Why Voss?
Holmes, Robyn ; Plush, Vincent
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Rarely does an artistic work weave so many cultural influences as
to inspire a whole new journey of exploration some 50 years after its
creation. Such has been the legacy of Patrick White's novel Voss,
first published in 1957 and an iconic Australian narrative of journey,
exploration and discovery.
Through a remarkable series of seminars, concerts, events and
screenings, held in Canberra between 14 and 17 May, 12 organisations
embarked on a unique collaborative venture to explore Voss. Led by the
National Film and Sound Archive, with key contributions by the National
Library of Australia, AIATSIS, the Australian National University, the
National Portrait Gallery and Manning Clark House, 'The Voss
Journey' set out to investigate three main strands relating to the
novel:
* The novel's sources, meanings and myth-making.
* Its indigenous and non-indigenous pre-history, through the
journals, maps and scientific findings of the explorer Ludwig
Leichhardt, whose expedition diaries Patrick White so fastidiously recorded in his notebooks, and the colonial music history associated
with Leichhardt that was re-claimed by Richard Meale in his 1986 opera
based on the novel.
* The slow, unfurling cultural legacy of Voss over 50 years through
the transformation of the novel into other artistic forms--opera, film,
literature, painting, music, theatre, photography and ethnography--some
projects realised, some barely begun.
Peopled by a teeming cast of creative and public figures--a
cultural rollcall almost unparalleled in Australian history,
encompassing Patrick White, Sidney Nolan, Harry M. Miller, Jim Sharman,
David Malouf, Richard Meale, Moffatt Oxenbould, Peter Sculthorpe,
Manning Clark, Dr H.C. ('Nugget') Coombs, Curt and Maria
Prerauer and a host of others--webs of relationships and collaborations
formed, sustained and sometimes sundered around Voss. Nor could we pass
over major organisations that were catalysts in the Voss legacy: the
ABC, the Sydney Opera House, Opera Australia, Screen Australia
(encompassing the former Australian Film Commission), the Adelaide
Festival of Arts and the Sydney Film Festival. The historical timeline
http://www.nfsa.gov.au/voss.html we created represents an initial
research 'map' that shows the journey.
The National Library's special collection viewing brought
together items from over 15 manuscript collections, as well as a
selection of music, pictures, maps, programs, posters and rare books.
Visitors commented on the extent to which these myriad of collections
'spoke' to each other to uncover the elements and themes of
the Voss story. Perhaps most exciting was the presence of many of the
main protagonists, who told and relived their parts in the Voss story
through documents they had once created and long forgotten. Members of
staff were able to attend the viewing and relate brief accounts of their
professional experiences in describing and managing these collections.
The Library's seminar in which the key participants reflected
on the transformation of the novel into opera was memorable. The event
was enlivened by performances of two young singers from the ANU School
of Music, Ben Connor (as Voss) and Karen Fitz-Gibbon (as Laura
Trevelyan), with Alan Hicks accompanying. We were fascinated to hear an
alternative ending to the opera by Richard Meale and David Malouf,
reconstructed by Vincent Plush (a former composition student of
Meale's at the University of Adelaide) from sketches in
Meale's papers. Meale's reasons for discarding it were
poetically presented through the replay of excerpts from his recent oral
history for the Library.
Like many good ideas, 'The Voss Journey' began with a
simple notion and grew serendipitously. The event stimulated an
unprecedented cross-institutional voyage of discovery, replete with many
significant themes and multiple layers, but perhaps most notably
exploring the ways in which Australian artists and people interact with
their land and culture.
Robyn Holmes, Curator of Music, National Library of Australia
Vincent Plush, Head, Research and Development, National Film and
Sound Archive
