Fathers are protective of only daughters. Who can blame them? In The Merchant of Venice, Portia’s portrait lies in one of three metal caskets, and only the suitor who guesses the right one will win her hand. In Murray Ball’s prize-winning novel Eucalyptus (1998), Ellen Holland’s dad collects rare eucalyptus varieties by the hundreds, and the man who would marry her must identify them all. The adaptation by Opera Australia promises a score by Jonathan Mills that is “mysterious and colorful, with moments of dramatic intensity and hushed beauty.” The libretto, we’re told, is “poetic and spare.” Here’s hoping! Meredith Oakes, who wrote it, stumbled with The Tempest, for Thomas Adès—but putting words in the mouths of Shakespeare’s characters brings out few writers’ best. Desiree Frahn sings Ellen, opposite Simon Meadows as Pa Holland and Michael Petrucelli as the Stranger who had better have trees on the brain. —Matthew Gurewitsch