Sunday was a good day for a concert in Sydney. The enervating heat of the past week was gone, and a refreshing breeze blew along the concourse by the Sydney Opera House. In fact I felt positively smug as I arrived at the House for Opera for Flood Relief, ready to do a good turn for the country’s natural disaster victims by subjecting myself to an evening at the opera with some of the Summer Season’s most exciting performers.
Three weeks ago, Opera for Flood Relief wasn’t even a twinkle in Lyndon Terracini’s eye. Then, Opera Australia, the Sydney Opera House and ABC Classic FM got together and…presto!...by Sunday, artists, orchestra, chorus, compere, coaches, mechs and staff of every description had amassed to produce two hours of the most glorious music you are likely to hear, broadcast live around the country. At times such as this, when my artistic colleagues rally, I find that the best that I can do is prepare to fork over some of my hard-earned to support the cause financially. So that is what I did: bought a ticket, and prepared to be entertained.
And entertained I was. So much so, in fact, that it seemed positively indecent to be having so much fun in the name of suffering. Here were we, a packed audience of Sydney-siders, whiling away an evening with the Brindisi and the Habanera, while the actual victims couldn’t even turn on their radios for some light relief while mopping the mud out of the lounge room. By the time interval rolled around, I was feeling rather uncomfortable about the entire scenario. Talk about champagne socialism!
But then, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra began the second act with the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, a tugging, soaring journey accompanied by images from the floods, as raw on Sunday as on the nights I first saw them on the ABC news. Then, the ‘Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’ from Nabucco – Oh, my country so lovely and lost! Let the Lord give us fortitude to bear our sufferings! And finally, Rosario La Spina’s ‘Nessun dorma’, invoking the endless, sleepless nights of all those who watched the waters rise, or listened to the winds roar, or waited for news of their families.
And I thought, then, that perhaps music is one of the few truly decent ways to acknowledge events like this. Because music not only represents emotions, but reproduces them. So, for a moment, we all felt the soul-clenching pain of a night when nobody sleeps.
Three weeks ago, Opera for Flood Relief wasn’t even a twinkle in Lyndon Terracini’s eye. Then, Opera Australia, the Sydney Opera House and ABC Classic FM got together and…presto!...by Sunday, artists, orchestra, chorus, compere, coaches, mechs and staff of every description had amassed to produce two hours of the most glorious music you are likely to hear, broadcast live around the country. At times such as this, when my artistic colleagues rally, I find that the best that I can do is prepare to fork over some of my hard-earned to support the cause financially. So that is what I did: bought a ticket, and prepared to be entertained.
And entertained I was. So much so, in fact, that it seemed positively indecent to be having so much fun in the name of suffering. Here were we, a packed audience of Sydney-siders, whiling away an evening with the Brindisi and the Habanera, while the actual victims couldn’t even turn on their radios for some light relief while mopping the mud out of the lounge room. By the time interval rolled around, I was feeling rather uncomfortable about the entire scenario. Talk about champagne socialism!
But then, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra began the second act with the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, a tugging, soaring journey accompanied by images from the floods, as raw on Sunday as on the nights I first saw them on the ABC news. Then, the ‘Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’ from Nabucco – Oh, my country so lovely and lost! Let the Lord give us fortitude to bear our sufferings! And finally, Rosario La Spina’s ‘Nessun dorma’, invoking the endless, sleepless nights of all those who watched the waters rise, or listened to the winds roar, or waited for news of their families.
And I thought, then, that perhaps music is one of the few truly decent ways to acknowledge events like this. Because music not only represents emotions, but reproduces them. So, for a moment, we all felt the soul-clenching pain of a night when nobody sleeps.
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