STATE OPERA SOUTH AUSTRALIA PRESENTS
MUSIC BY
BOOK & LYRICS BY
RICHARD RODGERS OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II BASED ON FERENC MOLNÁR’S PLAY ‘LILIOM’ AS ADAPTED BY
Benjamin F.Glazer
ORCHESTRATIONS BY
Don Walker
BILLY BIGELOW JULIE JORDAN ENOCH SNOW CARRIE PIPPERIDGE NETTIE FOWLER THE STARKEEPER/DR SELDON JIGGER CRAIGIN MRS MULLIN LOUISE BIGELOW ENOCH SNOW, JR CONDUCTOR DIRECTOR CHORUS MASTER LIGHTS COSTUMES
CONCERT ADAPTATION BY
Tom Briggs
Ben Mingay Desiree Frahn Benjamin Rasheed Johanna Allen Dimity Shepherd Douglas McNicol Nicholas Cannon Catherine Campbell Eve Green Peter Jackson Brett Weymark Stuart Maunder Anthony Hunt Ben Flett Tracey Richardson
STATE OPERA CHORUS ADELAIDE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Friday 26 and Saturday 27 March 2021 FESTIVAL THEATRE, ADELAIDE Duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes, including one 20-minute interval CAROUSEL IS PRESENTED THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH ORiGiN™ THEATRICAL ON BEHALF OF R&H THEATRICALS, A CONCORD THEATRICALS COMPANY
Welcome With this production of Carousel we emerge from the year that was 2020 and step back onto the main stage as one of the country’s major performing arts companies. Just like my comrade-in-arms Artistic Director Stuart Maunder, I am all parts overwhelmed, scared, thrilled, and filled with so many emotions. It feels a bit like a new world, and indeed for this industry in many ways it is.
State Opera is here to stay. Your belief in the importance of live opera in South Australia only serves to strengthen our passion for achievement – Stuart and I have a job to do, and not even COVID will stand in our way! We have never needed you more, and I hope you will consider supporting us to produce and present more brilliant works like Carousel in the future.
Opera has always been a monumental challenge for everyone involved. A large part of opera’s mystery and enigmatic nature lies in its complexity, its resource requirements and its sheer astounding grandeur. This is an art form which wraps up every other artistic pursuit into one magnificent all-encompassing event. It’s simply not possible to achieve “opera” with minimal effort, with a half-hearted attempt, or in an environment of trepidation. Like all of you, I’m praying that the anxiety of last year continues to dissipate, and that our bold approach to repertoire coupled with our unwavering belief that opera is for everyone will mean that this is our year, baby!
It’s an honour and privilege to lead State Opera South Australia back into live performance, and I thank you all for being here with open arms for our return. Watch this space for so much more surprising, delighting, interesting and uplifting opera coming to you this year and beyond.
BEN MINGAY (DYLAN COKER PHOTOGRAPHY / NEWSPIX)
Thank you to all of our Board Directors, staff and industry colleagues, donors, sponsors, ticket-buyers, friends and enthusiasts who have always known that
Yarmila Alfonzetti EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
State Opera South Australia
Production Image
Director’s Note Like most opera companies around the world, 2020 saw State Opera having to cancel almost an entire year of operas. But there were some silver linings. We were honoured, humbled and delighted that our loyal supporters rallied to get us through those difficult times. At a lunch to thank some of our most valued benefactors, we were just shooting the breeze and asking which opera people wanted to see once the coast was clear. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic Carousel was the suggestion of one of our most generous supporters, Bruce Saint. I had wanted to direct Carousel since my earliest days in the business, but had relegated it to dreamland, knowing too well of the difficulty in securing the rights. But the world had indeed changed. The performing rights were miraculously secured, the dates at the Festival Theatre locked in, and the mighty Adelaide Symphony Orchestra found time in their schedule to make this happen. The search began for the perfect cast and within three weeks we were on sale. In three days we were sold out. That doesn’t happen very often… but Carousel is a very special piece.
CATHERINE CAMPBELL (SODA STREET PRODUCTIONS)
In 1999, Time magazine, in its ‘Best of the Century’ list, named Carousel the Best Musical of the 20th Century, writing that Rodgers and Hammerstein ‘set the standards for the 20th-century musical, and this show features their most beautiful score and the most skillful and affecting example of their musical storytelling’. Stephen Sondheim, arguably the greatest composerlyricist of the century, famously regarded the 12minute ‘bench scene’ – in which the anti-hero and heroine get to know each other and which culminates with ‘If I Loved You’ – as ‘probably the single most important moment in the revolution of contemporary musical’. Lyricist Oscar Hammerstein was Sondheim’s mentor, and Stephen had attended the premiere of Carousel in 1945. As he says: ‘Carousel was a seminal experience of my life. I was completely overwhelmed at the end of Act One. I was sobbing.’ The teenage Stephen hugged Hammerstein’s wife, Dorothy. ‘She
had a specific fur stole that she wore to every opening of Oscar’s for good luck, and I cried so heavily I stained it.’ Carousel tells the tragic story of a strong young girl, a violent bad boy and their doomed marriage. By the middle of Act Two, the girl is pregnant, the boy is involved in a bungled robbery and (spoiler alert) commits suicide. The show is about the blurred line between good and evil. Sound of Music it ain’t. But Carousel acknowledges the evil and danger in the world – death, despair, loss and cruelty – without sugar coating and implies that goodness can overcome bad... Though there is pain in the world, there is also healing. As Hammerstein said: ‘I just can’t write anything without hope in it.’ Carousel, with its hymn-like anthems and resolute, upbeat sense of hope, has simply become part of our everyday life. As Richard Corliss said in Time magazine: ‘The tunes are so diligently soaring and the lyrics so wholesome that, while you listened to them, they practically brushed your teeth and did your homework for you.’ The show’s big hit, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, has become the anthem of Liverpool Football Club. Legend has it that in 1963 the effect of the fans singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ gave the players hope when all seemed lost. This small act of defiance in the face of adversity galvanised the Liverpool team, and they managed to win the match on penalties, crowning them European Cup Champions. Couldn’t we all do with some of that passion and belief and yes, hope? Welcome to State Opera’s return to the stage in 2021. Don’t let’s be ‘afraid of the dark’.
Stuart Maunder
AM
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
State Opera South Australia
Riding Into the Future IN EVERYTHING we do, innovations we take for granted can be hard to appreciate. Daily life existed before the microwave and the washing machine, but who remembers that? And who stops to think how miraculous these inventions were when they first appeared? In the same way, it needs historical imagination to think yourself into a time when Carousel represented a revolution in music theatre. On the show’s opening night, on 19 April 1945, almost everyone present realised they had witnessed something exceptional. When we experience the opening scene of Carousel in 2021, we need to think ourselves into a time before the shows which owe it so much – among them Miss Saigon, Les
Misérables and almost every Stephen Sondheim musical except A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum – came into being, a time when big stage shows were created very differently to the way they are now. For most of his life in the theatre, Richard Rodgers collaborated with two lyricists: from 1919 to 1943 with Lorenz Hart then, for 17 years, Oscar Hammerstein II. In fact, the Rodgers and Hammerstein partnership only ended with the latter’s death in 1960. Their first show together, Oklahoma!, was a new wind blowing through Broadway, not only because of its integration of song, dance and story, but because it had no stars in it. It featured players who would become
stars, but when Oklahoma! opened none of its major performers were household names. And that was the point. For most of its history, the Broadway musical had been built around star performers: you sold the idea for a show to your headliners, and then created the show around them (Eddie Cantor in Whoopee!, Fred and Adele Astaire in The Band Wagon). Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote their shows first, then found the performers who could do them justice; unlike Hart, Hammerstein was also Rodgers’ librettist. Oklahoma! became an instant hit and one of the longest-running musicals of them all, and one of the first to receive an original cast recording (which sold like hot
cakes, even in its original guise, a bulky album of six 78 rpm records). What would R&H do to top it? The answer was something darker, more daring and even more original. As Stephen Sondheim has put it: ‘Oklahoma! is about a picnic; Carousel is about life and death.’ It has no less picturesque a setting than its predecessor, but a far greater sense of its characters’ destiny; it may be the first of all the classic musicals to deal honestly with people who make bad choices. And for a while, it seemed like the original source material would resist musical treatment, for Carousel is based on the 1909 play Liliom by the Hungarian author Ferenc Molnár, about a violent carnival barker whose capacity for destruction alienates everyone around him; Liliom is, in the play, a truly irredeemable character. No wonder Rodgers would later write about ‘the “tunnel” in the story through which we could see no light at the end’.
RODGERS AND HAMMERSTEIN had upended Broadway convention from the first moments of Oklahoma! After the overture, instead of the big, splashy opening number featuring a line of chorus girls, audiences saw a woman churning butter as a cowboy enters singing ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’’. Carousel’s opening scene raises the bar far higher and is emblematic of the team’s confidence in their daring. There is no overture; the curtain rises instead on an expository scene played in pantomime to
the Carousel Waltz, a scene which plunges us straight into the world of the show, establishes the central characters’ personalities and sets the narrative on its course, all in seven exceptionally intense minutes. When it’s all over, and the sailors, fishermen, local mill girls and the ice cream man have left the stage, nobody has sung a note or spoken an audible word – yet we have already been drawn inexorably into the story. It is said that every musical has its ‘danger point’, in which the creators raise the stakes to a level at which audience expectations are heightened. In My Fair Lady this comes with ‘The Rain in Spain’, in South Pacific with ‘Some Enchanted Evening’. In Carousel, R&H are so assured that it comes as soon as the show begins. The Carousel Waltz is in effect a suite of waltzes, in which tunes overlap and intermingle; the rest of Rodgers’ score is structured in a similar way, so that themes from one song can often make ‘guest appearances’ in another; although ‘song’ is an inadequate description for the show’s two biggest numbers, ‘If I Loved You’ and ‘Soliloquy’. The sheer quantity of music in Carousel makes it R&H’s most operatic score, but so do its vocal requirements. Oklahoma! can be (and has often been) performed by high school students, but Carousel needs voices on an operatic scale.
In adapting a play that seemed completely unsuited to music (R&H always loved a challenge), composer and librettist created what is possibly their most musical musical, and one which, for all its faults, perhaps made the greatest impact on the future of the form. In his opening night review, New York critic Louis Kronenberger was sufficiently far-seeing to recognise the influence Carousel would have on future generations of theatre makers: The high spirits of Oklahoma!, the meadow freshness of it at its best, its fetching qualities as a ‘show’ have no counterpart in Carousel… But Carousel… may yet seem more of a milestone in the years to come. Phillip Sametz © 2021
FROM LEFT: Carnival barker Billy Bigelow (John Raitt) spots Julie Jordan (Jan Clayton, in the dark dress) in Act I of the original Broadway production of Carousel (photo courtesy of Rodgers & Hammerstein: A Concord Music Company, www.rnh.com); Richard Rodgers in 1948; Oscar Hammerstein II.
Stuart Maunder
The Creative Team
DIRECTOR
Brett Weymark CONDUCTOR Brett Weymark was born in Sydney and trained at the University of Sydney (voice) and the Sydney Conservatorium (conducting); he undertook further study in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States. He is currently Music Director of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, a post he has held since 2004. He has conducted many world premieres of works by composers such as Peter Sculthorpe, Dan Walker, Paul Stanhope, Elena Kats-Chernin, Andrew Schultz and Matthew Hindson. Recent conducting highlights have included the world premiere of Paul Stanhope’s Jandamarra with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as well as conducting in their Tea & Symphony and Mozart in the City series, Handel’s Messiah (New Zealand Symphony Orchestra), Purcell’s King Arthur for Brisbane Baroque, ANZAC Day concerts for the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Haydn’s Creation with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Bach’s St John Passion with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Handel’s Jephtha and Susanna for Handel in the Theatre (Canberra) and acting as Chorus Master in the Adelaide Festival’s production of Saul. In 2019, he conducted WA Opera’s season of Sweeney Todd. In addition to Carousel, 2021 highlights include A Child of Our Time for the Adelaide Festival and a full program of concerts with Sydney Philharmonia.
Stuart Maunder is Artistic Director of State Opera South Australia and has directed Carmen, The Cunning Little Vixen and The Mikado for the company. For forty years he has been directing musical theatre and opera in Australia. He joined the Australian Opera (now Opera Australia) as Stage Manager in 1978, becoming a Resident Director in 1981. In 1992 he joined the Royal Opera (UK) as a Staff Director while continuing to direct in Australia, regional UK, France and the USA. In 1999 he was appointed Artistic Administrator of Opera Australia, becoming Executive Producer in 2004–2008. His Opera Australia productions include The Tales of Hoffmann, Manon, Gypsy Princess, Don Pasquale, My Fair Lady and A Little Night Music, and his productions of Trial by Jury, Pirates of Penzance and HMS Pinafore have been televised nationally on ABC TV. Recent Australian productions have included Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music and Cunning Little Vixen (all for Victorian Opera), and Vixen, Tosca, Rigoletto, Pearl Fishers, La Bohème, Sweeney Todd and Macbeth (WA Opera). From 2014 to 2018 Stuart Maunder was General Director of New Zealand Opera where he directed Candide, Tosca, Sweeney Todd and The Mikado.
Anthony Hunt CHORUS MASTER Conductor, pianist and organist Anthony Hunt was the chorus master at Opera Australia from 2013 to 2019. In 2020 he returned to Adelaide with his family, commencing as Head of Music and Chorus Master at State Opera South Australia and as Director of Music at St Peter’s Cathedral. After completing an honours degree in both Piano and Organ performance at the Elder Conservatorium, he moved to London to study as a repetiteur in the Royal Academy of Music’s specialist opera course. Moving to Sydney in 2009 as Assistant Chorus Master for Opera Australia, and then as Chorus Master in 2013, he has prepared the Opera Australia Chorus for more than 60 productions and concert appearances. His work with the company has been frequently broadcast on ABC Classic FM, and the many DVD releases and international cinema broadcasts include La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, Aida, Turandot, Carmen and La Bohème for Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour. Anthony Hunt has been a participant in the Symphony Australia Conductor Development Program, a guest chorus master for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.
Tracey Richardson COSTUMES
Ben Flett LIGHTS Ben Flett is a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ theatre maker who will turn his hand to anything. Carpenter, painter, designer, engineer, manager, cook and sometimes musician, he revels in the variety that life in the theatre provides and subscribes to JFK’s proposition that art should ‘nourish the roots of our culture…’. Apart from a couple of aberrant years managing properties for a prestigious private school, he has effectively been working in the theatre industry since adulthood. Career highlights include making theatre for 4-to-8-year-olds as Production Manager for Patch Theatre Company (2014–2018), designing the lighting for State Theatre Company SA’s Beckett Triptych (Footfalls and Krapp’s Last Tape), and the technical management and lighting design for Barrio, the highly successful Adelaide Festival outdoor venue (2012, 2013). Ben is in this to find out who he is, by asking who we are, by asking where we’ve been, to understand where we are, and what that might mean.
Tracey Richardson studied Fashion Design in South Australia, graduating in 1987. Her career in Costume spans 35 years in television, theatre and film productions, both in Australia and overseas. Recent highlights include the Australian television series The Hunting (2019) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018), and the Australian film remake of Storm Boy (2019). She has also worked extensively in the British theatre and film industry. Tracey Richardson now divides her time between Australia and the UK, and enjoys working on a range of projects including opera!
Ben Mingay BILLY BIGELOW
The Carousel Cast
Ben Mingay is an actor, musician and musical theatre performer. Currently appearing in the new series Amazing Grace, he most recently delighted screen viewers worldwide in Frayed, and wowed Australian audiences in the title role of Shrek The Musical. Other screen roles include ‘Grease’ Nolan in Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, Alan Bond in House of Bond, Trystan Powell in Home and Away, three seasons as Rob Duffy in Wonderland, and Buzz in Packed to the Rafters. His stage credits include the title role in Sweeney Todd (WA Opera), Evan in Vivid White (Melbourne Theatre Company), Jud Fry in Oklahoma!, Achilles in Paris – A Rock Odyssey (Music Theatre Melbourne) and, since 2013, concerts with the hit singing group Swing on This. Other stage credits include Thomas in Rolling Thunder Vietnam, the title role in The Phantom of the Opera, Zack Mayo in An Officer and a Gentleman, and Tommy DeVito in the 2011 Sydney production of Jersey Boys, his first Australian appearance since 2004, when he originated the role of Billy Kostecki in Dirty Dancing. He went on to perform the role of Billy in every English-speaking production worldwide for almost six years, including the West End, Canada, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles. Ben Mingay was originally a Newcastle construction worker who fell into classical music when his mates dared him to audition for the Conservatorium of Music. He subsequently won a scholarship and went on to train in opera for several years – changing the trajectory of his life forever.
Desiree Frahn JULIE JORDAN Desiree Frahn is a South Australian soprano and principal artist of State Opera South Australia. She is a graduate of the Elder Conservatorium of Music and a former James and Diana Ramsey Foundation Young Artist with State Opera South Australia. For State Opera she has appeared as Valencienne (The Merry Widow), Leila (The Pearl Fishers), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Rose Pickles (premiere production of Cloudstreet!), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Bastienne (Bastien und Bastienne) and Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), as well as appearing as a soloist for regional tours, concerts and broadcasts. In 2019 she sang the title role in State Opera’s production of The Cunning Little Vixen. Roles with other companies include Stephanie in the 2018 Australian premiere of Jake Heggie’s To Hell and Back for the Melbourne contemporary opera company Gertrude Opera, as well as leading roles throughout South Australia with Co-Opera, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of SA and the Therry Dramatic Society. She has also appeared as a soloist with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Elder Conservatorium Orchestra and the Adelaide University Choral Association.
Dimity Shepherd NETTIE FOWLER
Benjamin Rasheed ENOCH SNOW Tenor Benjamin Rasheed has established himself as one of Australia’s finest operatic character actors. He studied at the Elder Conservatorium and Australian Opera Studio, was awarded the Johnson Bequest to study with Julia Faulkner at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and is a former member of State Opera South Australia’s Young Artist Program. Earlier this year he reprised his role as Njegus in The Merry Widow (Opera Australia), for which he was nominated Best Supporting Actor in an Opera at the 2018 Green Room Awards. In 2002, he made his international debut with the English Chamber Orchestra at St John’s Smith Square and at the Finnish National Opera and Hungarian State Opera in Elena Kats-Chernin’s Undertow. In 2015, Bachtrack named him the third busiest opera singer in the world. During his long association with Opera Australia he has worked with directors such as Bruce Beresford, Jim Sharman and David McVicar, and performing the role of L’Incredibile alongside Jonas Kaufmann in Andrea Chénier was a particular career highlight. Other roles include Don Basilio (The Marriage of Figaro), Pang (Turandot), Goro (Madama Butterfly) and Monostatos (The Magic Flute). His music theatre credits include Freddy Eynsford-Hill (My Fair Lady), Samuel (The Pirates of Penzance), Mr Erlanson (A little Night Music), Harry the Horse (Guys and Dolls), and as a featured artist in Maltby and Shire’s Take Flight.
Johanna Allen CARRIE PIPPERIDGE Johanna Allen works in musical theatre, opera, theatre, film, television and cabaret. Her credits include Grandma Georgina/Mrs Gloop (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Mother Abbess (The Sound of Music), Lady Eugenia D’Asquith (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder), Charlotte (A Little Night Music), for which she won a Green Room Award, and, most recently, the cabaret show Euromash at The Queens and Melbourne Recital Centre. She has performed in The Threepenny Opera, Into the Woods, Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera and Dogfight. For Opera Australia she has appeared in The Mikado and as Kate in the stage production and DVD release of The Pirates of Penzance. She also appeared in the Slingsby/State Opera South Australia co-production Ode to Nonsense. In 2020, she joined the Australian String Quartet as presenter-producer for their online series ASQ Live at Ukaria. She has worked as a radio presenter for the ABC, enjoyed numerous collaborations with the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and was part of the ASO Christmas Celebration in December. Johanna Allen also works as a director, writer and producer across theatre, television and festivals, and is proud to be a Festival Centre Walk of Fame Artist.
Mezzo-soprano Dimity Shepherd made her professional debut with Opera Australia in 1998 singing Rosina in the OzOpera production of The Barber of Seville, subsequently appearing in Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro) and other roles. She has sung many principal roles for Victorian Opera since her debut with the company as Orphée in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, including Cherubino, for which she won a Green Room Award in 2013, and her award-nominated role in Lorelei. She has also appeared for Opera Queensland, Gertrude Opera (To Hell and Back), the Auckland Festival (Nixon in China) and Melbourne Opera, where her credits include the title role in Carmen and Emilia (Rossini’s Otello), which won her another Green Room Award in 2019. She has created numerous roles, including the title role in Jonathan Mills’ Ghost Wife (Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney festivals, and the BITE02 festival at the Barbican Centre); Rebecca in Love in the Age of Therapy (Opera Australia); and roles in Crossing Live and The Children’s Bach (Chamber Made Opera). Her concert appearances include the Sydney Festival, Melbourne Festival, Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the 2019 Port Fairy Spring Music Festival. In 2020 her plans included Carmen in a national tour for Opera Australia, her Lorelei role for Opera Queensland and the vocal solos in Anna Karenina for the Australian Ballet.
Synopsis ACT ONE Maine, 1873. Julie Jordan and Carrie Pipperidge, two young millworkers, visit the town carousel, where Julie attracts the attention of the swaggering carnival barker, Billy Bigelow. Without admitting their growing attraction, Julie and Billy begin to fall in love, and in rapid succession, each loses their job. Mrs Mullin, the widowed owner of the carousel, fires Billy out of jealousy, and Julie is fired by Mr Bascombe, the mill owner, for staying out late. A month later, Julie and Billy are now married and still unemployed. Carrie is engaged to the fisherman Enoch Snow, who expects to become rich selling herring. The frustrated Billy is tempted on the one hand by his whaler friend Jigger’s offer to collaborate in a robbery and on the other by Mrs Mullin’s invitation to return to the carousel – and to her. His decision is made when he learns Julie is pregnant. Overwhelmed with happiness and desperate to provide for his future child, he agrees to be Jigger’s accomplice. The whole town leaves for the summer clambake, including Billy who will need his appearance there as an alibi.
ACT TWO Julie sees Billy sneaking away from the clambake with Jigger and, trying to stop him, feels the knife hidden in his shirt. The two men play cards, staking their shares in the robbery spoils. Billy loses; his participation is now pointless. The robbery fails and Billy stabs himself with his knife. Billy is taken ‘Up There’ to see the Starkeeper, who tells Billy that so long as there is a person alive who remembers him, he can return to Earth for a day to try to redeem himself. He suggests Billy might help his daughter Louise, now 15, who has grown up ostracised. Billy steals a star to take with him; the Starkeeper pretends not to notice. Louise confides in Enoch Jr, Carrie’s first son, that she plans to run away with an acting troupe. He says he will stop her by marrying her but that his father will think her an unsuitable match. Louise is outraged and sends him away, giving Billy the chance to make himself visible. He offers her the star but she refuses it. Louise tells her mother what happened. Julie, seeing the dropped star, picks it up and seems to feel Billy’s presence. Dr Seldon (who resembles the Starkeeper) tells Louise’s graduating class not to rely on their parents’ success or be held back by their failure. Billy whispers to Louise, telling her to believe Seldon’s words, and goes to Julie, telling her at last that he loved her.
Douglas McNicol THE STARKEEPER/DR SELDON Dramatic bass-baritone Douglas McNicol has received high praise for roles including Jack Rance (La fanciulla del West); Scarpia (Tosca) for Opera Australia, Opera Queensland, West Australian Opera and in New Zealand; Jokanaan (Salome); Amonasro (Aida); Giorgio Germont (La Traviata) for State Opera; and Iago (Otello) for Opera Queensland and State Opera. A multiple award winner, he has worked with all the major opera companies and orchestras in Australia and New Zealand and appeared in concerts in Italy and the UK. Notable engagements have included directorial roles for John Haddock’s Madeline Lee and Gianni Schicchi (in which he also performed the title role), Sharpless (Madama Butterfly), Tonio (Pagliacci), Pizarro (Fidelio), Leporello and the title role in Don Giovanni, Verdi’s Requiem, Owen Hart (Dead Man Walking), Horatio in Brett Dean’s Hamlet for Adelaide Festival, Bartolo (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and Scarpia for Perth Festival, and Roy Disney in The Perfect American by Philip Glass (OQ/Brisbane Festival). His concert repertoire includes Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Mass in B Minor, St John Passion and St Matthew Passion; Purcell’s Tempest; Berlioz’s Childhood of Christ; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; the Fauré, Brahms and Mozart requiems; Handel’s Acis and Galatea and Messiah; Mendelssohn’s Elijah and The Bells by Rachmaninoff. This year Douglas McNicol will also sing Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd with State Opera.
Nicholas Cannon JIGGER CRAIGIN Nicholas Cannon is a versatile director, performer and teacher who holds a Music Theatre degree from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and trained in the Lecoq Technique in Barcelona and Paris. His roles with State Opera have included Johnny Dowd (Summer of the Seventeenth Doll), Pish-Tush (The Mikado), the Lieutenant (Madeline Lee), Kromov (The Merry Widow), Papageno (The Magic Flute) and Quick Lamb (Cloudstreet!). He has also appeared in operetta roles for Coburg Landestheater in Germany; as a Tritone in Marilyn Forever (Adelaide Festival); as Chris Barnes (Metro Street) in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival; and as Dr Falke (Die Fledermaus), Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), Sharpless (Madama Butterfly), Marcello (La Bohème) and the title roles in Eugene Onegin and The Marriage of Figaro with Co-Opera, touring regional Australia. He has undertaken director internships in the UK, France and Germany, and with Opera Australia, and his numerous Australian directing credits include Christina’s World, Dido and Aeneas and La Vida Breve for State Opera South Australia; Acis and Galatea in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens; Price Check (Loaded Productions, Adelaide); A Little Night Music for Watch This Company, Melbourne; and Co-Opera.
Catherine Campbell MRS MULLIN Catherine Campbell trained as an actor at the Adelaide College of the Arts, holds an honours degree in Drama (Musical Theatre) from Flinders University and attended the prestigious Yale Summer Cabaret School. Operatic and music theatre highlights include Matron in The Front, A Wild Party directed by Andrew Lippa, Maltby and Shire’s Take Flight, The Mikado (Adelaide Festival Centre), Songs for a New World (Adelaide Cabaret Festival), Mme Thénadier in Les Misérables (MS Society), Claire in Northern Lights/ Southern Cross (Tutti/Interact USA), Shouting Fence (Various People Inc.) and the Witch in the SA premiere of Into the Woods. A member of State Opera Chorus since 1997, she has appeared in Saul, Hamlet and Writing t Vermeer (Adelaide Festival), and many mainstage productions, including The Mikado, Dead Man Walking, Parsifal, Sweeney Todd and The Merry Widow (singing Praskovia). She has appeared for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival (including her solo show My Blue Angel), Melbourne Comedy Festival, Adelaide Fringe and Don’t Tell Mama in New York, and she is a cocreator of the comedy trio Gentlemen Prefer Curves. Her acting credits include The Doll’s House, A Streetcar Named Desire (Bakehouse Theatre), Sisters (CPA) and Equus (State Theatre Company).
State Opera Chorus Eve Green LOUISE BIGELOW Eve Green has loved performing from a young age, developing her passion for music and theatre as a company member of Pelican Productions. Her childhood training was as a gymnast and acrobat; in the 2013 International Development Program she was the State gymnastics champion on beam, vault, bars and all round, and in 2015 she was a silver and dual bronze medallist at the National Acrobatic Gymnastics Championships. Her gymnastics skill led to her first film experience: as an extra in the movie Raising the Bar (2016). Her favourite musical theatre roles include Ruby Gillis in Anne of Green Gables: The Musical (2018), Eva in Bring It On: The Musical (2017, 2018), Miss Hannigan in Annie (2018) and Gertrude McFuzz in Seussical (2017). In 2018 she was selected by OZ Theatrics to join the pilot cast for Newsies Broadway Junior. She loves having Rosie Hosking as her inspirational vocal teacher and enjoys musical theatre classes at Pelican Academy. Her performance highlight to date was the 2018 USA Performing Arts Tour (New York, a Carnival cruise and Disney World) with Pelican Productions and iTheatrics.
Peter Jackson
Cherie Boogaart
ENOCH SNOW, JR
Deborah Caddy
Peter Jackson is a Year 11 student at Christian Brothers College. He studies voice with Estill Master Trainer Katrina Ryan and guitar with Nick Tanner, and will be participating in this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival Class of Cabaret program. In 2020 and 2021, he performed in Pelican Productions’ Music Theatre Camp as a soloist and ensemble member, and in 2019 and 2020 he was a soloist in the Catholic Schools Music Festival. He is a member of Pilgrim Church Choir, participating in the choir’s English Cathedrals Tour 2017–18, and has been a long-standing member of the Christian Brothers College Rock Band 1 and Senior Vocal Ensemble. Last year he was awarded an Australian Defence Force Long Tan Leadership and Teamwork Award, and in his spare time he loves to climb and game.
David Cox Susan Ferguson Adam Goodburn Daniel Goodburn Kristen Hardy Rosanna Hosking Greg John Rodney Kirk Nicolas Lock Roslyn Lock Elizabeth McCall Rachel McCall Katrina Mackenzie Jamie Moffatt James Nicholson Mark Oates Brock Roberts Alex Roose Alexandra Scott Vanessa Lee Shirley Andrew Turner Courtney Turner
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra VIOLINS Elizabeth Layton** Guest Concertmaster Cameron Hill** Associate Concertmaster Michael Milton** Acting Principal 2nd Violin Alexander Permezel† Acting Associate Principal 2nd Violin Ann Axelby Minas Berberyan Gillian Braithwaite Hilary Bruer Elizabeth Collins Jane Collins Judith Coombe Danielle Jaquillard Alexis Milton Kemeri Spurr VIOLAS Justin Julian** Acting Section Principal Lesley Cockram† Acting Associate Principal Rosi McGowran Michael Robertson Cecily Satchell CELLOS Ewen Bramble** Acting Section Principal Sarah Denbigh† Acting Associate Principal Christopher Handley Sherrilyn Handley DOUBLE BASSES Jonathon Coco** Acting Section Principal Harley Gray† Acting Associate Principal Belinda Kendall-Smith
FLUTES Geoffrey Collins** Lisa Gill OBOE & COR ANGLAIS Peter Duggan* CLARINETS Dean Newcomb** Darren Skelton BASS CLARINET Mitchell Berick* CONTRABASSOON Jackie Newcomb* HORNS Sarah Barrett† Emma Gregan Timothy Skelly TRUMPETS Josh Rogan** Guest Section Principal Dave Khafagi TROMBONES Colin Prichard** Ian Denbigh BASS TROMBONE Amanda Tillett* Guest Principal TUBA Karina Filipi* Guest Principal HARP Suzanne Handel* TIMPANI Andrew Penrose* PERCUSSION Jamie Adam* Guest Principal
** denotes Section Principal *
denotes Principal Player
†
denotes Associate Principal
DRUM KIT John McDermott* Guest Principal
Donors State Opera South Australia acknowledges the generous support of its donors. PLATINUM $20,000+
Artistic Directorʼs Circle
Master Elizabeth Olsson in memory of the Hon. Trevor Olsson
Drs Geoff & Sorayya Martin
Bruce Saint
Kevin & Kaaren Palmer
John & Kate Irving Master Elizabeth Olsson Dr Christine Rothauser
GOLD $10,000–$19,999
Sibby Sutherland
The late Lorraine Drogemuller
Opera Academy 2021
Peter & Pamela McKee
Sally Crafter in memory of Shirley Crinion formerly Shirley Crafter
Pauline Menz Anonymous (1)
Sue Crafter in memory of Shirley Crinion formerly Shirley Crafter
SILVER $5,000–$9,999
The Friends of State Opera
Yarmila Alfonzetti John & Kate Irving Drs Geoff & Sorayya Martin Kevin & Kaaren Palmer Dr Christine Rothauser Sibby Sutherland
John Holmes Joan Lyons John Shepherd
Donors BRONZE $1,000–$4,999 Dr Margaret Arstall
Jane & Ian Doyle
Chris Perriam
Peggy Barker
Dr & Mrs Paul Drysdale
Ben Robinson
Susan & Graeme Bethune
Anne Edwards
Glenys G Scott
The Hon. David & Mrs Elizabeth Bleby
Meg & Jack Favilla
Dr Geoffrey Seidel
Rick & Jan Frolich
Beth & John Shepherd
Elizabeth Bull
Barbara & Paul Green
Christopher Stone
Elizabeth Campbell
LL & SJ Greenslade
Guila Tiver & Denis Harrison
Peter & Margie Cannon
Margo & Sam Hill-Smith
Sue Tweddell
Bruce Cleland
John Holmes
GC & R Weir
Angela Cook & Derek Brown
Robert Kenrick
William Wood
Margaret Cope
Dr Ian Klepper
Barry Worrall
Sally Crafter in memory of Shirley Crinion formerly Shirley Crafter
Margaret Lehmann
Anonymous (7)
Sue Crafter in memory of Shirley Crinion formerly Shirley Crafter
Dr Leo Mahar
Jan & Peter Davis Antonio & Eleonore De Ionno Bruce Debelle AO Kay Dowling
Joan Lyons Ruth Marshall & Tim Muecke Dr Thomas Millhouse & Dr Marina Delpin K & D Morris
An unparalleled experience…
Donors ENCORE SUPPORTERS $250–$999 Imelda & Anthony Alexopoulos Lachlan Andrews Ilze Augstkalns Rob Baillie JW Baker Peter Bastian Dr Detlef Baucks Martin Borg Jane & Bob Brummitt Prof. Julian White AM & Dr Beata M Byok Pam Caldwell Janet Coburn Dr Aileen Connon AM Colin & Robyn Cowan David Coyte Richard Curnow Mary & Frederick Davidson Tony & Rachel Davidson John Dawes Judi Denton Christopher Dibden
Peter & Theresa Dodds Steve Dunn Sean Flaherty In memory of Franz DJ & RA Gilmour Ruth Grant Nelson Green AW & AKH Grieve S Grossmann Helen Haines Ali Hains Elizabeth & Peter Hambly David Hansman PM Hardy Jan & Bryan Harris William & Helen Harrod Sue Harvey Paul Henning Zen & Susie Herzberg Phyllis Hurr Robin Jeffrey Prof. Mark Jenkinson Alison Kent
Alun & Pat Kenwood Hon. Anne Levy Prue Little Brian Lucas Malcolm MacKinnon Yvonne McMurray Robert Marrone Angela Marshall Roger Masters Stuart Maunder AM Gillian Mickan Chris O’Nyons Helen Palm Graham Parks Coralie Patterson Brian Peat MG & HM Poland Diana Roberts Trish & Richard Ryan AO Linda Sampson Mrs Meredyth Sarah AM Gwennyth Shaughnessy Doreen Spurdens
Your gift will help us deliver inspiring and exhilarating opera experiences for audiences and artists alike. Make your tax-deductible donation today via our website or speak to our Development Team about your gift.
stateopera.com.au/donate (08) 8226 4790 | development@stateopera.com.au
W & H Stacy Anne Sutcliffe Peter & Mary Sutherland Anne Sved Williams Vincent & Charissa Tarzia Michael Tatchell Robin Torrence Caroline Treloar Linnett & David Turner Peter & Liz Turner Dr Peter & Maria Tyllis Dr Nick Vrodos & Dr Anna Galanopoulos Dr Barbara Wall Barbara Walter Prof. Brenda Wilson AM & Dr Kym Bannister Anonymous (16)
We also thank the countless other supporters who give so generously.
Acknowledgements Production Credits
Honorary Life Members
PRODUCTION MANAGER Ben Flett
Hugh Cunningham
REPETITEUR Andrew Georg
Richard Brown
DIALECT COACH Jennifer Innes STAGE MANAGER Jess Nash
State Opera Board of Management
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Emily Barraclough
John Irving Chair
HEAD OF WARDROBE Tracey Richardson
Imelda Alexopoulos
WARDROBE Denise Strawhan
Dr Beata M Byok
DRESSERS Oriana Merullo, Kent Green
Peter Michell
HEAD OF WIGS & MAKEUP Sue Taylor
Dr Thomas Millhouse
ASSISTANT WIGS & MAKEUP Cheryl LaScala
Master Elizabeth Olsson
INTERN WIGS & MAKEUP Teresa Scriva
State Opera Staff
Adelaide Festival Centre Production Staff
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Yarmila Alfonzetti
AFCT PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Laura Smans
HEAD OF MUSIC Anthony Hunt
HEAD MECHANIST Dave Sanders
HEAD OF MARKETING & DEVELOPMENT
HEAD FLYMAN Ashley Knight
Sidonie Henbest
FLYMAN Benjamin Johnson
PRODUCTION MANAGER Ben Flett
LIGHTING OPERATOR Martin Howard
HEAD OF FINANCE Nicole Mathee
FLOOR LIGHTING Paul McGee
ACCOUNTANT Sarah Hart
FOLLOW SPOTS Robert O’Mahony, Kate Skinner
COMPANY STAGE MANAGER Jess Nash
FOH SOUND ENGINEERS
MARKETING EXECUTIVE Olga Grudinina
Adam Budgen, Cambell Lawrence
CONTRACTS ADMINISTRATOR Li Li Fisher
FLOOR SOUND/RADIO TECHNICIANS
BUSINESS SUPPORT OFFICER Kelly Hicks
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Stuart Maunder AM
Mick Jackson, Deanna Covino
JOHANNA ALLEN (SODA STREET PRODUCTIONS)
Program Credits PROGRAM EDITOR Yvonne Frindle PHOTOGRAPHY Dylan Coker Photography,
Jason Vandepeer, Soda Street Productions CONCEPT ART novel. PRINTER Print Solutions
Acknowledgements G OV E R N M E N T The Australian Federal Government through
The South Australian Government through
O P E R A & I N D U S T RY
F O U N DAT I O N S
VENUES
O U R PA R T N E R S
MEDIA & COMMUNIT Y
T h an ks t o Sh owcase SA , n ove l., lit t le lio n PR , So da S t re e t Pro duct io n s, Oat e n M e dia, Pr in t So lut io n s an d N W G ro up
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEINʼS
CAROUSEL MARCH 2021 | FESTIVAL THEATRE, ADELAIDE