It is rare to have a new production of an Australian opera - a vivid new performance of The Children’s Bach was refreshing to see.
- Associate Professor of Vocal Studies and Opera, University of Sydney
Australian operas have been written about many pressing topics - from the Stolen Generations to the Lindy Chamberlain case - but few have been staged a second time. What is going wrong?
A new opera explores the story of five girls who believed that debris from the World Trade Centre was lodged in their throats after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Neil Armfield’s production of the Brett Dean opera Hamlet is a confronting three hours in the theatre, but then so is Shakespeare’s play. The second act is devastating in its emotional impact.
Expatriate Australian director Barrie Kosky and Shostakovich’s modernist opera The Nose seem made for each other. It was sung in an expressive English translation - and the tap-dancing noses brought the house down.
The kinds of voices that can be used in a show like ABC’s The Divorce are certainly not typical of those one would hear in Madama Butterfly. But – and let’s be honest for a second – does it matter?
The Rabbits has adapted Shaun Tan’s evocative paintings and John Marsden’s spare storytelling into a rich and compelling “opera”.
Amid dwindling audiences and rising production costs, Australian opera is facing its first national review. So what are the solutions put forward so far?
One of the few Australian novels dealing with the first world war, David Malouf’s Fly Away Peter, has been adapted for the opera stage – and the Sydney Chamber Opera’s production is a great success.
Sydney Chamber Opera’s production of David Malouf’s 1982 novel Fly Away Peter opens this weekend. It’s not the first opera adaptation of Australian literature – and there are reasons to hope it’s not the last.
In any Opera History 101 course, Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) is cited as one of the most influential figures in the development of opera. And, of course, this is true. Gluck’s operas, and his…
Why is Opera Australia staging The King and I? The Rodgers and Hammerstein favourite is currently playing at the Sydney Opera House and has been a remarkably successful choice, commercially speaking. Even…
Jonas Kaufmann, currently the world’s hottest tenor, is a freak. Kaufmann, who will sing at the Sydney Opera House during his first Australian visit next month, has broken the mould for what might be expected…
One thing is for sure – the first performances of Henry Purcell’s baroque masterpiece Dido and Aeneas, currently playing at the Sydney Festival, would have been seen in a far less spectacular, and challenging…
Opera Australia is currently performing Richard Wagner’s most famous work, Der Ring des Nibelungen – The Ring Cycle – marking the bicentenary of the composer’s birth, at a reported cost of A$20 million…
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