohlfahrtsverbandes Hessen, Katalogue Band 2., n.d.), p. 157.

143 Full text reprinted in Don’t Ever Let Them Get You, pp. 22–45.

144 Garni Sands, Act 2 full score, pp. 388ff.

145 The Gilt-Edged Kid, full score, bar 406.

146 The Age, 10 June 2009.

147 The Age, 1 July 2009.

148 The Age, 10 June 2009.

149 Richard Strauss, Elektra, full score, p. 268, figure 144a.

Index

Abbott, Anthony John

36

Adams, Brian

37

Adams, John

34

Adams, Phillip

24

Ahern, David

19

Alcorso, Claude

8, 19, 23, 25

Angelotti, Cesare

38

Antheil, George

34

Battersby, Jean

14, 15, 16, 17

Benthaak, Bernd

13

Berg, Alban

9

Berg, Charles

19, 25, 35

Beyer, Richard Edmund

3

Bonython, Kim

16

Brecht, Bertholt

9, 22, 29

Breuer, Wolfgang

36

Britten, Benjamin

3

Burckhard, Paul

4

Cameron, John

40

Casanova, Giacomo

4

Cass, Moss

18, 19

Challender, Stuart

39

Christesen, Clement Byrne

8

Clam, Mercier du Paty de

13

Coombs, Herbert Cole

7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23, 26

Covell, Roger

11, 18

Cowen, Zelman

19, 21, 35, 38

Cundall, Peter

29

Donovan, Brian

28

Douglas, Clive

11

Downes, Edward

1, 10, 21, 24

Dreyfus, Alfred (father of George)

27

Dreyfus, Alfred

13, 14, 17, 21, 27, 40

Dreyfus, George

1 passim.

Dreyfus, Hilde

22

Dreyfus, Kay

13, 15, 22, 29

Dreyfus, Mark

27

Dreyfus, Mathieu

14, 16

Dreyfus, Richard

19

Galen, Clemens August Graf von

40

Ghione, Franco

2

Ghislanzoni, Antonio

23

Gigli, Beniamino

2

Gillard, Julia

22, 36

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von

16

Grainger, Percy

24

Gross, Eric

19, 22

Grove, Robin

24

Hall, Stephen

2, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 21, 25

Hemmings, Peter

37, 41

Henry, Hubert-Loeph

21

Hince, Kenneth

13, 22

Hochhuth, Rolf

29

Hoffman, Robert

3

Hofmannsthal, Hugo von

4

Howson, Peter

19, 22

Humble, Keith

12

Kurt, Philip

22

Leoncavallo, Ruggero

3

Mackenzie-Forbes, Kenneth

14, 15

Mayfield, Peter

22

McCallum, John

4

McClelland, Douglas

19

McLachlan, Noel

24

McNamara, Robert

27

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

3, 11, 26

Murdoch, James

20, 28, 30

Murphy, Lionel

18, 28

Neidhardt, Elke

37

Öhlberger, Karl

3

Orff, Carl

3

Pam, Frank

28

Prichard, Katharine Susannah

7

Puccini, Giacomo

2, 19

Pugh, Cliff

23

Radic, Leonard

12, 18

Rankl, Karl

3

Reimann, Aribert

26

Respighi, Ottorino

41

Reznicek, Emil Nikolaus von

41

Rossini, Gioachino

10

Ruzicka, Peter

39

Salieri, Antonio

11

Schillings, Max von

3

Sculthorpe, Peter

14, 18, 26, 31, 35, 39

Schreker, Franz

3, 10

Sitsky, Larry

22, 31, 39

Stockhausen, Karl-Heinz

4

Strahan, Lynne

8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 26, 36, 39

Strahan, Frank

11

Strauss, Richard

3, 4, 9

Stravinsky, Igor

37

Sutherland, Margaret

20

Synge, John Millington

4

System of a Down

41

Tait, Frank

2

Tibbits, George

22, 29

Tintner, Georg

30

Tribe, Kenneth

39

Vaughan Williams, Ralph

4

Veitch, Patrick

39

Verdi, Guiseppe

2

Wagner, Richard

1, 3, 9, 19, 26, 38

Webern, Anton

1

Weill, Kurt

3, 9, 19, 26

Werder, Felix

12, 18, 22, 30, 31, 39

Wheeldon, John

18

Whitlam, Gough

23, 25, 30

Wilenski, Peter

25

Williams, Kim

28

Winther, John

25, 29, 30, 34, 37

Young, Gregory

28

Zemlinsky, Alexander von

37, 41

Zimmermann, Bernd Alois

9

Zola, Emile

14

Zweig, Stefan

39