CENTENARY PAVILION, August 20-28, 2021
ABOUT THE OPERAS:
These two one-act operas are in very different styles and take us to the opposite corners of human experience. Both have family at the heart of them, and a plot that hinges on inheritance. Suor Angelica is about a nun pressured to sign away her inheritance by a family that has rejected her. We push against the sentimentality of the piece by taking it out of the convent and putting it in a modern rehab centre.
Addiction affects families of all kinds, and the links between family trauma and addictive behaviour are well documented.Gianni Schicchi is a screwball comedy lifted straight from Dante’s Inferno. Someone rich has died and the vultures descend. In our version, the corpse is barely cold and the removalists are already stripping the house out. This story concludes with the hero asking if he deserves to be sent to hell for a redistribution scheme with an upside. In both operas the protagonists are trying to survive within a very flawed world. Laughing or crying, naturalism or farce, it is all the same thing. The gloriousand messy business of life.
Rachel McDonald
CAST: Robert Hofmann, Nicole Youl, Hattie Marshall, Emma Pettemerides, Brigitte Heuser, Perry Joyce, Bella Marslen, Brett Peart, Tom Buckmaster, Kyle Garces, Ava Charleson, Harriet du Pont, Ruth Burke, Bonnie Staude, Dante Prendergrast, Scout Simmonds, Michelle Pryor
- DIRECTOR Rachel McDonald
- MUSICAL DIRECTOR Katie How
- DESIGNER Robbie Harrold
- LIGHTING DESIGN Jerry Reinhardt
- STAGE MANAGER Rachael Canning
- SURTITLE OPERATOR: Allison Fyfe
- MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT: Tommaso Pollio, Sophie Curtis and Cathie Travers.
Awards:
- Nominations PAWA
- Best Production (Musicals and Opera) – Angels and Devils – WINNER
- Outstanding Direction, Movement Direction or Choreography – Rachel McDonald – WINNER
- Best Performer in a Leading Role – Harriet Marshall – WINNER
Reviews:
