LA SONNAMBULA – PACIFIC OPERA

June 18th 2009 1:52 pm | Theatre | News - By Diana Simmonds

Piccolo e bello. Piccolo è buona

LA SONNAMBULA Glen St Theatre, July 31, August 2, 6, 7 and 8; 02 9975 1455 or www.glenstreet.com.au

Christine Douglas and Pacific Opera - her little operatic engine that could - are taking a further leap forward with a production - the first in Australia since 1965, she thinks - of Bellini's La sonnambula.

It's also a series of first for Pacific Opera. According to Douglas she has "A few fabulous young sopranos to choose from who could sing it." And "moving to Glen Street Theatre means more resources available, including an orchestra pit and screens for surtitles." But wait - there's more!

The surtitles are necessary, for monolinguists, because, says Douglas, "It's time to try performing in Italian." The logical extension of this thought is that Bellini's gorgeous bel canto style music "is great for young voices," and that's an important consideration that's often overlooked by managements.

Douglas has also cast an established artist in Roy Best in the lead tenor role of Elvino to give the younger voices a mark to aim at. "I'm setting in it Sicily in the 1960s," says Douglas. "There's loads of testosterone-fuelled arias from the jealous Elvino; beautiful, soulful sleepwalking arias from the lead soprano Amina."

The full cast is Eva Kong as Amina, Julia Malczewski as Lisa, Amanda Hutton as Teresa, Adrian Tamburini as Rodolpho, Byron Watson as Alessio and Richard Hansen as the Notary. Douglas is directing, conductor is Andrew Greene; set and costumes by Simone Romaniuk and Ailsa Paterson, lighting by Nicholas Higgins. There will be five performances. Altogether, as Douglas says, it's "A must see!"

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