Henry Lawson was a prolific writer, writing mostly poems and short stories and is revered as one of Australia’s great poets. John Thorn has put some of these to music.
If the content does not deter you, and there are some whose dispositions might not cope, this is an example of fine acting in very difficult roles and well worth seeing for the performances and complex characterisations.
The title is a combination of the Indian word, raga, which means 'music that colours the mind', and the Tibetan word, Shambhala, which means 'the pure land', in Tibetan Buddhist tradition this is a mythical hidden land, what we might call Shangri La.
This merging of traditional Japanese Noh performance with western and indigenous Australian influences, along with a mix of music from both Japanese and Australian cultures, resulted in an enormously varied concert.