In June 2006 Victorian Opera burst into life in Melbourne. Bringing a distinctive and different program – including new Australian commissions, less familiar repertoire, Youth Opera and new opera staging of classics – the company has grown from strength to strength with audiences and critics.

In the newly reopened Hamer Hall, Richard Gill conducts the Victorian Opera Chorus and Orchestra Victoria with soloists who have been working with the company since the beginning and others who will make their company debut.

Expect a program which inspires, informs and delights including excerpts from Boris Godunov, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Fidelio, Der Rosenkavalier and a few surprises.

19 Dec
Hamer Hall
Arts Centre Melbourne
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Richard Strauss’s Salome caused a sensation when it premiered in Europe in 1905. It has been shocking and enthralling audiences ever since. Now Gale Edwards, who thrilled audiences with her edgy and brilliant La bohème in 2011, directs a new production of Richard Strauss’s explosive one-act opera, with sets by Brian Thomson and Johannes Fritzsch conducting.

And who will play Salome?

Who else, but one of the world’s leading interpreters of the great Strauss heroines, Cheryl Barker, recreating a role she first sang to great acclaim at London’s English National Opera. With her is the magnificent Peter Coleman-Wright as Jokanaan and a grand ensemble cast to people the court of Herod.

An Opera Conference co-production.

Bel canto songbird Emma Matthews leads an international cast which includes charismatic Italian baritone Giorgio Caoduro as Lucia’s cruel brother Enrico and Aldo Di Toro as Edgardo. Meanwhile John Doyle directs this atmospheric, psychologically searching take on Sir Walter Scott’s thrilling tale.

Lucia and Edgardo are in love, but Lucia’s brother Enrico plans to marry her off to Arturo to secure the family’s fortune. Will Lucia submit to her brother’s will? Find out in this fabulous jewel of the bel canto repertoire.

Perfect for the first time opera-goer, this production blends exquisite costumes and stylish set designs with some of the most moving music ever written.

Lieutenant Pinkerton has just arrived in Nagasaki for an extended tour of duty. While he is there, he intends to live well. The local fixer, Goro, has rented a house for him, and hired staff. All that is missing is a little wife to come home to. Goro can provide. He knows a girl. Her name is Butterfly.

Strictly limited tickets (five performances only) go on sale to the general public in March 2012, but subscribers and supporters of The Australian Ballet nationally will be offered an exclusive presale one week prior.

31 Oct – 3 Nov
State Theatre
Arts Centre Melbourne
Tickets will be on sale from March 2012

Credits

Etudes (1948)
Choreography Harald Lander
Music KnudågeRiisager based on ‘Etudes’by Carl Czerny
Original lighting design Francis Croese

The performances of Etudes are given by permission of Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd

The world’s most beloved ballet returns to its roots in the hands of Resident Choreographer Stephen Baynes and Artistic Director David McAllister. Baynes is renowned for his intense musicality and neo-classical purity. His new production of this 19th-century masterpiece focuses on the prince’s dilemma — trapped in a repressive, militaristic court, haunted by his father’s death, drawn fatefully to the lake, falling into doomed love. Designer Hugh Colman, who has brought his lavish imaginative powers to many of The Australian Ballet’s productions, will give us a Swan Lake of unprecedented magnificence.

Swan Lake has special significance for The Australian Ballet: it opened our very first season in 1962, and was reimagined by Graeme Murphy for the company’s 40^th anniversary in 2002. As we turn 50, there is no more apt celebration than to give new life to this iconic favourite.

“Swan Lake is the most loved ballet of all time.
In our 50^th anniversary we will have a beautiful new traditional production that will be a link back to the company’s very first performance in 1962.”

David McAllister

18 Sept – 29 Sept
State Theatre
Arts Centre Melbourne
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Genre

Full-length story ballet

Credits

Swan Lake (2012)
Choreography Stephen Baynes
Creative associate David McAllister
Music Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Costume and set design Hugh Colman
Lighting design Rachel Burke

The best of the sixties, the seventies and the eighties

This triple bill features The Display, Sir Robert Helpmann’s first work on the fledgling Australian Ballet. Inspired by a dream in which he saw a naked Katharine Hepburn on a dais surrounded by lyrebirds, and informed by his and Hepburn’s observation of the birds in Victoria’s Sherbrooke Forest, The Displayslyly relates mating rituals to the behaviour of men fighting over a woman at an Aussie picnic.

Gemini, created on The Australian Ballet in 1973, is a blazingly original work that still looks contemporary today. Glen Tetley was a pioneer of a style that synthesised classical movement and a modern vocabulary. Set to Hans Werner Henze’s challenging score, this ballet stretches its dancers to the limit.

Graeme Murphy’s Beyond Twelve, commissioned by Artistic Director Marilyn Jones in 1980, is a moving look at a dancer’s life, from larky, football-mad boyhood to young love and early success through to a hard-earnt, lonely maturity.

This trio of Australian classics looks back to our history and forward to our future.

“Beyond Twelve is a close rival to Glen Tetley’s
Gemini as the best short work commissioned
by The Australian Ballet”

The Age

“a stunning visual experience”

The Herald on The Display

30 Aug – 8 Sept
State Theatre
Arts Centre Melbourne
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Genre

20^th-century classical mixed bill

Credits

The Display (1964)
Choreography Robert Helpmann
Music Malcolm Williamson
Production design Sidney Nolan
Original lighting design William Akers

Recreation of Sir Sidney Nolan’s scenic backdrops made possible with the support of
The Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation’s Eldon & Anne Foote Trust

Gemini (1973)
Choreography Glenn Tetley
Music Hans Werner Henze “Symphony No. 3”
Costume and set design Nadine Baylis
Original lighting design William Akers

Beyond Twelve (1980)
Choreography Graeme Murphy
Music Maurice Ravel “Piano Concerto in G Major”
Costume and set design Alan Oldfield
Original lighting design Christopher Maver

Lighting reproduced by Francis Croese

Based on an episode from Don Quixote, Master Peter’s Puppet Show delves into the minds of the protagonists, as lines are blurred between reality and fiction. Victorian Opera, in collaboration with Black Hole Theatre takes the concept of a show within a show one step further.

What Next? is the only opera written by two-time Pulitzer Prize winning composer Elliott Carter. The opera explodes with vitality as it looks at how six people regain consciousness after an accident and try to recall who they are.

2011 Developing Artist Daniel Carter embarks on his debut as lead conductor in this enigmatic double bill.

15 – 22 Aug
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall
Melbourne Recital Centre
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More than 800 people are expected to enjoy a program of popular opera songs and music, including excerpts from Puccini’s La boheme, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi Fan Tutte, as well as the famous ‘Flower Duet’ from Lakme and ‘Votra Toast’ (the Toreador Song) from Bizet’s Carmen.

The one-hour concert will be performed by a 50-piece orchestra from Orchestra Victoria and some of Opera Australia’s best stars.

7 August
Esso BHP Billiton Wellington Entertainment Centre (Sale)

* Tickets will be available via the Opera Australia in due course.