"Not hunger, it’s not hunger, but power. My power."
- Comfort Starving, Bell
About this performance
Triple Bill explores three intimate stories of relationships and connection to oneself, a former partner, and a parent and child. Through three short works, this program reveals how inner emotional worlds alone can sustain powerful opera performances.
At its core is Francis Poulenc’s The Human Voice, a groundbreaking monodrama that strips opera back to a single voice and a final phone call with a lost lover—raw, exposed, and devastatingly human.
The program continues with the Australian premieres of two contemporary works by internationally acclaimed composers Iain Bell and Jake Heggie. Bell’s Comfort Starving, presented in Australia for the first time, is a confronting portrait of teenage anorexia, particularly within the LGBTIQA+ community, capturing the physical and psychological turmoil behind an outward condition. Heggie’s Facing Forward / Looking Back explores a mother–daughter relationship shaped by memory, distance, and the search for understanding.
With no grand sets or spectacle, Triple Bill places the voice and the mind at the centre. This is opera at its most intimate - where emotional truth takes the stage.
Program
Francis Poulenc The Human Voice— a devastating portrait of heartbreak
Iain Bell Comfort Starving — centred on male teenage anorexia (Australian premiere)
Jake Heggie Facing Forward / Looking Back - a mother-daughter reflect on the past while seeking understanding in the present (Australian Premiere)
Details
Accessible Venue
Performed in French and English with English Surtitles
August 20, 2026 - 7pm
August 21, 2026 - 7pm
Saint Andrew's Uniting Church
110 minutes
Tickets
Adult $65
Concession $50
Under 30 $30
Listen
Credits
Comfort Starving
Music by Iain Bell
Published by Chester Music
By kind permission of the Wise Music Group
Facing Forward / Looking Back
Music by Jake Heggie
Poetry by Charlene Baldridge, Raymond Carver, Armistead Maupin, Eugenia Zuckerman and Jake Heggie
By arrangement with Bent Pen Music, Inc., publisher and copyright holder.
Sole Agent: Bill Holab Music.
Triple Bill image by Ronan King-Rose
@rkrphotog












