The Magic Pudding – The Opera

Turning Norman Lindsay’s 100-year-old story book into a one-hour children’s opera might seem a tall order – but like the pudding itself, Victorian Opera keeps returning for more helpings. The opera’s third season of the work plays in Melbourne and surrounds during May. The director of the revival, Elizabeth Hill-Cooper, describes the recipe to David Spicer. 

DS: At first blush, the combination of The Magic Pudding and opera sounds like a bit of an odd partnership. How do the genres blend?

EH: Very well. This was commissioned by Richard Mills back in 2012. Richard - a very prolific composer - understood the marrying of composers and librettists with a particular work. Calvin Bowman has such a delightful musical language. And Anna Goldsworthy is a master at libretto adaption. It was just a perfect marriage, and it was such a sweet work. The audiences adored it. It is very accessible. 

DS:  Tell me about the actual production. What are its features?

EH:  We worked pretty hard to have the look of it as close as possible to those gorgeous Norman Lindsay lithograph sketches that you see littered through all the books. So, the main protagonists are dressed as a penguin and a koala. We marry some of the original lithograph pictures from the book.

There's a gorgeous Australian background that was painted by our original designer, Chloe Greve, and then the whole thing is sort of tied together by a Narrator dressed as a sulphur crested cockatoo. It's often a call and answer sequence between the narrator cockatoo with the chorus. 

DS: And tell us about the scenic effects of the production.

EH: We have kept the original design that Chloe gave us. A beautiful scenically painted backdrop. It is designed to go into a venue in one day ready to be performed at night. There's a big cockatoo stick which looks like a tree.  Essentially it’s a rolling ladder that has wooden pieces placed all over it.  The cast can climb up the ladder and be sitting in the top of the tree. And then there's a log that the hedgehog comes in and out of next to a  campfire.

DS:  And is it staged with a large ensemble?

EH:  The very first time we did it we had 35 chorus members split into two, starting the piece sitting either side. It's sort of set in the Australian bush, and they look like they're sitting around a campfire.

DS: Will there be a chorus for this run? 

EH: Yes, we partner with the University of Melbourne Master of Music (Opera Performance), so we've got about 10 members of that group that will form the chorus and take some of the smaller roles.

DS: I take it Albert the pudding is the pièce de resistance.

EH:  Well, the pudding in this version is a puppet that the singer manipulates as he sings. The pudding sort of sits halfway up to the waistline of the performer and is tied onto his feet. Albert is a brown pudding with a bowl hat. 

DS: Where is it being staged? 

EH:  We are doing it at  three different venues from May 15 – 30 at The Round, Darebin Arts Centre and Bunjil Place.

https://www.victorianopera.com.au/production/the-magic-pudding/

Photographer: Charlie Kinross