Pinchgut Opera

Happy Bastille Day

Happy Bastille Day! We have presented 2 French baroque operas, Rameau’s Dardanus in 2005, and last year’s David and Jonathan by Charpentier. Each year we try and do something different to launch the box office (such as last week’s Cocktail Event – see below). For Dardanus, we thought we would reclaim Australia for the French on Bastille Day. We launched an assault on Pinchgut Island (Fort Denison), thanks to our chorus and a few ring-ins. Working with the NPWS, the French Consulate and some Minister’s Department, we manage to get on national TV and a few papers - all for $200 (spent on croissants and French Champagne). Check out the coverage here:-

I’m off to Opera Australia’s Baroque Masterpieces this evening - a beautiful double bill of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and a new production of Handel's Acis & Galatea. I attended opening night and hope tonight’s production doesn’t end as quickly as it did for me the first time! The music is glorious, helped along by a superb chorus and orchestra. It’s a chance to see Antony Walker before he goes back to the States on Sunday. The program also features the Orchestra of the Antipodes, Taryn Fiebig who will be singing Sicle in L’Ormindo for us, Kanen Breen who will sing Erice, and the amazing Yvonne Kenny plays Dido. You only have one last chance to see this special production - this Saturday 18th July. www.opera-australia.org.au. Also see Sarah Noble’s excellent review here: primalamusica.typepad.com

If you happen to be anywhere near Chicago, Chicago Opera Theater and Brian Dickie are very good friends of Pinchgut, and they have just announced their 2010 spring festival season. It’s s great program and features Justin Way directing Cavalli's Giasone – his third production with COT. Justin directed 3 productions with Pinchgut too! www.chicagooperatheater.org

Moving forward

This evening we had a regular Pinchgut meeting with Alison, Andrew, Antony, John, Ken, Liz and myself. It is terrific to have Antony Walker in Sydney (currently here for Opera Australia’s Baroque Masterpieces), but this time Erin Helyard was not on the line from Montreal. After our discussions on the preparations of L’Ormindo, we turned to the 2010 program and our continued discussion on what this production could be, given the current environment.

Pinchgut remains totally committed to presenting works that are relatively less well known, but that deserve to be recognised for the gems that they are. We are attempting to not only raise awareness of opera as an art form, but more importantly - to introduce people to, and get them excited by, these relatively unknown works of art. At the same time, we must be very mindful of our budgets, and the current economic climate which might prevail into 2010. In any case, there will be further discussions before a final discussion is made, but one thing is for sure - we will always remain true to the music, and intimacy with our audience.

Also today, Liz & I meet with the new director of the Italian Institute of Culture, Sydney, Dr. Alessandra Bertini Malgarini. It was a delightful chat about Italian culture, early and new music, and Sydney. I very much look forward to working with them again this year. 

Great Music to the US

Today we received a request from a radio station in Kentucky, USA. Michael Carter, Music Director and Morning Classics host of WEKU FM, will hopefully be broadcasting Pinchgut’s recording of Juditha Triumphans – in due course. WEKU broadcasts classical music and news to more than 50,000 listeners and describes itself as “Great music and NPR news from Eastern Kentucky University”. We think their choice of music is great too...

Of course, you can get your own copy of Juditha Triumphans CD (or any of Pinchgut's past operas) from Buywell.

And some photos of the Fundraising Event last Wednesday night. All photos by Bridget Elliot.

                    

Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, Governor of NSW and Antony Walker                       Michael Leopold

           

                Ken Tribe and Jill Wran                                     Rosalind Page, Alison Morgan, Craig Everingham, Jane Sheldon

Welcome to L’Ormindo and 2009!

Box Office opened last Thursday, to our newsletter subscribers, with a bang. We have sold half a house in the first day (450 tickets) and now only have 3 1/2  houses to sell.

In true Pinchgut style, we threw a terrific party on Wednesday night and called it the “Pinchgut Opera Fundraising Cocktail Evening”, as it was intended to raise funds for this year’s production of L’Ormindo and make a bit of a splash around Sydney and further field. These objectives were certainly met (going over our target by about $7,000).

Her Excellency Marie Bashir, the Governor of NSW, opened the evening with some kind words, setting the tone of the evening. It was then on to some fine performances by Fiona Campbell, Jane Sheldon, David Greco, Cantillation, and soloists from the Orchestra of the Antipodes, with Antony Walker conducting. Plenty of food and wine all beautifully coordinated by MC Guy Noble in the foyers of The Australian Museum – made for a magic evening.

The other objective of the evening (as is the objective of the entire company) is to have heaps of fun. This was happily achieved, with the last few days taking lots of calls and emails to that effect. One from our resident bassoonist Simon Richard:-
“ Last night was fun wasn't it? It is a pleasure to work for a company which treats its employees with such decency, affection and respect, right down to the lowliest bassoon player and lighting gaffer. Under such conditions you will never have a shortage of people eager to give freely of their time and goodwill!”

I’ve also spent the last day calling 22 winners of the Raffle – always a delightful job and think every winner said, “Really? But I never win anything.”

So today I thought this was the appropriate day to start the Blog for the year…

And a video of the evening with Fiona, David singing "Sound of Parley" from King Arthur by Purcell:-

I look forward to bringing you more news in the lead up to opening night on 2 December 2009 of L'Ormindo.

Anna

One Performance to Go

Tonight - Monday 8 December - is the last performance of David and Jonathan and, quite probably, the last performance we will see in Australia in our lifetimes.

The company is very happy with the result. It is a difficult story to tell as the action takes place offstage but we believe that Chas captured the drama and emotion of a simple but powerful story: two lovers divided by war.

After tonight the ensemble will disperse around Australia and the world. It will never reassemble again in the same form. That is sad but all can be proud of what they have achieved.

There will be a posting tomorrow or the day after with a wrap-up.

Reviews

We were very happy at the reviews.

The Sydney Morning Herald did not put Harriet Cunningham's review online (a practice the paper seems to have got in the habit of lately) so here is an extract:

Meanwhile, the Old Testament episode of David and Jonathan is mostly

overlooked these days, not least because it revolves around war, jealousy

and men in love. It sounds like a job for Pinchgut Opera. David +

Jonathan is the seventh of its annual forays into rare treasures of the operatic

repertoire and, as ever, it has much to recommend it.

First and foremost, there is the orchestra, conducted by the artistic

director Antony Walker and led by Rachael Beesley. It would be hard to

imagine a finer ensemble of early-music practitioners and Charpentier's

slippery score comes alive in their hands. Walker negotiates the sudden

changes in tempi with magisterial calm, and has obviously worked hard

with his colleagues to create a balance of timbres among the various

instruments - the combination of theorbos, harpsichords and violones, for example,

makes for a wonderfully complex bass line.

Murray Black's review in The Australian is online here.

Wednesday 3 December - Opening Night

It's difficult to know what to say, really.

Perhaps start with Maree's comment from her Stage Manager's report:

" Thanks to you all for a very smooth opening night!"

It was indeed smooth. No panics. No crises, Excellent performances from all and a great audience reception.

To me, the orchestra was the star of the show. Once your ears become attuned to the complexities of the French baroque (which doesn't take long) a whole unknown but wonderful world of music seems to open up.

As is his practice, Chas was not in the house for the performance but saw bits on the monitors in the lobby.

And of course he and Alex and Brad and Bernie went on stage for the curtain-call.

(Well, it would have been a curtain-call if we had a curtain).

After the cast and crew met us and a few supporters for drinks.

This is always a beaut occasion, especially as everyone has two nights to recover before the next performance. Musicians, after a performance, take hours to come down.

Reviews should be out by Friday and we will provide links.

Meanwhile, if there is anyone following this blog who is not too far from Sydney and who has not booked for Saturday, Sunday or Monday, may we suggest that you do book now?

This will almost certainly be your only chance, ever, to see David & Jonathan in Australia.

Ken

Tuesday 2 November

Today was the General Rehearsal: the full opera in costume with the orchestra in their blacks, exactly as it will be on opening night. They performed before a small audience of invited guests.

It all went perfectly. The band played brilliantly. And the singers were wonderful.

Afterwards one of the chorus members said: “Australian audiences have never heard anything like this”.

A production like this convinces us again that Pinchgut is on the right track in presenting great works that are almost never performed. There is so much undiscovered wonder in opera.

We open tonight at 7:30 PM. The show is ready to go.

 

And some photos – without captions – from last night’s rehearsal.

Monday 1 December

Today is what is called the "Stage Orchestral" rehearsal.

Antony is in charge as it is mostly about the music. He aims to work through the opera twice over a 6 hour period (with a dinner break in the middle).

The full orchestra is here with trumpets and timpani as well. They all fit in the space in front of the stage - a relief for Alison who has to set it all out.

The production team Andrew (production manager) , Alex & Brad (set and costume designers) and Bernie (lighting designer) are also looking a little more relaxed as everything is more or less in place and the costumes are almost finished.

We have several parents in the cast and it is great to see their babies and kids around from time to time.

A great spread in the Sydney Morning Herald about Sara and the opera and sales are rocketing along. Great!

The changes in tempo in this opera are amazing and Antony has to stop and go over several spots to get this all together. Antony expects (and gets) excellence in performance.

We have a few orchestra members staying with us and they came home exhausted after this rehearsal but it this kind of rigorous rehearsal that gets the great results that the audience will hear.

A small group of our major donors (we call them the Heroes of Pinchgut) came to this rehearsal to get a taste of what goes into the rehearsal process.

We are now very close to opening night and it is all feeling good.

Liz

 

Sunday 30 November

Today is two three hour calls for what is called the “Piano Stage” . For us , of course, there is no piano. In fact we had Rachel, leading on violin, Erin, harpsichord and chamber organ, Danny on the new basse de violin together with Nils Weiboldt on his basse de violin, Laura Vaughan on gamba, Deborah Fox and Tommie Anderson on guitar and theorbo and Neal Peres da Costa on harpsichord. That sure beats a piano any day in my book!

This is when the soloists and chorus first get on the stage with the full set. They are almost in full costumes- just some details to be added. The set is completely built and they all need to be familiar with it and where they are moving on and around the stage. As there is a raked area the singers all need to be familiar with the slope.

Chas is in charge of this rehearsal as it is about the production mostly.  It goes very well. Chas stops action from time to time to alter positions but generally it goes very smoothly. Chas is pleased.

We fed the lot of them between rehearsal as there was only an hour’s break. I have never seen food disappear so fast. The chorus came out saying

–“We are very hungry” and then there was not much left in a very short time. Love this chorus - they are so important to the production and they are so very talented. You will get to hear a lot of the individual voices in this production.

All finished up at 9.30.

A long, productive day.

A lovely young woman from the French school at Maroubra sat in for a rehearsal today as she wants to be an opera singer. Our singers were very generous with the time they gave her to talk about the different paths to an opera career. Her joy at experiencing the rehearsal was inspiring.

Liz