Opera Australia Launches Season 2013

Opera Australia Launches Season 2013

Wagner and Verdi are the highlights of season 2013 for Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne.

The season was announced on the stage of the Sydney Opera House amidst rousing arias and fireworks.

The prospects for Opera Australia appear bright.

Already the Ring Cycle in Melbourne is all but sold out.

We were told at the launch of the gruelling preparation for the singers involved. They have to learn their own parts and cover for others in what must be a fiendishly challenging learning exercise.

John Bell will make his debut as an opera director. He will direct Puccini's Tosca.

Song and dance man Todd McKenney will also make his Opera Australia debut in Johnathan Biggins’ adaptation of Orpheus in the Underworld.

To mark the 200thanniversary of Verdi’s birth there will five of his opera’s staged in grand style.

Most striking is likely to be a new production of A Masked Ball in a co-production with Opera companies in Buenos Aires, Brussels and Norway by the La Fure Dels Baus company.

Other Verdi operas on the menu are Il Trovatore, Falstaff, La Traviata and The Force of Destiny.

The harbour opera will be Bizet's Carmen, directed by Gale Edwards.

Toscareturns but in more traditional terms than last time.

Hot on the heels of its triumphant opening, South Pacific returns for another month.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes made us all tremble at the launch with his stirring baritone tones.

Then the Can Can girls kicked up their heels to send us dancing out the door.

David Spicer

August 23, 2012

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