Opera Australia's 2012 Season: An insight from Lyndon Terracini, Artistic Director

When planning a new season of opera, many influences characterise the decisions that are made. Naturally the artistic rationale or philosophy is the fundamental driver, but there are a number of other imperatives which determine the programming choices that one makes...and consultation and discussion with ones colleagues is a major part of this process.



What we have tried to create in 2012 is a year-long series of mini festivals which articulate complementary artistic statements within an holistic structure. This programming is evident in our Sydney Summer season, which is fundamentally a composer driven festival.



Così fan tutte to be featured
in English as part of our
2012 Summer festival of Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the composer and three of his masterpieces, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte will be featured. I'm sure these productions will provoke much enjoyment and discussion. Cultural discussion and dialogue are an important part of every community.

We then commence our Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour (HOSH) production of La Traviata. This is another festival within our annual structure which is designed to play to as many people as possible and to utilise one of the most spectacular theatres in the world...Sydney Harbour. HOSH reflects in so many ways the culture of Sydney and this spectacular production of La Traviata is a festival event which identifies one of the many ways in which the operatic art form can be presented for twenty-first century audiences. It's big and bold and has an Australian aesthetic which I believe is important to celebrate.



The Magic Flute: A Metropolitan
Opera production photo.

© Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera 2009

The Company then travels to Brisbane to present two marvellous productions: Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute, and Baz Luhrmann's production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Another mini festival which we hope will become an annual opera festival in Brisbane.

Our Melbourne Autumn Season will feature Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute, Elijah Moshinsky's production of The Barber of Seville and our new production of The Merry Widow. This is a festival season of programming to provide balance for our Spring Season in Melbourne which features Madama Butterfly, and our new productions of Salome and Lucia di Lamermoor. This programming approach will follow in 2013, when we present our much anticipated Melbourne Ring Cycle.

Much work is taking place in Melbourne behind the scenes in preparation for OA's epic Ring Cycle, which begins in November 2013, including the programming of a three week festival "The Melbourne Ring Festival" which will feature a very wide range of activity to stimulate and amplify the entire experience.



Korngold's Die tote Stadt will
provide a combination of 'live'
performance and cinematic experience.



The Sydney Winter Season opens with the first staged performance in Australia of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's beautiful opera Die tote Stadt. This magnificent score requires an extremely large orchestra, so rather than reduce the size of the orchestra to fit into the Sydney Opera House (SOH) pit, we will locate the orchestra outside of the Opera Theatre in the SOH Studio. The audience will hear the orchestra through ‘surround sound’ speakers in the Opera Theatre. The staging will feature film and cinematic digital technology to ensure that the stage narrative is articulated clearly and concisely.

Korngold was primarily a film composer; he wrote the music for most of Errol Flynn's movies. Consequently, the audience experience will be a combination of ‘live’ performance and a cinematic experience both visually and aurally. This is a festival event that enables us to solve difficult problems in a creative way so that we can present extraordinary operas which would otherwise remain unperformed.



Puccini's Madama Butterfly will
feature Japanese soprano
Hiromi Omura in 2012



South Pacific is presented in the middle of our Sydney Winter Season so that we effectively have two mini festivals rather than one long winter season.

The fundamental narrative for our 2012 season is to investigate how the operatic experience can be best presented to a public that has more cultural and artistic choices than it has ever had and to embrace whatever technical advances will assist this great art form to remain vibrant and connected to a dramatically changing society.

It is vitally important to honour our past, but it's also important to allow ourselves to be receptive to the changes that the future will inevitably bring.

This is a journey, and the joy of travelling is as important as the destination. I look forward to your company.

Lyndon