ACOCO: Melbourne’s Intimate Opera Scene
Enjoying music beyond technology
The innovative Australian Contemporary Opera Company (ACOCO) has been operating since 2008, settling on its current name in 2020. ACOCO has a vision to prioritise human connection over technology, through contemporary music.
Carefully chosen performance spaces
When you enter a performance space for an ACOCO production, you have an instinct that what you are about to hear, will be intimate, personal, direct and powerful.
It’s because the performance space will have been carefully chosen to reflect the contemporary music that’s about to be performed. It may be Bendigo’s Langley Estate, an outdoor amphitheatre, the Primrose Potter Studio at the Melbourne Recital Centre or a space at the Malthouse Theatre. It will allow you as an audience member to connect with the performers. They won’t be dwarfed by huge stage sets. Their musical communication won’t be overwhelmed by technology, special effects or huge ensembles. You will be able to see the expressions on their faces.
The immersive performance spaces are one of the deliberate directions that Linda Thompson AM, founder and artistic director, has chosen for ACOCO. While a critical point of ACOCO is to showcase contemporary opera and music, it is almost as important to the company to do it in a way that deliberately prioritises human connection.
In performances I’ve attended in 2026, I’ve felt relevant as an individual and not simply an anonymous member of an audience. I’ve felt engaged with the singers, the instrumentalists and the characters they have portrayed. I have made real eye contact and felt personally connected with the story.
The performances tend to be about very contemporary stories, using the force of powerful and highly skilled musicians to tell them. They are not esoteric performances about past or distant scenarios. Rather they tend to focus on immediate 21st-century issues like imprisonment, displacement, unbalanced relationships, First Nations’ alienation or the departing beauty of Nature. Making the performances even more appealing is the fact that they are almost always in English and the diction of the performers is outstanding.
The performance may be a concert of art song, an opera or a mini-opera. It may take place outside, alongside artworks or in an historic building. Members of the ensemble may include international operatic performers like Christopher Hillier, baritone and sponsored Rising Stars in earlier career stages.
Collaboration with The Mietta Foundation and others
With human connection being such an important focus for ACOCO, collaboration is unsurprisingly another of their cornerstones. It includes collaboration with Anna Schwartz Projects to present the post-minimalist music of David Lang, within an art gallery. It includes collaborations in the form of commissions, such as that of a forthcoming opera “The Incident”, by indigenous composer William Barton.
A key collaboration in 2026 has been its association with the Mietta Foundation, and the delivery of the Mietta Foundation Song Series. This collaboration is a beautiful tribute to the late Mietta O’Donnell, a former Melbourne restaurateur. Her eponymous restaurant was a cornerstone of Melbourne’s dining scene in the late twentieth century. She was also an aficionado of art song, and a producer of musical salons at her restaurant. The young Linda Thompson performed art song at that very restaurant.
How appropriate then that Linda Thompson not only curated the concerts of art song that form the Mietta Foundation song series, but that they are performed in salon-like spaces under the Mietta Foundation banner. What a beautiful tribute to Mietta from the two collaborating organisations. The connection resonates with audiences too.
The music
Mietta appropriately said that art song “could pack more punch in one minute than an aria or chorus ten times longer and louder”.
Whether it’s art song in a concert environment or a contemporary opera, the audience needs the skill of the composer, the concert-curator or the artistic director, to deliver the musical experience. Fortunately, ACOCO gears its performances not only for the experienced musical ear, but also for the everyday person, albeit those who appreciate that the performing arts add a new perspective to day-to-day.
The intimacy of the environment and proximity of the performers, chosen from an incredibly talented pool, delivers something very personal. I felt I could enjoy the individual beauty of flute, piano, voice, strings, libretto/lyrics, rhyme, rhythm – and silence – at the performances. I could relate not only to the talent of the musicians, but also to their presence as real people. Even my own individuality seemed to matter. Room was somehow left for me to bring my own background into the experience.
Of course, ultimately the overall effect intended by the composer, curator or artistic director, is what you experience. Nevertheless, ACOCO performances seem to be very much in the here and now, never to be repeated.
I recommend that you let ACOCO “pack a punch” for you too, at one of their forthcoming performances.
Radiant, the first Mietta Foundation Song Series concert
Ode to Australia in song
I feel I’ve entered a new enchanted world since I was introduced to the Australian Contemporary Opera Company (ACOCO) earlier this year.
It’s an enchantment I felt for the second time when I joined an intimate gathering at the Primrose Potter Studio at the Melbourne Recital Centre. I experienced a performance of Radiant, the first in a three-part series of concerts, the Mietta Foundation Song Series.
I was bewitched by the siren-singing of two sopranos, one contralto and a pianist in a performance of the mythical tale of The Lorelei, transferred to an Australian environment by the poetry of Chris Wallace-Crabbe. I was mesmerised by the wordless “Eliza’s Song” performed by soprano Rachel Joyce and The Partridge String Quartet, and written by Australian Composer, Elena Kats-Chernin. And I experienced a time-shift to the Ned Kelly era with Letters from a Black Snake, Ned’s own words to the music of George Palmer.
The enchantment also comes from the whole fascinating style of this contemporary opera company. Take Ned Kelly. I’ve read books, seen films, enjoyed him in Sidney Nolan’s paintings and seen more different representations of his armour than I can count. But with the piano playing of Coady Green and the baritone voice of Christopher Hillier, I saw Ned brought to life in front of me, not just with the music and the words, but with the uncannily expressive face of the performer.
You see, this was a very intimate performance in the small studio space. The performers were not on a stage. They were in front of me, on my level. I could see their expressions, their mouths, Coady Green’s fingers on the piano keys, the string quartets’ plucking of the strings. I could hear every syllable. It was like being immersed in a new world, where drama depends on small details not massive sets and intricate costumes.
I feel privileged to even know about ACOCO and to be able to attend their performances. They are at the leading edge of new music. ACOCO and The Mietta Foundation celebrate the genre they call “art song”. I encourage you to step ever so slightly beyond your usual genre of entertainment to experience a future intriguing performance by ACOCO. It’s like nothing else!
Opportunities to see and hear ACOCO
September 13, 2026, 5 p.m. The Music of David Lang at Anna Schwartz Projects, 185 Flinders Lane, Melbourne. Book tickets
Saturday 26 or Sunday 27 September 2026, 2 p.m. Orpheus in the Amphitheatre, Fairfield Park. Book tickets
October 23, 2026. Mietta Song Series: Concert #2. “The Open Road”. Melbourne Recital Centre. Find tickets
November 1, 2026. Langley Estate, Bendigo. Mietta Song Series Regional Concert, featuring Christopher Hillier. Find tickets
December 16, 2026. Mietta Song Series: Concert #3. “All We Want for Christmas”, Christmas Songs from around the World. Melbourne Recital Centre. Find tickets
18–27 February 2027. ACOCO Festival. Nine days of new opera and song. Theatre. Concerts. Showcase. Film. More details
More articles by Marjie Courtis can be found at www.ozimage.com.au
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