UoT Opera’s annual Student Composer Collective production was presented on Sunday afternoon at CanStage Berkeley Street. This year Michael Patrick Albano’s libretto took three stories from antiquity and presented each twice; essentially in the original and then with a modern twist. The three stories were Antigone, Medea and Helen and five composers were involved in creating the music. Sandra Horst conducted with a seven piece ensemble on stage to one side.
Wednesday’s recital in the RBA was given by UoT Opera. It consisted of a series of arias/scenes drawn from the operas of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven creatively staged by Mabel Wonnacott. It was lively and a lot of fun and the vocal standard was very high, especially for so early in the academic year.
Unbridled Theatre Collective, a new outfit, opened a run of Brecht/Weill’s The Threepenny Opera at Video Cabaret on Thursday evening. It’s in an updated version created for The National Theatre by Simon Stephens in 2016 and it’s so updated it might well be retitled The 1.25p Opera. It’s raunchy and contains sexually explicit language and action (including some rather disturbing sexual violence) that would never have made it past the censors back in the day.
operaramblings 