The Bone Feeder Play

The Bone Feeder is an opera that was commissioned by Auckland Arts Festival in 2015 and presented in association with New Zealand Opera, with a libretto written by playwright Renee Liang and music composed by Gareth Farr. Moving between the present day and the late 19th century, it tells the story of the SS Ventnor, a ship that was taking the bodies of 499 Chinese gold miners back to Guangdong in 1902, to be buried in their villages. The ship sank off the coast of the Hokianga harbour and while some of the bones and coffins washed ashore — with local iwi taking care of the remains and burying them — many of the bodies remained lost.

The opera follows a fictional young Chinese New Zealander named Ben who is tracing his ancestry to Mitimiti. Aided by a local ferryman, he eventually finds the bones of his ancestor and puts him to rest. Performed in a mixture of Māori, English and Cantonese, Gareth Farr’s composition mirrored this weaving of cultures through an orchestra that featured Chinese instruments like the dizi, erhu and guzheng, Māori taonga pūoro, and Western instruments like the violin, cello and marimba.

The work was adapted from a play of the same name, first written and performed in 2009 as part of Liang’s postgraduate diploma (with Liang directing). It went on to tour Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival and the Palmerston North Festival of Cultures in 2010 (directed by Simon Zhou), before having its professional premiere at TAPAC in November 2011 (directed by Lauren Jackson), combining theatre with “aerial stunts and martial arts, live music, shadow play and dance.” After seeing the work, Auckland Arts Festival Artistic Director Carla van Zon approached Liang to adapt it. “I liked the surreal nature of it and thought it would make an interesting opera with its story in different worlds,” she recalls. For Liang, core to the work was an exploration of a Chinese diaspora experience. “Essentially, how do you decide where you belong? What’s the process of realising where you belong?”

Reviewing the premiere production for Theatrescenes, critic Nathan Joe praised its “emotional depth and cultural nuance”, observing that “as a first-time librettist, the potent metaphors and imagery Liang evokes play to her strengths as a poet instead of the plotting or narrative we associate with playwriting.” Similarly, Metro’s David Larsen described the libretto as “a witty, nimble mix of many elements, poetic, expressive, impressive on many levels”. He adds, however, that “The opera does not so much tell its story as refer to it; to know exactly what happened to the Ventnor and why it matters, and how Hokianga iwi became involved, you'll want to have consulted the programme booklet beforehand”. Nevertheless, he says, “This is absolutely a show worth seeing.”

Listen to The Bone Feeder in full

The Bone Feeder (blog about the original work)

Nathan Joe review for Theatrescenes