Yorta Yorta/Yuin soprano, composer, and artistic director Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO has created a family friendly opera based on an original story from Wadawurrung Country.

Parrwang Lifts The Sky: A Dreamtime Opera is set to premiere to a live audience on 7-8 July at Arts Centre Melbourne's Playhouse as part of NAIDOC week.

Featuring some of Australia's finest operatic talent including First Nations artists Shauntai Sherree, Jessica Hitchcock, Cheetham Friallion herself and members of the Dhungala Children's Choir.

Parrwang Lifts The Sky prompts you with a question: did you know that the magpies created the first dawn?

As the story goes the sky was a blanket on the land, The earth was in darkness and the people were afraid. It was a very sad state of affairs and would have stayed that way except for the courage of young Parrwang the magpie.

Tjatja (Jessica Hitchcock) and Koki (Michael Petruccelli) are young, adventurous and tired of living in the dark. When they manage to climb to the highest branches of an ancient gum tree they discover an exciting new world and a steadfast friend in Parrwang - who decides to help the young humans lift the blanket of darkness from the ground.

A plan is devised - but can Parrwang (Rebecca Rashleigh) convince Mr Waa (Eamon Dooley), Bunjil (Adrian Tamburini) and the Great Council of Birds (Dhungala Children's Choir) to agree?

Ms Cheetham Fraillon AO said Parrwang Lifts The Sky was about the relationship between humans and nature.

"The Parrwang story provides us with a joyful metaphor for life and the quest for knowledge and understanding," she said.

"It is a celebration of friendship and the courage it takes to speak truth to power,"

"I am grateful Aunty Corrina Eccles and the Wadawurrung people who have demonstrated great generosity by sharing this story with me so that it might be shared with children everywhere," said Cheetham Fraillon

This NAIDOC week season will be the first opportunity for a live audience to see the production after the 2021 Victorian Opera performances were cancelled due to COVID lockdown.