Opera Australia launches 2024 Sydney season with five-show “mini festival”

 

A fresh, feminist La traviata. An acrobatic Orpheus & Eurydice. Mozart’s Magic Flute and Handel’s Theodora reimagined for the times we’re in. And no La bohème.

The first part of Opera Australia’s 2024 season has launched and it’s not a business-as-usual proposition.

Programmed by OA’s Guest Creative Director Lindy Hume, this summer suite of five productions, all new to Sydney audiences closes the chapter on the Artistic Directorship of Lyndon Terracini while holding the fort until the arrival of incoming Artistic Director Jo Davis, who takes over the reins of the company in 2024.

Hume was invited to curate what amounts to a pop-up season while the selection process for OA’s new Artistic Director was still underway. “I was very much of the mind that I didn’t want to set any particular direction or agenda with my programming,” she tells Limelight.

“In my mind, it was a stand-alone season, a mini-festival. But what I did want it to do was reflect Sydney in the summer and the sense of optimism and openness to ideas it has. That’s why I’ve programmed Enlightenment works like Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Idomeneo, and Handel’s Theodora. In different ways, they are all philosophical provocations, they ask you to think about what a new Enlightenment might be.”

Enlightenment-era composers have taken something of a back seat at OA in recent years, says Hume. “I totally get that, we all have different tastes, but coming to this after the pandemic and with people really looking for a new sense of direction, works like The Magic Flute and Theodora can really speak to where we’re at.”

OA’s 2024 season opens on New Year’s Eve with the Sydney premiere of Verdi’s La traviata, a co-production by Opera Queensland, State Opera South Australia and West Australian Opera. Sarah Giles directs.

“It’s done incredibly well in the three cities it’s played in, and I thought it was important for Sydney to see this production,” says Hume. “A lot has changed in the 30 or so years since Elijah Moshinsky made his La traviata [last seen in Sydney in 2022], particularly in the representation of women on stage. Sarah’s feminist reading takes all that in while giving us something incredibly beautiful.”

OA revives its partnership with the Sydney Festival for another Sydney premiere in Gluck’s Orpheus & Eurydice (Sydney Opera House, 12–31 January). Co-presented by Opera Queensland and the Brisbane-based Circa, and directed by Yaron Lifschitz, this production stars the French countertenor Christophe Dumaux and Australian soprano Cathy-Di Zhang, who makes her role debut singing both Eurydice and Amor.

February sees the opening of OA’s new, English language production of Mozart’s Magic Flute (1 February–16 March) which sees director Kate Gaul teams up with designer Anna Cordingley to create a magic-filled show ideal for young audiences and opera first-timers.

Conductor Teresa Riveiro Böhm makes her Opera Australia debut with a cast of OA audience favourites including Stacey Alleaume, Kanen Breen and David Parkin. Musical theatre star Ben Mingay (Shrek The Musical) is Papageno.

Next comes Mozart’s Idomeneo. Hume will direct this production, with Mozart specialist Johannes Fritzsch conducting a cast featuring German-Canadian tenor Michael Schade, who makes his OA debut in the title role alongside Australian singers Caitlin Hulcup, Celeste Lazarenko and Emma Pearson.

Magic Flute and Ideomeneo will be performed on the same set, Hume reveals to Limelight – though the look and feel of each show will be completely different.

“We’ve actually repurposed the set Elijah Moshinsky had built for Werther,” says Hume.  “I’ve always remembered that amazing white room. We’re going to manipulate that space to create two totally different aesthetics: one for Magic Flute that’s quirky eccentric and completely analogue, and one for Idomeneo that really leans into the digital with projections of the Australian landscape.”

Idomeneo is particularly close to Hume’s heart. “It has this incredibly powerful message about leadership and reconciliation. I’m an idealist and an optimist and I wanted to share that most of all. It’s is perfect for a new era.”

The last jigsaw piece in Hume’s season is an in-concert performance of Handel’s Theodora (8–9 February), co-presented by Baroque specialists Pinchgut Opera. It will be Pinchgut’s first production in Sydney Opera’s House’s Joan Sutherland Theatre. The remarkable countertenor Christopher Lowrey returns to the role of Didymus, which he first sang in Pinchgut’s fully staged Theodora in 2016.

“Looking around the world at what is being performed and programmed and you see Theodora cropping up a lot,” says Hume. “It’s a work that can be made to speak to the anxieties we all feel especially around that idea of the policing of thought. People are looking at it with hungry eyes these days.”

Opera Australia’s 2024 season marks the end of the pandemic era for the company, says OA’s CEO Fiona Allan.

“People are now enthusiastically returning to live performance generally and we’ve had a fantastic response to our recent productions. Despite everything that’s going on in the economy, the mood seems quite buoyant.”

Allan sees the Summer Season as a showcase of local and Australian artists and a cultural move forward. “We’re addressing things like gender equity in our creative teams and showcasing more of our Australian talent in all areas,” she says. “That’s one of the great things about Lindy as a guest curator. She understands our strategic direction, she knows Sydney and its audiences and has a deep understanding of the heritage of the company. We knew she would pull together a program that was sympathetic to the ambitions we had and pave the way into Jo’s tenure.”

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For more information and ticketing, visit Opera Australia.