Few contemporary operas have received as many stagings as Pascal Duspin’s Passion. Since its premiere at Aix in 2008 (a visually sumptuous production by Giuseppe Frigeni, which Dusapin claimed at the time that he disliked), the 60-year-old French composer’s seventh opera has been seen in several different productions across Europe. His work meanwhile has barely been touched in Australia so Sydney Festival should be praised for helping Sydney Chamber Opera’s welcome Down Under premiere to receive two performances at City Recital Hall.

Pierre Audi’s spare yet thoughtful production (in fact the work’s second showing) was reportedly much more to the composer’s taste, and although Sascha Waltz’s choreographically voluptuous third staging demonstated how much ‘movement’ the work could handle, one suspects that the French-Lebanese director’s far more austere vision is more in keeping with Dusapin’s often restrained score. The libretto, by Dusapin and dramaturg Rita de Letteriis, explores universal themes of love, loss, isolation and experience and draws on the Orpheus legend with a bit of Dante and Beatrice thrown in (references to the poet’s dark wood and gazing at the stars). Written for a man (Lui) and a woman (Lei)...