CREATIVE TEAM & CAST

Creative Team

Concept

Patrick Nolan

Director & Writer

Laura Hansford

Musical Director & Arranger

Luke Volker

Costumes

Karen Cochet & Bianca Bulley

Set Designer

Laura Hansford

Cast

Vocal and instrumental

Marcus Corowa

Jess Hitchcock

Irena Lysiuk

Piano, instrumental and vocals

Luke Volker

TOURING QUEENSLAND APRIL – JUNE 2023

This performance lasts approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, including 20 minutes interval.

No portion of this performance may be photographed, recorded, filmed, taped, broadcast or mechanically reproduced without the written consent of the Artist and/or the Presenter.

Concept

Patrick Nolan

Currently the CEO & Artistic Director of Opera Queensland, Patrick has created productions for Opera Australia, WA Opera, Sydney Chamber Opera, New Zealand Opera, Seattle Opera, Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir St, Griffin Theatre, Melbourne Theatre Company, London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and all the major Australian capital city festivals.

From 2009 – 2014 he was Artistic Director of Legs On The Wall, creating works that toured Australia, UK, Korea and Brazil. In 2015, Patrick was awarded an Australia Council Fellowship to support research into large scale outdoor performance and the relationship between extreme physicality and storytelling.

Operas include: Oscar and Lucinda Opera Queensland with Sydney Chamber Opera and Victorian Opera; Tosca, A Flowering Tree and The Marriage of Figaro Opera Queensland; Verdi Requiem Opera Queensland with Bleach* Festival; Katya Kabanova Seattle Opera and NZ Opera; Notes from Underground Sydney Chamber Opera; A Flowering Tree Perth Festival and WA Opera; Acis and Galatea, Dido and Aeneas, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Eugene Onegin, Pelléas et Mélisande Opera Australia; La bohème, Eugene Onegin New Zealand Opera; the world première of Love in the Age of Therapy by Paul Grabowsky and Joanna Murray-Smith for the Sydney and Melbourne Festivals.

Director

Laura Hansford

Laura Hansford has worked on Opera Queensland (OQ) productions for the last decade as both an artistic and technical collaborator. She directed OQ’s most successful touring production Are You Lonesome Tonight (2021), co-directed The Sopranos (OQ) and Home Grown Opera (for OQ and Bleach* Festival), and re-directed The Sopranos for OQ’s regional tour in 2022. Most recently, she directed Verdi’s Macbeth, presented in QPAC’s Concert Hall in March 2023.

In 2021/2022 Laura was a resident Director with Circa and was the Project Lead on their inclusive Circus program Circability. She was the Associate Director on Circa’s Italian Baroque presented with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra at Sydney Festival 2022.

Laura is currently Artistic Associate for OQ and has acted as Assistant Director on a variety of productions for OQ: The Marriage of Figaro (2021), Tosca (2019), Songs to Die For (2019); and for Victorian Opera: The Barber of Seville (2019), Pelléas and Mélisande (2018).

Laura has worked extensively with companies such as Opera Australia, Victorian Opera, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Opera and State Opera South Australia. In 2020 she was nominated as an Emerging Female Artist at the Matilda awards.

Forthcoming engagements include Assistant Director for Così fan tutte (OQ) and La bohème (West Australian Opera).

MUSICAL DIRECTOR & ARRANGER

Luke Volker

Luke Volker is a Brisbane-based music director, dramaturg, composer, arranger and accompanist. His credits as music director or musical supervisor include the Universal Monsters Live Rock & Roll Show® and Hogwarts™ Frog Choir for Universal Studios Japan®, The Sunshine Club for Queensland Theatre, and national tours of The Owl & The Pussycat, #FirstWorldWhiteGirls, Ruby Slipper Chronicles, and Babushka’s Happily Ever After (for which he won a Matilda Award). He has also worked on developmental productions for QPAC, Metro Arts, Opera Queensland, Queensland Theatre and Dead Puppets Society, among many others.

Luke’s arrangements have been performed across Australia and internationally, including at Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Cabaret Festival, Sydney WorldPride and New York’s The Green Room 42. He is the composer of There Once Was A Puffin, an online mini-opera for children commissioned during 2020’s lockdown period, and regularly writes and arranges for Opera Queensland’s Learning, Regional and Community projects. As a pianist Luke has played for various touring musicals, performs with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, is the resident accompanist for SingEasy’s Musical Theatre Industry Night, and has worked with such celebrated artists as Caroline O’Connor, Lea Salonga, Faith Prince, Rhonda Burchmore and Philip Quast.

Luke acknowledges the original custodians of the lands on which he lives, works, and creates. Sovereignty was never ceded.

Costumes

Karen Cochet

Trained in fashion, Karen owned innovative clothing business “Salon Dada”. In 1989, Karen relocated to Europe and worked for Opèra de Lausanne and Grand Théâtre de Genève from 1994 to 2006. Originally as a cutter costume maker and later as Artistic Liaison, she expanded her knowledge and love of costume working alongside the most talented and respected costumiers and artisans in Europe.

A career highlight was La Fête des Vignerons in 1999, where Karen was responsible for the realisation of over 6,000 costumes, spanning all periods from 15th century to contemporary times. She worked with Christian Lacroix, Couturier, commissioned to design the costumes for the goddesses. Resident costume designer for Ballet Romand in Vevey from 2003 to 2008, Karen realised the costumes for The Nutcracker, Cinderella and Peter Pan, to name a few. Her final project in Switzerland was “Calvin, Genève en Flammes”, celebrating the 500th anniversary of Jean Calvin in Geneva.

Karen was appointed Head of Wardrobe at Opera Queensland in 2013. Design credits for Opera Queensland include The Adventures of Figaro, A Night with Opera Queensland, Snow White (nominated for Best Costume Design, Matilda Awards, 2016) and The Marriage of Figaro. She codesigned Songs of Love and War and Chrysalis in 2021, The Sopranos in 2022 and, most recently, Macbeth (March 2023).

Costumes

Bianca Bulley

Bianca is a costume designer, cutter and maker for live performance and film. Graduating with Honours from a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design, she has worked for multiple independent Australian fashion designers as well as extensively within the costume industry. Her work as a costume designer and maker expands across multiple Queensland major performing arts companies such as Queensland Theatre, Queensland Ballet and most recently full time as Assistant Head of Wardrobe at Opera Queensland (OQ).

For OQ, Bianca designed the schools touring production of The Frog Prince and La bohème in 2020, and was co-designer for Chrysalis and Songs of Love and War (2021), The Sopranos (2022) and Macbeth (2023). She has also worked on films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, where she worked on Elvis’s tailored suits. In 2019 Bianca was awarded a Churchill Scholarship, undertaking training to further her skill as a costume tailor.

Bianca is a Co-Manager of fashion not-for-profit The Stitchery Collective, a group of fashion practitioners who create immersive fashion events and workshops for Queensland art galleries and museums. In addition, Bianca co-runs fashion label Bulley Bulley with her sister Kiara, where they design clothing that combines the concepts of historical costuming with the frivolity and fun nature of contemporary fashion.

Vocal And Instrumental

Marcus Corowa

Marcus Corowa has captured the hearts of Australians with his silky, soulful voice and charming stage presence. An award-winning First Nations entertainer, Marcus is an accomplished singer/songwriter, composer, actor and mentor who has been turning heads for more than a decade.

Drawing on his Aboriginal and South Sea Islander heritage, Marcus creates captivating music with elements of blues, jazz and funk; a combination that won him the Most Promising New Talent in Music Award at the 2012 Deadly Awards and that can be heard on his EPs Water & Air and The Greater You. Since then, Marcus has found success as an independent recording artist, composer and actor.

Marcus is an exceptional live entertainer which has resulted in amazing partnerships. He was part of the 30-year anniversary celebrations for Australian Catholic University’s Indigenous program, Yalbinga, performed with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra at The National Centre for Indigenous Excellence Reconciliation Action Week, and has secured residencies with both Voyages Sails in the Desert and on the Indian Pacific. He is a positive role model and advocate for diversity and inclusion, committed to using his voice to mentor and inspire young Australians.

Other career highlights include the Australian premiere of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (2017/18), playing Willie in Opera Australia’s Bran Nue Dae (2020), Opera Australia’s The Rabbits (2015), Belvoir St Theatre’s Barbara and the Camp Dogs (2020), Sydney Theatre Company’s The Secret River (2017) and most recently playing Frank Doyle in Queensland Theatre’s The Sunshine Club at QPAC (2022).

For Opera Queensland, Marcus performed his first solo recital for the Opera Queensland Studio Series (2022), featured in the 2021 touring production Are You Lonesome Tonight, performed at Festival of Outback Opera 2022, and wrote three new songs with and for students in Charleville, Quilpie and Cunnamulla as part of Opera Queensland’s project Composed in Queensland.

Vocal And Instrumental

Jess Hitchcock

Award-winning opera singer and songwriter Jess Hitchcock is an Indigenous performer, composer and singersongwriter with family origins from Saibai in the Torres Straits and Papua New Guinea.

Over the last 10 years, Jess has worked as a teacher, composer and artist with the country’s leading arts companies, including Bangarra Dance Theatre, Victorian Opera and Australia’s only Indigenous opera company, Short Black Opera. The role of Alice created in Short Black Opera’s Pecan Summer was Jess’s debut professional opera production. She received a Broadway World award for best supporting actress in an opera for her creation of this role at the Sydney Opera House, 2016. This role led to the opportunity to work on Opera Australia’s production of The Rabbits, for which she was awarded a Green Room Award for Best Female in a supporting role also in 2016. In 2021 Jess played the role Tjatjarang in Victorian Opera’s new commissioned work Parrwang Lifts the Sky, composed by Deborah Cheetham, and recently featured in Wudjang: not the past, with Bangarra Dance Theatre. Outside of her theatre engagements, one of Jess’ most notable collaborations is with legendary Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly, recently as a featured artist in Paul’s Making Gravy national tour and releasing the track, ‘Everyday My Mother’s Voice’. Jess’ muchanticipated album, ‘Unbreakable’, will be released in June this year and features her striking original material, described as “equal parts dramatic and playful”. Jess has also collaborated with Australian music legends Archie Roach, Tina Arena, Kate MilerHeidke and Lisa Mitchell.

Later this year Jess will appear in Victorian Opera’s The Visitors, make her debut Opera Queensland theatre performance in Lady Sings the Maroons, and begin development on a new opera work for young audiences, as an Opera Queensland 2023 Young Artist.

Vocal And Instrumental

Irena Lysiuk

Since graduating from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in 2016 with a Graduate Diploma in Music Studies and in 2014 with a Bachelor of Music, Irena Lysiuk has worked extensively for Opera Queensland.

Irena played the role of Barbarina in Opera Queensland’s Le nozze di Figaro (2021), Gretel in Opera Queensland and shake & stir theatre co’s school touring production of Hansel and Gretel (2017-18) and Adina in FIZZ! (2016), as well as ensemble roles in Opera Queensland productions including Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore (2017), Don Giovanni (2018), A Flowering Tree (2019), Tosca (2019) and Orpheus and Eurydice (2019).

Most recently, Irena performed her first solo recital for the Opera Queensland Studio Series and was part of the cast of the acclaimed regional tour, Are You Lonesome Tonight, the most extensive regional tour in Opera Queensland’s 40 year history.

Turning to musical theatre, Irena played Rose Morris in Queensland Theatre’s The Sunshine Club at QPAC (2022), Carmen in Sweet Charity at the Brisbane Powerhouse (2019) and Anne Egerman in the Brisbane Philharmonic Orchestra’s production of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music (2018). In 2018, Irena debuted the role of the Pussycat in Little Match Productions’ new opera The Owl & the Pussycat, and performed at CommGames Festival and Brisbane Festival 2018 at QPAC.

While studying at Queensland Conservatorium, Irena’s roles included Damigella in L’incoronazione di Poppea (2015), Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro (2013), Papagena in Die Zauberflöte – scenes (2012), and Una Novizia in Suor Angelica (2011).

In 2023, Irena will perform in The Little Red Company’s Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves, and joins the cast for Lady Sings the Maroons, returning to many Queensland towns following her success in Are You Lonesome Tonight