WORLD PREMIERE
OPERA
Chamber Made Opera (Australia)
The MinotAur
Trilogy
Presented by Chamber Made Opera and
Melbourne Recital Centre in association
with Melbourne Festival
an exquisite mythological meltdown
and an epic journey into a new kind
of opera.
The enfant terrible of Australia’s contemporary
opera scene, Chamber Made Opera has built
a reputation for wild, subversive takes on the
conventional opera format. This renegade
company casts its unorthodox gaze over
ancient Greek legend with The Minotaur Trilogy,
an unconventional opera told over three suitably
epic chapters.
Taking its inspiration from Monteverdi’s famous
lost opera – of which the celebrated Lamento
d’Arianna is the only fragment that remains –
this work finds the ageless story of thwarted love,
misplaced heroism and tragic human failings
twisted, inverted and collapsed, a strange new
mythology conjured from a familiar tale.
Staged in the intimate, acoustically rich surrounds
of Melbourne Recital Centre’s Salon, Margaret
Cameron and David Young’s unexpected and daring
score, a composition of image, text, found sounds
and baroque instruments, forms a work of intimacy
and extravagance – a hallucinatory retelling that
teeters on the edge of ecstasy and oblivion.
MUSIC
Pierrot Lunaire
(Australia)
Presented by Melbourne Recital Centre in
association with Melbourne Festival
One of the 20th century’s most
revolutionary compositions.
One of Melbourne’s finest music
collectives. A dreamlike journey
into imagination’s abyss.
A hundred years on from its revolutionary
premiere, Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire
(Moonstruck Pierrot) has lost none of its bewitching,
subversive power. A grim, mischievous creation
whose transgressive theatricality has influenced
everyone from Stravinsky to Björk, Pierrot lunaire
was Schoenberg’s early masterpiece, a synthesis
of the Symbolist poetry of Albert Giraud and
Schoenberg’s own experiments in atonality and
aural texture. Together these two forces conjure
a decadent cabaret for the damned – Pierrot, the
clown of legend, traversing a landscape of strange
and unsettling visions, the music surrounding him,
haunted and unhinged.
Performed by Melbourne’s exhilarating new music
collective, Syzygy Ensemble, and soprano Merlyn
Quaife and pianist Andrea Katz of Songmakers
Australia, this is the culmination of a year-long
tribute to Schoenberg’s masterwork – a celebration
of this most definitive of modern compositions,
and a chance to experience first‑hand the majestic,
diabolical music that inspired an age.
48
In three acts: The Island, The Labyrinth*, The Boats*
* World premiere
Warning Adult concepts, nudity
Created by Margaret Cameron & David Young
Performed by Deborah Kayser, Caroline Lee,
Hellen Sky
Double Bass Mark Cauvin
Percussion Matthias Schack-Arnott
Harpsichord Anastasia Russell-Head
Event Information
Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre
Thu 18 – Sat 20 Oct at 7pm
Sat 20 Oct at 1pm
Sun 21 Oct at 3pm
3hr 10min including two intervals
$85 / $75 / Grp $76.50
Transaction & booking fees may apply
Melbourne Recital Centre (03) 9699 3333
melbournerecital.com.au
Ticketmaster 136 100
melbournefestival.com.au
Co-commissioned by Ten Days on the Island, Dr Peta Gillingham,
Michael Bink in memory of Kim Glover, Helen & Peter Murdoch,
Fiona Sweet & Paul Newcombe and Meg Morris.
Schoenberg Pierrot lunaire
Performed in German, translation provided
Warning Nudity
Performed by
Soprano Merlyn Quaife
Syzygy Ensemble
Songmakers Australia
BalletLab
Event Information
Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre
Wed 24 – Fri 26 Oct at 7pm
1hr no interval
$45 / $35
Transaction & booking fees may apply
Melbourne Recital Centre (03) 9699 3333
melbournerecital.com.au
Ticketmaster 136 100
melbour