Category: OPERA

Opera’s back! Opera Australia’s 2021 season kicks off

Merry Widow Opera

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Updated: 16/11/2022

In what’s probably the best piece of news to start 2021 with, Opera Australia’s back. After a hiatus of what felt like forever because of the pandemic, a brand new season has just been announced, kicking off with a show in English that everyone can appreciate. With emotions flying, the leadership of Opera Australia announced the Merry Widow will take to the stage at the Sydney Opera House in all its 50s art deco glamour. This is on from 5 January. Followed by Verdi’s Ernani in collaboration with La Scala in Milan, it’s a first for Opera Australia and the Opera House, shining a light on the magic of Verdi’s Italian classics. Followed by other classics like Tosca and a few other firsts, Opera Australia is stopping at nothing to return its singers to the stage in their world-class best. Watch below to see more about the season ahead or head to the Opera Australia website.

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, FEATURES, LIFESTYLE, OPERA

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The Marriage of Figaro is back with Stacey Alleaume taking stage

Stacey Alleaume Mirrage Figaro

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Posted: 08/09/2019

Since joining the program in 2016, Melbourne-born opera singer Stacey Alleaume has kicked goal-after-goal. From making us laugh out loud in her 2018 role in The Turk in Italy to making us cry as Violetta Valery in La Traviata of the same year, she’s a star on the rise and one the company’s thankful for in the 2019 season where Stacey will take on the role of Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. Stacey will share the role with fellow soprano, Julie Lea Goodwin who crushed her role as Wendy in the Australian focused production of the famed artist Brett Whiteley in Whiteley. Alongside Paolo Bordogna – who Stacey has worked very closely with previously in The Turk in Italy – who’ll bring his charming Italian flavoured baritone skills to the stage as Figaro Set in the 1600s – a good century before Mozart actually wrote the opera – it’s a spectacular take on the highs and lows of a tale that makes a hero of the underclass, highlights the class divisions of the time and foreshadows the French Revolution that was brewing on the near horizon. See more about the production and get your tickets at the Opera Australia website.

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, CITIES, LIFESTYLE, OPERA, SYDNEY

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Opera Australia’s got a new, large season for 2020

Opera-Aida-2

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Posted: 22/08/2019

Opera Australia is making good use of those floating 3D digital screens of theirs for the latest season of operatic magic at the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House in 2020 – it’s going to be large! They’ll pump out a range of opera’s greatest hits along with some rare gems that will feature the best talent from around the world including a record number of alumni from OA’s Young Artists Program. The likes of Renée Fleming, Jennifer Rowley and Carmen Topciu to name just a few will make their cameos, alongside some other OA favourites. Meanwhile Melbourne will see a return of Graeme Murphy’s Madama Butterfly, which will be the first of the Company’s critically acclaimed digital productions to be performed in the State Theatre. For more, head to the Opera Australia website.

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, LIFESTYLE, OPERA

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Jonas Kaufmann is back in Sydney to tell the tragic love story of Andrea Chénier

Jonas Kaufmann

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Posted: 23/07/2019

It was back in 2017 when the renowned tenor they call the ‘new Pavarotti’, Jonas Kaufmann graced Sydney’s shores and this year, he’s back again. He took on Parsifal at the Sydney Opera House – a challenge worthy of getting excited about – in a series of three performances of the Wagner work that sold the Joan Sutherland Theatre out. One of the world’s most renowned tenor’s with the voice and smile to prove it, Kaufmann will take on the role of Andrea himself alongside fellow cast members, Eva-Maria Westbroek and Ludovic Tézier, both making their Opera Australia debuts. Kaufmann will take to the stage on Thursday 8 and Sunday 11 August at the Sydney Opera House. See more at the Opera Australia website.

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, CITIES, LIFESTYLE, OPERA, SYDNEY

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Hear Opera Australia’s orchestra director perform at the Sydney Opera Centre

Jun Yi Ma

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Posted: 19/07/2019

If there was ever anyone to play a violin in precisely the way a violin is meant to be played, it’s Jun Yi Ma, Opera Australia’s orchestra director. In the production that is Under an Azure Sky in the Joan Sutherland Studio, Jun Yi Ma will recite the piece on 26 August from 7pm. The studio is known for its rich, acoustic walls and intimate setting, which Opera Australia will harness to continue its series of intimate recitals with a Mediterranean influenced performance. Pianist and Chorus Master Siro Battaglin will accompany Jun Yi Ma as they perform Under an Azure Sky as a small, but poignant ensemble that includes Ravel’s ethereal Introduction and Allergro, and Turnia’s Las musas de Andalucí along with further accompaniment from members of the Opera Australia Orchestra. Find the Joan Sutherland Studio at The Opera Centre, 480 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills. See more at the Opera Australia website. Tickets from $65 + 8.50 transaction fee.

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, CITIES, LIFESTYLE, OPERA, SYDNEY

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Opera Australia is going fully digital for their premieres

Opera-Aida-2

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Posted: 05/06/2019

It was back in 2018 that Opera Australia first introduced their new digital screens in Aida. They fly around the stage, producing incredible images of stage props, striking colours and engaging projections that singers, the choir and stage actors move around seamlessly like they’re barely there. Here’s a refresher: Pegged as the opera of the future, Opera Australia is bringing them back again, only this time, instead of limiting it to one production, they’re turning them out for all of them. They’re the first company in the world to present a fully digital season of three brand new productions when it opens its Sydney Winter Season on 28 June 2019 in Sydney. Starring at the world renowned Sydney Opera House, Madama Butterfly – perfectly timed too, given its last production by Moffat Oxenbould wound-up last year – Anna Bolena and Whiteley will benefit for the digital treatment, no doubt wowing everyone who’s there to see it. They work thanks to fourteen, 7-metre high suspended LED screens that are choreographed to move seamlessly around the stage, creating a visual landscape that needs to be seen to be believed, and taking opera to a whole new level. See more and get tickets to the productions at the Opera Australia website.

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, CITIES, LIFESTYLE, OPERA, SYDNEY

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Opera for One: The new initiative for opera lovers who go it alone

La Traviata 2018 Opera Australia brindisi

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Updated: 16/11/2022

If you love opera, but your friends just don’t get it, then never fear: your days of going to the opera to see the wowing productions of Opera Australia are over. OA are introducing ‘Opera for One’, a new initiative for people who’ve for too long, enjoyed the dazzling highs of Carmen and the heart-wrenching plights of La Traviata by themselves. For the upcoming autumn season of opera in Melbourne, Australia, OA found that the number one reason people do not attend the opera is because they have no one to go with. One in five people said they had not yet seen a performance because they were unwilling to go on their own. Opera for One, the incredible new initiative by Australia’s largest opera production company aims to bring together solo attendees so they have someone to enjoy the show with and chat to during those awkward moments pre-show, during interval and that all-important post show critique. How it works is simple: If you’ve bought an Opera for One ticket, you’ll be invited to complimentary drinks and canapès an hour before the performance to meet other solo guests in a welcoming and relaxed environment. The group will be treated to a pre-performance talk by a member of the OA creative team before all being seated together for the show. The upcoming opera season in Melbourne includes these shows, which you can more easily visit alone now, if you’ve always wanted to, or just if you prefer it that way! RIGOLETTO State Theatre, Arts Centre… Read More

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, FEATURES, LIFESTYLE, OPERA

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Oscar and Lucinda in Sydney: Carriageworks, Sydney Chamber Opera produce world premiere

Oscar Lucinda

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Posted: 01/05/2019

Australia’s artistic triumph of a book by the same name will make it onto the stage thanks to Carriageworks Sydney and its resident opera company, the Sydney Chamber Opera. Composer Elliott Gyger will join forces with librettist Pierce Wilcox to transform Peter Carey’s novel Oscar and Lucinda into a new Australian opera from 27 July – 3 August 2019.  Directed by Opera Queensland Artistic Director and CEO Patrick Nolan, the work reimagines the love story between the orphaned proto-feminist industrialist and the man who believes he is touched by God. Having nothing in common, except their addiction to gambling, Oscar and Lucinda find each other in colonial-era Sydney with a wild dream: to build a cathedral of pure glass, and to walk it into the Australian outback. “Elliott is one of this country’s greatest composers, with an originality, refinement and savage beauty that sounds like no one else. Seeing the score develop into our most ambitious and large-scale new work, filled with astonishingly vivid characters, colours and sounds has been a deeply exciting experience. Elliott has created a modern Australian epic without ever relying on the tired clichés of Australiana – a feat worth celebrating as we interrogate the history and stories that make up this complex country. Give him one instrument and he’ll make a world; give him 16 instruments and 6 singers and he’ll create a universe,” said Sydney Chamber Opera artistic director Jack Symonds.  Tickets on Sale 3 May, 2019 at the Carriageworks website.

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, CITIES, LIFESTYLE, MUSIC, OPERA, SYDNEY

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Coming this June: A movie about the one-and-only tenor Luciano Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti

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Posted: 16/04/2019

The trailer to what may very well be the movie of the year for opera lovers has dropped and it’s all kinds of good news. Since the tenor of tenors died in 2007, the world of opera performances has been left somewhat void. Of course, there’s the likes of Jonas Kaufmann, Diego Torre and basically the entire cast of Opera Australia, but The Pav was different. The movie tells the tale that not many know about the larger-than-life superstar. We all know he put opera on the map, had a look all his own and a voice you can recognise within the first few bars, but who was the man himself? That’s a lot about what the movie sets out to tell the story of. The movie named Pavarotti is a compelling look at the life of an icon who brought opera to the people. Academy Award-winner Ron Howard gives audiences a front row seat for an exploration of The Voice… The Man… The Legend. Out on Decca records from 7 June 2019.

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, LIFESTYLE, OPERA

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Royal Opera’s Big Screens: Watch performances from anywhere in the UK this summer

Carmen production image (C) ROH. Photo by Bill Cooper

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Updated: 08/04/2019

In 24 locations all around the UK, the best of British culture by the Royal Opera will be broadcast – thanks to BP Big Screens – for everyone to enjoy. Putting on classics like Romeo and Juliet (11 June), Carmen (2 July) and The Marriage of Figaro (9 July), the Royal Opera will broadcast live to locations across the UK like at Aberdeen’s Duthie Park, Castle Square in Swansea, Walton Halls and Gardens in Warrington and all the way down to Bembridge in the Isle of Wight. What else in on? Well, nothing but the best. 11 June at Covent Garden will show Kenneth MacMillan’s celebrated ballet Romeo and Juliet 2 July will see the screening of the award-winning director Barrie Kosky’s exuberant take on Bizet’s Carmen. And, on 9 July, the Royal Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro will be screened. Mozart’s greatest comedy is given a sumptuous staging by David McVicar, its stunning score is fast-moving in this hilarious production with ravishing duets and emotionally potent arias. The Big Screens have been running since 1987 and smashed out over 41,500 audience members between the lot of them last year alone. It’s a popular endeavour by the Royal Opera and it’s easy to see why. There is a seriously large number of places to catch some of the headlining screenings. Here they all are: Romeo and Juliet, 11 June 2019: Trafalgar Square (London); Cressing Temple Barns (Essex); Trinity Square (Hull); Sandy Balls Holiday Village, The New Forest (Hampshire); Television Centre, White City (London); Walton Hall… Read More

Category: ARTS & CULTURE, CITIES, LIFESTYLE, LONDON, OPERA

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