Jane Ede Takes Us to Shimmering Skies

October 15th, 2026 | Camilo Lopez

The Transition From Performer to Composer

It was one of those situations where 3 or 4 things came together at the same time, to point me in a new direction. 

The first thing was that I was experiencing a period of burnout at work, under the strain of juggling a portfolio career for many years. I had recently made a vow to clear some space in my schedule for a project that would reconnect me to the joy of creating something.

At the same time, I was facilitating a compositional workshop at OA and one of the composers asked me if I also composed. I brushed it off with ‘oh no, I’m just the facilitator’ and then went home and thought ‘but hang on, I used to be a composer, and I really loved it.’

And then the final piece of the puzzle was that I finished reading this incredibly vibrant Australian book and realised that I could see and hear it as a staged opera in my mind. 

So, I gave myself a month to compose the first scene and run it by Trent and a few other trusted pairs of ears, and everything just snowballed from there.

I think my performing experience informs the work in a number of key ways. I know voices, what they can and like to do, and that has definitely influenced the melodic lines- there’s a number of soaring tunes in the score that I know the artists enjoy singing. 

It also very much informed the adaptation of the novel to stage libretto, I have good knowledge of stage logistics, operatic conventions and what dramatically ‘works’ onstage. I also had some clear ideas about how I was aiming to extend the artform with this work. 

All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton

I was an early adopter of Trent’s novels, I love his writing style and always keep an eye out for his new books. I was reading All Our Shimmering Skies simply because it was a Trent Dalton book, so I was a little unprepared for just how much the power and emotion of Molly Hook’s story connected with me. I grew up in country NSW and the taciturn grittiness of the main characters really resonated, along with the Darwin historical setting and the soaring Australian landscapes.

It’s the scope of the novel that makes it feel so operatic to me. Opera conveys large emotions and dramatic intensity so well, and this novel is full of huge characters, dramatic events and big emotion. That and the fact that Molly regularly talks to the sky. As soon as I formed the idea of the chorus as the sky, I realised this book HAD to be an opera.

The development at Opera Australia

We spent four days putting scenes together musically with the principals, pianist and conductor, and then added the chorus and a percussionist for one day. The chorus had 3 hours to learn as much of the score as we could manage in the morning session, and then we ran most of Act One musically for an invited audience in the afternoon.

It was absolutely thrilling to hear the score with actual voices, as opposed to just in my head. Everyone did the most amazing job of bringing the characters and score to life.

I learned a lot about what details I might need to add to the score to aid coordination of the musical elements, but, thankfully, on the whole, I thought the showing confirmed a number of the myriad of musical and dramatic choices that I had made along the way.

I was grateful for the support that Opera Australia provided to the workshop, especially in regards to the chorus involvement, it made it possible to get a sense of how some of the key crowd scenes might work.

Creating a new Australian work

Everyone keeps using the word ‘ambitious’ about this project, but I have spent three decades of my life immersed in opera in Australia, so honestly a lot of this process has felt very natural to me, and relatively easy. I might regret that statement!

It helps that Trent’s text is so strong and evocative that it practically leapt off the page.

I think it will be a challenge to introduce myself to the operatic community as a composer, rather than a singer. And I think in the context of the post COVID arts landscape in Australia, there are numerous financial and audience building challenges involved with bringing any new work to the stage.

However, I launched a public fundraiser via Creative Australia to raise funds for this workshop and the response was overwhelming - it exceeded its target in less than twenty four hours. To me, this demonstrates how much of an appetite for this sort of work there is out there.

I am also endeavouring to make the opera as user friendly for Australian companies of all sizes as possible. It is deliberately written to be able to scale up or down to the resources available. It is my hope that it would be equally suitable to be performed by a Conservatorium or chamber festival as by the full forces of a state company or Opera Australia.

All Our Shimmering Skies and the Australian Operatic Landscape

Ultimately, I hope audiences will be completely swept away by the rollicking adventure and deep emotional truths of this opera. For me, the core of this opera speaks to finding the people that are your place of safety and who love you for exactly who you are.

As for its place in the operatic landscape, I think this work is an opportunity to bring contemporary Australian writing to the opera stage, it’s an opportunity to showcase a mix of cultures and languages onstage and it’s an opportunity to centre two very strong female characters, who finish the opera very much alive and headed towards a brighter future.

Image provided by aJane Ede