Opera Australia’s La Boheme Photo: Jeff Busby
With 2012 drawing to a close and the Xmas parties kicking into overdrive, the promise of a new year starts to fill our heads with optimism and lower our levels of productivity at work.
Not only does the beginning of the year arrive with music festivals, sunshine and hot afternoons in thirst quenching beer gardens, it also brings with it a new season at the Opera, which this year is extra exciting, especially for the young and uninitiated.
Gone are the days of opera being an activity only suitable for twin-sets, pearls and the uber rich – and Opera Australia wants you to know.
To change our perceptions and prove to a younger audience that they should give it a go, Opera Australia is offering a youth subscription of up to six tickets to any show in the 2013 season for just $60.
The only requirement is that you must be under 30. With ticket prices usually ranging between $105 and $280 this is a massive saving, and a great reason to don your best suit/frock (though jeans will do just fine) and get amongst it.
And if you think opera isn’t your glass of sparkling, then think again.
You’re bound to find something to suit your taste with a season ahead that includes Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme, a saucy Parisian affair that blasted the 2011 Australia box office, the dramatic and innovative A Masked Ball presented in collaboration with Sydney Festival, or Orpheus in the Underworld where comic opera meets musical theatre.
Samuel Dundas, an opera performer who is set to play Marcello in La Boheme, says most of what he loves about performing in an opera “is the fact you can get completely lost in a character for two hours each night”. And from an audience perspective I can’t agree more.
Opera is adapting to the times with more expansive events such as outdoor stages and collaborations with artistic directors such as Alex Olle, of La Fura dels Baus, an innovative theatre company of the Spanish scene.
The 2013 Opera season kicks off on Saturday, January 5 with La Boheme returning to Australian audiences with a dream team of creatives: director Gale Edwards, stage designer Brian Thomson and costume designer Julie Lynch.
For more information head to www.opera-australia.org.au/
