It’s the gift that keeps on giving and Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife is now being adapted into an opera. While the play, novel and film versions have garnered significant attention, including an NSW Premier’s Literary Award and international screenings, the opera adaptation represents a new frontier for this reimagining of Henry Lawson’s 1892 classic short story.
Purcell was co-commissioned for the project by QPAC and Opera Australia. It’s a monumental new work based on the previous incarnations but it won’t stop there.
“I’m doing a children’s book and a game too,” says the talented performer from Murgon in Queensland, who is in pre-rehearsal mode when we chat. “We thought we were done with the story then someone said, what about an opera,” adds Purcell.
‘The opera is a confluence of the First Nations tradition of chant and dance and the western operatic tradition’
She and her partner in life, business and creativity, Bain Stewart, couldn’t say no when approached by Australian composer George Palmer. Palmer said he wanted to write an opera that was quintessentially Australian, both in its subject matter and musical expression. The powerful drama of the play, The Drover’s Wife, provided the perfect vehicle.
“The opera is a confluence of the First Nations tradition of chant and dance and the western operatic tradition,” Palmer says. “Those traditions, each true to itself, come together without losing their identities and each complements the other, adding textural and contextual richness to the music and the story.”
When Purcell and Stewart spoke about the project a few years ago to then QPAC chief executive John Kotzas, he was enthusiastic. “He said, ‘absolutely – and I have the perfect venue’,” Purcell recalls.
And so it has come to pass that The Drovers- Wife – The Opera will have its world premiere in QPAC’s new Glasshouse Theatre in May 2026. It will be part of the theatre’s opening season, which is serendipitous.
“It’s the second time I will be involved in helping open a theatre,” Purcell says. “I was in the Playhouse next door for the first production there, The Marriage of Figaro.” That was in 1998. She shared the stage with a cavalcade of Australian stars including Geoffrey Rush and Bille Brown.
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The new theatre’s name has only recently been announced and I mention to Purcell that there had been the suggestion that the theatre be named after a Queensland great – and her name was one put forward. The Leah Purcell Theatre would have been an interesting choice, but Purcell was completely unaware it was even suggested.
“Holy Moley,” she says. “I did not know that. You’ve made my day.”
The Drover’s Wife was adapted and reimagined by Purcell into a play that premiered at Belvoir in 2016. Purcell’s novel, The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson, was published in 2019, and the film of the same name was released in Australia in 2022.
George Palmer’s score for the opera will be performed live by Queensland Symphony Orchestra. This new version reveals the symphonic soul of Purcell’s modern classic in its most expansive telling yet. The opera’s libretto is written by Purcell – and that’s still a work in progress as she admits there’s quite a bit of hard yakka ahead before rehearsals next year.
Queensland award-winning soprano Nina Korbe – who recently appeared as Maria in West Side Story on Sydney Harbour – will take on the titular role of Drover’s Wife Molly Johnson. Korbe’s star is on the rise and there’s a lovely synergy between her and Purcell, who just happens to be Korbe’s aunt.
The story is a very Australian one. With her husband away droving sheep, a heavily pregnant Molly is left alone to care for her children in a remote Snowy Mountain shanty, where between the bullocks and hostile travellers on her doorstep, she faces no shortage of threats.
Purcell’s adaptation offers a powerful Indigenous perspective, centring on the character of Molly Johnson and exploring themes of motherhood, resilience and the challenges faced by Aboriginal women in colonial Australia. (Purcell has both Aboriginal and European heritage.)
Fellow Queensland singer-songwriter Marcus Corowa (Opera Queensland’s Festival of Outback Opera, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) will play Yadaka, an Aboriginal man evading colonial authorities, who disrupts Molly’s hard-won sanctuary.
Under the baton of music director Tahu Matheson, luscious orchestrations will capture the beauty and violence of the Australian High Country, where grand opera traditions will meet contemporary First Nations storytelling.
The unforgiving Snowy Mountains will be realised by set designer Isabel Hudson and costume designer Tess Schofield, with lighting designer Karen Norris and sound designer Michael Waters.
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The full cast, including six dancers under the direction of choreographer Yolande Brown (Bangarra Dance Theatre), will be announced soon.
Her mother, Florence, remains an inspiration and The Drover’s Wife ongoing project is a lovely tribute to her
Purcell is more than ready for this challenge. Her body of work is significant and she has directed and appeared in film and television series including The Last Cab to Darwin, Lantana, Wentworth and Redfern Now.
Her work often accentuates family and connections to country and her play Box the Pony, based on her mother and grandmother’s lives, was a huge success. Her mother, Florence, remains an inspiration and The Drover’s Wife ongoing project is a lovely tribute to her. It was her mum who introduced her to the Henry Lawson story when she was a girl.
“I was five years old when my mother first read it to me,” Purcell recalls. “I carried that story with me for 40 years before I decide to write the play.”
Her mother gifted her the little book of short stories that contained The Drover’s Wife and it is a prized possession, a talisman and a spiritual touchstone.
Admittedly, Lawson’s story is told from a white perspective but Purcell has cleverly created a version that straddles both the worlds of the colonised and the colonisers. It is told without bitterness but with an eye to truth telling. She reckons Lawson would be OK with it.
“I had a yarn to Henry,” she says. “I said – I’m diving into your story – and he said it was about time we told the truth about our country.”
Purcell is at home dealing with what is essentially a musical, which will be sung in English and some Indigenous language. She does have a musical background and once had a band – LPG – no, not Liquefied Petroleum Gas but, rather, the Leah Purcell Group.
“I was once the support act to Shania Twain,” she says. “That was before the acting took off. Doing an opera is different but I find it exciting to do something that will scare and challenge me. In high school I did musical theatre and I have seen a lot of opera over the last couple of years.”
It will be a production that will appeal to students as well as all age groups.
QPAC chief executive Rachel Healy says the world premiere of The Drover’s Wife – The Opera would be a highlight of the Glasshouse Theatre’s opening program.
“The Glasshouse opens as a space for stories that matter, and Leah Purcell’s celebrated take on The Drover’s Wife is exactly that,” Healy says.
“Leah’s vision and voice, paired with George Palmer’s evocative score, promises to deliver a work that is visceral, unflinching and stirringly Australian. It’s a fitting beginning for a theatre built to hold the weight of powerful stories and thrilling performances.
“Following an encore season of Leah’s lauded Is That You, Ruthie? earlier this year and the epic ambition of Wagner’s Ring Cycle with Opera Australia in 2023, we are thrilled to be uniting a team of our regular collaborators to again create work of national significance that Queenslanders will see first.”
The Drovers Wife – The Opera, Glasshouse Theatre, QPAC, May 13-22, 2026.
qpac.com.au