A weekend of three significant operatic first nights, which also included Melbourne Opera’s Lucrezia Borgia and Victorian Opera’s Il Mago di Oz, hopefully signalled a change of fortune for the Melbourne opera scene. It commenced on Friday night with the revival of Elena Kats-Chernin’s first opera, Iphis, which draws on Ovid’s own reworking of a pre-existing Ancient Greek tale for his Latin narrative poem Metamorphoses in 8 AD.

Lyric Opera of Melbourne’s Iphis. Photo © Darren Gill

It tells the story of a poor couple, Lidgus and Telethusa, who are expecting their first baby. Lidgus warns Telethusa that if the child is a girl, they will have to kill her, as they cannot afford the associated costs of bringing a girl to adulthood, such as a dowry. When Telethusa does bear a daughter, the gods advise her to conceal its sex from her husband. Iphis is thus brought up as a boy.

The ruse, however, works too well. Now an adolescent, Iphis attracts the love of another girl, Ianthe, whose desire is soon passionately reciprocated. When a still-oblivious Lidgus suggests the two get married, the gods take pity on Iphis’s...