This September IOpera presents a short season of two operas in English–The Old Maid and the Thief (a satirical comedy by Gian Carlo Menotti), and The Turn of the Screw (a gothic drama with music by Benjamin Britten and a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, after the novella by Henry James).
Each is an operatic gem in its own right. Performed together the two works also reveal several shared dramatic interests, such as how love can drive us to do foolish things, and how our sense of reality is, well, not always what it seems….
Both operas will be performed in the intimate surrounds of the Athenaeum II Theatre, Melbourne.
The Old Maid and the Thief
Thursday, 18 September 7.30pm
Saturday, 20 September 1.30pm
Gian Carlo Menotti’s wittily satirical and sharp comedy of suburban manners and forbidden desire!
Originally written for radio in 1939, this masterful one-act work has since gone on to be one of the most performed of twentieth century operas, full of the kinds of dramatic and musical bravura that made Menotti arguably the most successful composer of opera in English of the past century.
A fast-paced opera buffa, it cleverly exposes the secret desires of two residents of a small town whose world is unexpectedly turned upside down by the arrival of a handsome stranger. Their once rock-solid concern for social propriety quickly falls away in the presence of this object of desire. But who exactly is he?
Delivered by a cast of rising operatic talent.
Cast:
Miss Todd: Saskia Mascitti
Laetitia: Teresa Ingrilli
Bob: Nick Beecher
Miss Pinkerton: Lisette Bolton
Narrator: Daniel Felton
Stage Director: Lisette Bolton
Conductor: Peter Tregear (18 September) and Christopher Hillier (20 September)
Stage Manager: Maria Woolford
Content Warnings: This opera includes loud and sudden noises, partial nudity as well as light sexual references.
The Turn of the Screw
Wednesday, 17 September, 7.30pm
Saturday, 20 September, 4.30pm
Benjamin Britten’s opera, composed in 1954, is a gripping setting of the famous novella by Henry James of strange goings-on in a remote English manor house. There, a young governess has been employed to care for two children—Flora and Miles—but she quickly discovers that nothing is quite as it first seems. As she struggles to protect the children from increasingly sinister forces that seem to surround them, her sense of what is real and what is not becomes thrillingly blurred.
The Turn of the Screw stands as one of the most successful operas of the past hundred years. Its evocative music, scored for a chamber orchestra of 13 players, brilliantly captures the psychological tension and eerie ambiance of this classic gothic tale.
The cast includes some of Australia’s most accomplished operatic performers, including Elena Xanthoudakis, Lee Abrahmsen, and Robert Macfarlane.
Cast:
The Governess: Elena Xanthoudakis
Prologue and Quint: Robert Macfarlane
Miss Jessel: Lee Abrahmsen
Mrs Grose: Amanda Windred
Flora: Breanna Stuart
Miles: Roberta Diamond
Stage Director: Robert Macfarlane
Conductor: Peter Tregear
Stage Manager: Maria Woolford
How to get tickets
Use the book tickets button’s above to access Ticketmaster.
Each opera will only be performed twice, so tickets are limited.