The Australian premiere of La Passion de Simone uses multiple voices to tell a story about philosopher Simone Weil. But the work lacks the emotional drama of its subject’s life.
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Articles on Opera
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Artaserse is an old Roman fable of treachery and the ethical power of clemency that becomes a psychological study of conflicting desires.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremburg) is a long, complex work. An ensemble performance by Opera Australia transports Wagner’s 16th-century guild of mastersingers to a modern-day men’s club.
“They have been crucifying Othello into an opera,” Lord Byron later wrote after watching Rossini’s opera. But the performance does much to highlight the play’s racial politics.
The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden has spent £50m to rejuvenate its image and shake off its elitist tag.
Pelléas and Mélisande tells a story of forbidden love between its title characters, set in the fictitious kingdom of Allemonde. However the action offstage before the opera’s 1902 premiere was just as dramatic.
Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes premiered in 1945, when the composer was 31. The work can be seen as an examination of the individual versus the community and the sinister potential of the collective.
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?
Opera Australia’s new production of Aida features movable LED panels with digital scenery. It’s part of a revolution transforming the art form.
In its original form, Rossini’s William Tell went for five hours. Yet soon after its 1829 debut it was being cut for the comfort of its audience. Its Overture - a mere 12 minutes - has become one of the most famous pieces of classical music.
Pinchgut’s typically excellent production of Athalia brings vividly to life the tale of the rogue Biblical queen.
Opera goers are high multiplier voters. Win them over and you might get a few more supporters along the way.
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.
Livecasting in cinemas is only part of the solution in the struggle to attract larger and younger audiences.
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.
One way to help opera lose its elitist image is to write new ones in regional accents. But can classically trained singers adapt their style?
We’re told VR will let distant audiences experience live shows from the comfort of their living room – but what if no one goes anymore?
It is a strange reality but opera as an artform is always given special and arguably preferential treatment by governments and other influential forces in Western society. This happens, it seems, regardless…
An austere, crystalline allegorical opera has been reinterpreted for our contemporary age.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor of Vocal Studies and Opera, University of Sydney
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Principal Fellow and Professor of Music, The University of Melbourne
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Program Manager, Researcher Development, Deakin University
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Lecturer in Creative Industries, The University of Melbourne
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Publications Editor / Research Fellow (Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation), Stellenbosch University
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Honorary associate, Sydney College of Arts, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Musicology, University of Sydney
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Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University
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Cellist and musicologist, University of Sydney
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Adjunct Associate Professor, Auckland University of Technology
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Senior Lecturer, Deakin Research Innovations, Deakin University
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Musicologist, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Music, City, University of London
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Professor of Collaborative Composition, University of Salford
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PhD candidate, The University of Melbourne
