Secret Opera review: Mystery in CBD as WA Opera and Wesfarmers event features Jessica Blunt and Brett Peart

A bubbling of backchat and murmuring of muzak greet guests to a 14th floor eyrie overlooking Elizabeth Quay on a September night, dark and dreary. Outside, the last of winter works its worst across metropolitan Perth, but indoors is light and easy; snug in the bosom of corporate hospitality. Welcome to the Wesfarmers Art Collection, where aesthetics and enterprise meet. A neon sign implores: “Please do not touch the artwork” – a reference to an eclectic selection of treasures, many on show in this salon among the storm clouds. Yet the real intangible is WA Opera’s latest Secret Opera, a mystery tour for a boutique audience lured to the CBD by text messages: “Please call 04** *** *** if you need assistance finding your secret location.” We’re all here, but so far no sign of a song. Singers, however, are artfully hidden in our midst. A mobile ring tone shatters the polite ambience as our Wesfarmers host welcomes visitors. “You’d better answer that,” she admonishes, as a woman discretely adorned in sequins guiltily acknowledges her social faux pas. Suddenly, bright soprano tones of Wesfarmers young artist Jessica Blunt fill the room in an old-new comedy; a dialogue of the deaf between lovers divided by technology. Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone, a musical sketch written 80 years ago, somehow fits the modern dysphoria of smartphone and tablet as Blunt’s would-be suitor and fellow Wesfarmers artist, baritone Brett Peart, struggles to get a word in. Operatic projection at close quarters is an acquired taste but this is a cognoscenti crowd, enthused and infused by music and a complimentary tipple of singing syrup. By now we’re wondering who else here is a secret singer. The two couples who very visibly take up strategic seating in the centre of the room? The silent single in the corner nursing a glass of bubbles? A fashionista in beaded ballet flats covering her finery with a raincoat? Meanwhile, the star duo are absorbed in a dysfunctional duet. Until he flounces out and she abruptly notices him by his absence. “He left me alone with my telephone,” she laments, and the mobile erupts again. This time it’s the hapless chap on the line with a proposal of marriage she so far studiously ignored. She accepts, and the centuries-old trail of operatic tragedies is broken in a rare happy-ever-after moment. Cue our (so far) secret pianist and WA Opera artistic director Chris van Tuinen, who thanks all with grace and gusto, offering champagne and cupcakes to celebrate the upcoming “nuptials”. Jessica Blunt and Brett Peart will both appear in WA Opera’s production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, running October 16-25 at His Majesty’s Theatre. Secret Opera will return in 2026.