Melbourne’s Lyric Opera, the smallest of its four opera companies, continues to offer interesting repertoire of a kind we would otherwise be unlikely to see. May 2 brought the opening performance of Aaron Copland’s opera The Tender Land. After the shall we say broad humour of Simon Phillips’s production of Rossini’s 1814 opera buffa Il Turco in Italia the previous night (Opera Australia at the State Theatre, until 13 May), it was particularly welcome – pure water after one too many Aperols.

Copland’s opera, with its quirky history, is rarely heard. Copland, inspired by the Depression photographs of Walker Evans, composed it for television; his partner, Erik Johns (pseudonym Horace Everett), provided the libretto. Ultimately the NBC rejected it, and it was not until 1954 that Thomas Schippers conducted the first production at the New York City Opera, with Jerome Robbins directing. Copland later adapted the two-act score for a smaller orchestra, and it is this lucid reduction that makes performances of this kind possible. (Copland himself would go on to conduct a concert version in 1965.)