Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a chamber opera

Chamber opera

Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...

 in two acts by Richard Mills

Richard Mills

Richard John Mills AM, DMus BA Qld, is an Australian conductor and composer. He currently works as Artistic Director of the West Australian Opera and Artistic Consultant with Orchestra Victoria...

 to a libretto by Peter Goldsworthy

Peter Goldsworthy

Peter Goldsworthy AM is an Australian writer and medical practitioner. He has won awards for his short stories, poetry, novels, and opera libretti....

, based on the play of the same name

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a pioneering Australian play written by Ray Lawler and first performed at the Union Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, on 28 November 1955...

 by Ray Lawler

Ray Lawler

Raymond Evenor Lawler is an influential Australian actor, dramatist and producer. His most notable play was his tenth, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll , which had its premiere in Melbourne in 1955. The play changed the direction of Australian drama...

. The opera was commissioned by the Victoria State Opera

Victoria State Opera

The Victoria State Opera, based in Melbourne, Australia, where it was founded in 1962 as the Victorian Opera Company, collapsed in 1996 due to financial difficulties. At this point, the former Australian Opera merged with this company and renamed itself Opera Australia, taking on the...

 and premiered on 19 October 1996 at the Playhouse

The Arts Centre (Melbourne)

The Victorian Arts Centre is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the inner Melbourne suburb of Southbank in Victoria, Australia....

in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

. It lasts about two hours. It was live simulcast on ABC Classic FM

ABC Classic FM

ABC Classic FM is a classical music radio station available in Australia, and internationally online. It is operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation . It was established in 1976 as "ABC-FM", and later for a short time was known as "ABC Fine Music" , before adopting its current name...

 on Australia Day

Australia Day

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia...

 (26 January) 1997

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 19 October 1996 Conductor: Richard Mills Richard Mills Richard John Mills AM, DMus BA Qld, is an Australian conductor and composer. He currently works as Artistic Director of the West Australian Opera and Artistic Consultant with Orchestra Victoria...
Pearl	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Elizabeth Campbell
Olive	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Gillian Sullivan
Bubba	soprano	Natalie Jones
Emma	soprano	Eilene Hannan
Barney	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Barry Ryan
Roo	bass-baritone Bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...	Gary Rowley
Johnnie Dowd	bass baritone	Nicholas Todorovic
		State Orchestra of Victoria
Director		Richard Wherrett Richard Wherrett Richard Bruce Wherrett AM was an influential and successful Australian theatrical director, whose career spanned 40 years.Richard Wherrett was born in 1940...
Design		Brian Thompson
Lighting		Nigel Levings
Costumes		Julie Lynch

Mills also used this musical material for his Symphonic Picture from Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.

For plot details, see the article on the play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a pioneering Australian play written by Ray Lawler and first performed at the Union Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, on 28 November 1955...

.