The Turn of the Screw – State Opera South Australia 2022

STATE OPERA SOUTH AUSTRALIA PRESENTS

A CHAMBER OPERA IN TWO ACTS WITH A PROLOGUE Music by Benjamin Britten Libretto by Myfanwy Piper after a story by Henry James PROLOGUE GOVERNESS MILES FLORA MRS GROSE PETER QUINT MISS JESSEL CONDUCTOR CONDUCTOR DIRECTOR DESIGNER LIGHTING DESIGNER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Kanen Breen Rachelle Durkin Max Junge Eliza Brill Reed Elizabeth Campbell Kanen Breen Fiona McArdle Paul Kildea Anthony Hunt Stuart Maunder Roger Kirk Trudy Dalgleish Eugene Lynch

ADELAIDE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Saturday 30 April, Wednesday 4, Friday 6 May 2022 FESTIVAL THEATRE, ADELAIDE Duration: 2 hours and 20 minutes, including one 20-minute interval Sung in English with surtitles THESE PERFORMANCES ARE GIVEN BY PERMISSION OF HAL LEONARD AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, EXCLUSIVE AGENTS FOR BOOSEY & HAWKES MUSIC PUBLISHERS LTD OF LONDON

KANEN BREEN IN REHEARSAL (PHOTO: SODA STREET PRODUCTIONS)

Welcome FROM STATE OPERA PHOTO: SODA STREET PRODUCTIONS

Dear Opera Lover I am delighted that our second offering in 2022 sees State Opera swinging from the grand outdoor spectacular of La bohème on Glenelg Beach to the eerie and unsettling drama that is Britten’s Turn of the Screw. This immense range of capability and repertoire is what sets this Company apart from so many others; we have the eagerness of a savant and the beating heart of the people. Our aim is to expand, deepen and excite the appetite for opera across South Australia so that we do indeed deliver on our vision of more opera for more people.

Of course, none of this would be even remotely possible without the artistic leadership of Stuart Maunder. I am constantly astounded by this man’s indefatigable ability to inspire, direct, program, cast and imagine – not to mention his impressive workaholic tendencies! As I

have told many of our friends, some of my favourite moments include the looks of envy at national opera meetings when I announce with a wink, ‘I’m with Stuart!’

Many of you know how much time, expertise and care goes on in the office, backstage, behind the scenes and in the pit for an opera to come to life. If you don’t, have a guess and multiply it by ten! I am in awe of the way hundreds of people come together in all their various specialities – singing, designing, lighting, making, playing, writing – to make an opera work.

We are indebted to all of them.

And to you, our wonderful audience, bolstered by donors, sponsors, friends, partners and the Board of State Opera, thank you for coming on this journey with us – I hope it is one that lasts a lifetime.

Yarmila Alfonzetti EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR State Opera South Australia

RACHELLE DURKIN IN REHEARSAL (PHOTO: SODA STREET PRODUCTIONS)

It is a curious story...….

DIRECTOR’S NOTE PHOTO: SODA STREET PRODUCTIONS

Sometimes you just can’t remember when you first became aware of something. I certainly can’t remember when I first heard The Turn of the Screw, but the cover of the old LP set is seared into my brain: a terrified Jennifer Vyvyan recoiling from a possessed Peter Pears. After those first revelatory turns of the turntable, whenever they were, I can remember devouring the novella; I remember the first time I saw The Innocents starring a tormented Deborah Kerr; and I have a vivid recollection of the black and white photographs of the University of NSW Opera production starring Marilyn Richardson included in a well-thumbed book about theatre in Australia in the 1970s. I received the music score as a first anniversary present (paper, for those playing at home) in 1985 and I was lucky enough to revive Neil Armfield’s production of the opera for the Australian Opera many times.

So, for as long as I can remember (well, since I saw my first opera in 1976), I have longed to direct this brilliantly unsettling masterpiece: dark, vicious, moody, powerful, moving, haunted.

Who doesn’t love a ghost story? Who doesn’t love the possibility of ‘more things in heaven and earth’? Who doesn’t love the thrill of tenting a blanket and recounting an urban legend while putting a torch under your chin? Simple pleasures.

But this telling of Henry James’s classic tale of innocence corrupted is as far from simple as you can get. In a classic piece of British

understatement, librettist Myfanwy Piper’s opening line for the opera sets up a world built on double meanings: ‘It is a curious story…’ This Benjamin Britten classic is remarkable in its directness, stillness, economy and brevity. It is disturbing, unnerving and often extremely beautiful in its depiction of the perfect English countryside, infected as it is by some dark malevolence. And although written in 1954, it still seems as audacious, ambiguous and, frankly, as chilling as ever. There is no other opera in the repertoire that dances around the dangerous with such flair.

What a time to examine the idea of the corruption of innocence, our daily news filled as it is with personal horrors. This opera hints at much and explains little. It abounds in questions, half-truths, equivocations. Does the Governess imagine the ghosts? Is she mad? Are the children really possessed? Are the children evil? Is it a case of ‘Nature’ versus ‘Nurture’?

Is the Governess alone responsible for the ultimate destruction of the ‘innocents’ in her care? What would we do in the same situation, if we were charged with the preservation of their innocence? There are no easy answers.

The Governess’s final question echoes, albeit as a whisper: ‘What have we done between us... ?’

Stuart Maunder AM ARTISTIC DIRECTOR State Opera South Australia

THE GOTHIC HORROR OF THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Those familiar with Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw may know it as a tale of late Gothic horror.

The story is built upon some of the genre’s most sturdy tropes: semi-omniscient narration, a large manor house that serves as more than a location for the story but is itself an actor with agency, and female madness. This last trope, a mainstay of Victorian thinking, reflects the attitudes of its time, specifically a preoccupation with psychoanalysis. Henry James’s older brother, William, was a prominent psychologist and interpreter of Freudian psychoanalysis. Like many things, psychoanalysis was not kind to women and created a new host of female maladies later used to subjugate and institutionalise women for decades.

The mind is an apt place to set a tale such as this one: we readers along with the narrator listen to the story, wondering what is real and what is delusion. Our own minds wander to places unknown and uncomfortable and at the end, there is no feeling of resolution. James’s contention was that sometimes stories do not end neatly or happily, they just end, and we are left to deal with the implications of such an ending.

The mind, as a backdrop for conflict, was important to Benjamin Britten as well. Following in a line of early 20th-century opera composers such as Debussy (Pelléas et Mélisande), Berg (Wozzeck, Lulu), Bartók (Bluebeard’s Castle) and others, Britten recognised the power of the ambiguity of the mind. Focusing on this kind of interiority in order to create a plot centred around the

psychological allowed Britten to focus on mankind’s own horrors: the things we do to ourselves and the things we do to others. This was not a new tactic for Britten in his operatic works; we can see a similar plan in his first and most famous opera, Peter Grimes. For The Turn of the Screw, Britten was not interested in madness of a female variety but, rather, the ease within all of us to think of unspeakable acts. Because of this, Britten needed to remove some of James’s ambiguities to make space for others. Instead of the terror of a delusional female mind, one that could create the spectres found within James’s story, Britten presents the audience with real ghosts. Within this one choice, Britten moves the conflict from a perhaps untrustworthy narrator to us, the audience. Because even though the ghosts are real, who is malicious and at fault, is still unclear.

It may be fair to say that Britten has a preoccupation with shadow. Night was always an evocative dramatic and compositional idea for him and he drew upon it throughout his career. But night is more than just twilight; it represents what can be only seen and done in shadow – magic, the unknown, the deviant. In Britten’s operas, all manner of things occur under the cover of night or enshrouded in mist. And some of Britten’s more nefarious characters are connected to this temporal space, their existence dependent upon the absence of light. The trope of night equalling the time when magic and the sinister run rampant is obviously one that predates Britten and he is not the only

The Snake Charmer by Jean-Léon Gérôme (c.1879) – a European fantasy of life in the Islamic world composer to utilise it. But Britten’s self-professed fixation – ‘night and silence, these are two of the things I cherish most’ – motivates the actions of all the characters within The Turn of the Screw, a story that vacillates between the supposed safety of day and the seductive terror of night.

This stark contrast between day and night, the natural and the magical, is supposed to, in theory, serve as a useful binary for the audience: the children Miles and Flora are ‘safe’ with the Governess during the day and in danger from the ghosts Peter Quint and Mrs Jessel at night. But the night is always crossing over into the daytime, sonically, leading us to wonder just who is in danger and who is dangerous. When Quint finally calls out to Miles at the end of Act I (‘At Night’), the language is alluring, tempting, seductive: ‘I am King Midas with gold in his hand.’

Sonically, the music is familiar: we have heard pieces of Quint’s melody throughout the first act as he draws ever closer to Miles and the world of the living. But as the opera goes on, that refrain of the melody hints at something darker, more sinister: the possibility that Miles and Flora do belong with Quint and Jessel and that the audience does not know

who possesses whom, who is the one committing the real harm.

Britten achieves this musically by creating a sound world that confuses the line between desire and terror through the use of a quasi-gamelan texture. The beginning of the last movement of the first act, ‘At Night’, outlines the gamelan texture that becomes a fixture throughout the opera, with the arpeggiating celesta, accompanied by harp and, later, strings and metallic percussion. This gamelan sound evokes the East, an idea clarified in Edward Said’s groundbreaking book Orientalism.

Orientalist fantasies of sexual deviancy were also a part of Victorian literature, including Gothic horror. The East presented what seemed like a binary for those who became fascinated with it; a duality of fear and desire that motivated all who ventured to revel in it. The East, that amorphous collection of people and places, was forced to stand opposite the rational, enlightened West. As such, it became a place of magic, deviance and horror. To encounter the East was to lose oneself to its seductive power, to become enamoured with its unnatural beauty, to be lulled into a dangerous, drug-laced sleep and,

inevitably, to perish. This is the power of Quint’s gamelan-centric melody, created by a combination of harp, celesta, gong, and muted horn. We understand why Miles would fall under Quint’s spell here, this rhapsodic music lulling him – and us – to a possible place of unknown desire.

At the end of the opera, Miles screams ‘Peter Quint, you devil!’ and the conceit here is that we as the audience don’t know if Miles is accusing Quint or whether the devil in question is the Governess. The possibility of the Governess’s smothering possession, Quint’s ghostly, untoward affection, or Miles’s knowledge of adult desire as the cause of Miles’s death leaves the audience at a loss. By the end of the opera, we’ve imagined things we might never dare, because the mind that Britten was always concerned with was our own.

Dr Imani Mosley © 2022 Dr Imani Danielle Mosley is an Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Florida. She works on Benjamin Britten as well as contemporary opera and the music of post-war Britain.

ELIZA BRILL REED IN REHEARSAL (PHOTO: NAOMI JELLICOE)

Designing the opera...….

ROGER KIRK’s costume designs for The Turn of the Screw adopt a palette of greys, black and white, conveying the ambiguity and bleak otherworldliness of this opera in which ghosts sing…

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Miss Jessel, Flora and Miles, Peter Quint, the Governess (Act I), the Governess goes to church (Act II) and Mrs Grose

Synopsis CHARACTERS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

ACT I

The Prologue The Governess Miles and Flora, young children in her charge Mrs Grose, the housekeeper Peter Quint, a former manservant Miss Jessel, a former governess

Prologue – the source of the story, ‘written in faded ink, a woman’s hand’, in which a young woman accepts a governess position in a house with two children on the understanding that she will never contact their guardian.

The action takes place in and around Bly, a country house in the East of England, in the middle of the 19th century.

THEME

Scene 1. The Journey – the Governess is apprehensive about her new job with its peculiar condition.

VARIATION I

A NOTE ON THE STRUCTURE Following the prologue, the opera is constructed as an almost cinematic sequence of 16 short scenes (rarely longer than 5 minutes, with the exception of the final scene of each act) punctuated by even shorter interludes.

These fleeting interludes feature the chamber orchestra and are themselves organised in one of Britten’s favourite musical structures: theme and variations.

The theme – which uses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale but not in the atonal style of a Schoenberg tone row – is heard in the prologue at the words ‘“I will,” she said’. In Britten’s own words, with this first statement of the theme, ‘the orchestra, which is the story, starts’.

Scene 2. The Welcome – she meets Mrs Grose, the housekeeper, and the two children, Miles and Flora.

VARIATION II

Scene 3. The Letter – Miles has been expelled from school as ‘an injury to his friends’.

VARIATION III

Scene 4. The Tower – the Governess sees a strange figure on the tower, initially mistaking him for the children’s guardian.

VARIATION IV

Scene 5. The Window – she sees the stranger again; Mrs Grose recognises the description as a former manservant, Peter Quint, long dead; the Governess realises she has seen a ghost.

VARIATION V

Scene 6. The Lesson – Miles recites his Latin lesson and an odd poem (‘Malo’).

VARIATION VI

Scene 7. The Lake – the Governess and Flora talk by the lake and Flora sings a lullaby to her doll; they see an apparition: Miss Jessel, the children’s former governess and also dead.

VARIATION VII

Scene 8. At Night – the children are discovered in communion with the ghosts.

INTERVAL

ACT II VARIATION VIII

Scene 1. Colloquy and Soliloquy – Quint and Miss Jessel plot the moral destruction of the children (‘The ceremony of innocence is drowned’); increasing uncertainty and feelings of isolation cause the Governess to despair.

VARIATION IX

Scene 2. The Bells – Sunday morning before service; Miles asks the Governess (‘Does my uncle think what you think?’) and, stunned by his challenge, she resolves to leave Bly. VARIATION X

Scene 3. Miss Jessel – the Governess discovers Miss Jessel in the schoolroom; now outraged, she decides to stay and fight for the children; she writes to their guardian, despite her instructions.

VARIATION XI

Scene 4. The Bedroom – the Governess tells Miles of her letter; Peter Quint’s voice is heard and a struggle of wills unfolds.

VARIATION XII

Scene 5. Quint – urged by Quint, Miles steals the Governess’s letter.

VARIATION XIII

Scene 6. The Piano – Miles plays the piano for the Governess while Flora slips away.

VARIATION XIV

VARIATION XV

Scene 8. Miles – after hearing Flora raving in her sleep, Mrs Grose decides to take her away from Bly, leaving the Governess and Miles; there is a second battle of wills between the Governess and Quint, who warns Miles not to betray him; distraught, Miles eventually gives the Governess the answer she has been seeking.

RACHELLE DURKIN & MAX JUNGE (PHOTO: SODA STREET PRODUCTIONS)

Scene 7. Flora – the Governess and Mrs Grose find Flora by the lake; the Governess can see Miss Jessel, but Flora denies having been with her and Mrs Grose can see nothing.

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The Creative Team

Paul Kildea

Anthony Hunt

Stuart Maunder

CONDUCTOR

CONDUCTOR

DIRECTOR

Paul Kildea, Artistic Director of Musica Viva, has previously held artistic posts with the Aldeburgh and Perth festivals and has been Artistic Director of Wigmore Hall and the Four Winds Festival, NSW. His conducting engagements include appearances with Opera Australia, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble 2e2m Paris, Nash Ensemble London, the West Australian, Sydney, Queensland and Adelaide symphony orchestras, Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, and the Aldeburgh Festival.

His most recent conducting engagements include Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Adelaide Festival); Absolute Bird (with Genevieve Lacey) for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Albert Herring (Melbourne University); Canberra Symphony Orchestra; The Turn of the Screw (Cheltenham Festival and Victorian Opera, for which he received a Green Room Award for Best Conductor of an Opera); La bohème and Candide (Opera Queensland); Cunning Little Vixen, The Magic Flute and Candide (Opera Australia); and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dialogues des Carmélites (for Hamburg State Opera).

Paul Kildea holds a doctorate from Oxford University, is Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne and serves on the board of the UKARIA Cultural Centre.

He is the author of four acclaimed books: Selling Britten, Britten on Music, Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century, and Chopin’s Piano: A Journey Through Romanticism, which is currently being developed as a feature film.

Conductor, pianist and organist Anthony Hunt was the chorus master at Opera Australia from 2013 to 2019. In 2020 he returned with his family to Adelaide, commencing as Head of Music and Chorus Master at State Opera South Australia and as Director of Music at St Peter’s Cathedral.

After completing an honours degree in both Piano and Organ performance at the Elder Conservatorium, he moved to London to study as a répétiteur in the Royal Academy of Music’s specialist opera course.

Moving to Sydney in 2009 as Assistant Chorus Master for Opera Australia, and then as Chorus Master in 2013, he has prepared the Opera Australia Chorus for more than 60 productions and concert appearances. His work with the company has been frequently broadcast on ABC Classic FM, and the many DVD releases and international cinema broadcasts include La traviata, Madama Butterfly, Aida, Turandot, Carmen and La bohème for Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour.

For State Opera, he conducted the 2021 productions of Love Burns and Sweeney Todd and he is also the curator of the 2022 Ukaria recital series.

Anthony Hunt has been a participant in the Symphony Australia Conductor Development Program, a guest chorus master for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.

Stuart Maunder AM is Artistic Director of State Opera South Australia and has directed Carmen, Cunning Little Vixen, The Mikado, Carousel, Sweeney Todd and, most recently, Bohème on the Beach for the company.

For forty years he has been directing musical theatre and opera in Australia. He joined the Australian Opera (now Opera Australia) as Stage Manager in 1978, becoming a Resident Director in 1981. In 1992 he joined the Royal Opera House (UK) as a Staff Director while continuing to direct in Australia, regional UK, France and the USA. In 1999 he was appointed Artistic Administrator of Opera Australia, becoming Executive Producer in 2004–08. His Opera Australia productions include The Tales of Hoffmann, Manon, The Gypsy Princess, Don Pasquale, My Fair Lady and A Little Night Music, and his productions of Trial by Jury, Pirates of Penzance and HMS Pinafore have been televised nationally on ABC TV. Recent Australian productions have included Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music and Cunning Little Vixen (all for Victorian Opera), and Vixen, Tosca, Pearl Fishers, Rigoletto, La bohème, Sweeney Todd and Macbeth (WA Opera).

From 2014 to 2018 Stuart Maunder was General Director of New Zealand Opera where he directed Candide, Tosca, Sweeney Todd and The Mikado.

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Roger Kirk

Trudy Dalgleish

Eugene Lynch

DESIGNER

LIGHTING DESIGNER

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Roger Kirk is a Tony Award-winning set and costume designer working in theatre, film and television. He has designed costumes for productions such as The Boy From Oz with Hugh Jackman, The King and I and King Kong the Musical, and worked extensively on set and costume design for Opera Australia, including Manon Lescaut, Graeme Murphy’s production of Aida, Manon, A Little Night Music, My Fair Lady, The Gypsy Princess and several Gilbert & Sullivan operettas.

He was the costume designer for the film Jesus Christ Superstar, and other credits include Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Whistle Down the Wind (London), The King and I (London Palladium), Hugh Jackman’s The Boy from Oz Arena Spectacular, The Silver Rose (The Australian Ballet), Le Corsaire (Munich Opera House), Dusty – The Original Pop Diva, and Shout!. His Broadway credits include The King and I (Tony Award for Best Costume Design), Jesus Christ Superstar and 42nd Street (Tony Award nomination).

His most recent credits include Sweeney Todd for Victorian Opera and State Opera South Australia, Miracle City for Luckiest Productions, King Kong on Broadway, 42nd Street in London and the sold-out Australian tour of Broadway to Oz: Hugh Jackman Live in Concert.

Trudy Dalgleish is one of Australia’s most sought-after lighting designers, whose work has been recognised with a Helpmann Award for White Devil (Best Lighting Design, Theatre), an Entech Award (Best Lighting Designer – Live Events), the John Truscott Design Award for Excellence, the Music Theatre Technical Design Award for Eureka at the Green Room Awards, and a Green Room Award for Best Lighting for Hairspray. She has also been nominated for a Helpmann Award for Dead Man Walking and Green Room awards for Orlando (Opera Australia), The Boy from Oz (The Production Company) and Cunning Little Vixen (Victorian Opera).

She is Associate Lighting Designer for the Gordon Frost Organisation’s Australian productions of Shrek, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Cinderella, and Mack and Mabel for WAAPA. Other recent credits include The Woman in Black (Ensemble Theatre), Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (State Opera South Australia), A Little Night Music (Victorian Opera), Cunning Little Vixen (Victorian Opera, State Opera and West Australian Opera), Macbeth (West Australian Opera), Saturday Night Fever (Gordon Frost Organisation), In the Heights at the Hayes Theatre and Sydney Opera House, Cat Stephens’ Cat in an Attic in New Zealand, and Melba at Hayes Theatre.

Eugene Lynch is an early-career director of theatre and opera. In March he was assistant director on Adelaide Festival’s centrepiece opera, The Golden Cockerel, directed by Barrie Kosky, and last year he was assistant director for Neil Armfield’s acclaimed production of Rameau’s Platée (Pinchgut Opera). He previously assisted Neil Armfield on Benjamin Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 2021 Adelaide Festival. The Turn of the Screw and Voss are his first productions with State Opera South Australia.

As the artistic director of The Other Theatre, he has directed Graeme Koehne and Louis Nowra’s Love Burns, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Shakespeare’s Richard II, Mike Barlett’s Cock (Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival x Brand X) and the Australian premiere of Marius von Mayneburg’s The Dog, the Night and the Knife.

He was the 2019 Young Director with Pacific Opera, where he directed Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Kurt Weill’s Down in the Valley and various scenes concerts.

Eugene Lynch holds a Bachelor of Arts/ Laws degree from the University of Sydney, where he was two-time recipient of the USU Bright Ideas Grant. He is supported by Create NSW and a generous grant from the Seaborn, Broughton & Walford Foundation.

The Cast

Kanen Breen

Rachelle Durkin

Max Junge

PROLOGUE/PETER QUINT

GOVERNESS

MILES

Kanen Breen is one of Australia’s most soughtafter operatic tenors and a renowned concert and cabaret artist.

He has long been established as a contracted artist at Opera Australia, regularly appearing in the principal tenor roles of such operas as The Merry Widow, Die Fledermaus, The Mikado, HMS Pinafore, The Gondoliers, Falstaff, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, The Rake’s Progress, Turandot, The Tales of Hoffmann and Albert Herring.

His appearances for Victorian Opera include roles in Through the Looking Glass, Sweeney Todd, Banquet of Secrets, ’Tis Pity and The Who’s Tommy and for Opera Queensland he has appeared as Nanki-Poo, Nadir in The Pearlfishers, Ramiro in La Cenerentola, Andy Warhol in The Perfect American, roles in Snow White, and Sir Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore.

His regular engagements with Pinchgut Opera include an enormous critical success in the title role of Rameau’s Platée in 2021.

Other roles include Rodolfo in Baz Luhrmann’s La Bohème on Broadway, Willy Wonka in the Gordon Frost Organisation production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and critically acclaimed performances in The Black Rider for The Malthouse, while his Witch of Endor in the Adelaide Festival production of Handel’s Saul won him a Helpmann Award.

Australian-American soprano Rachelle Durkin became an established solo artist at the Metropolitan Opera singing leading roles for many years – most notably Norina in Don Pasquale, Lisa in La sonnambula, Clorinda in La Cenerentola, Miss Schlesen in Phillip Glass’s Satyagraha, Frasquita in Carmen and many others.

Most recently, she sang Violetta in La traviata for Victory Hall Opera (the subject of the company’s documentary UNSUNG), Donna Anna in Don Giovanni for Pittsburgh Opera and the title role in Tosca for Opera Queensland. Engagements in 2021 and 2022 include Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 2021 Adelaide Festival, Morgana (Alcina) in Canberra and Musetta (La bohème) in Perth; she also appears in recital at UKARIA Cultural Centre and as a soloist with the Perth-based orchestra Australian Baroque and the Darwin and West Australian symphony orchestras.

Her five Helpmann Award-nominated performances are Kumudha in A Flowering Tree by John Adams (Perth Festival); the title role in Alcina, Armida in Rinaldo and Angelica in Orlando for Opera Australia; and Haydn’s Armida with Pinchgut Opera.

Other highlights have included Romance at the Met – Opera’s Most Romantic Moments; soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Detroit and Perth; performances with Bryn Terfel and Lisa McCune at Leeuwin Estate Winery, and gala concerts with Placido Domingo and José Carreras.

Max Junge is 12 years old and has had a passion for singing classical music since he joined his first choir at the age of four. He currently sings in the First Concert Choir of Young Adelaide Voices, having previously sung with Gondwana Choirs at their National Choral School, and he aspires to be a professional opera singer.

He began classical voice and piano lessons at the age of seven and has been mentored by some exceptional teachers. He has performed in many professional, community and school productions as both a soloist and chorister, and has also enjoyed success in numerous eisteddfods.

Max Junge made his opera debut as a member of the regional children’s chorus for Opera Australia’s touring production of Madama Butterfly and recently appeared in the chorus of State Opera South Australia’s production of Bohème on the Beach. This is his State Opera solo debut.

In 2021 he was a chorister for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s performances of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and Nativity, a new oratorio by Richard Mills.

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Eliza Brill Reed

Elizabeth Campbell

Fiona McArdle

FLORA

MRS GROSE

MISS JESSEL

Eliza Brill Reed is 12 years old and made her opera debut as Cobweb in Neil Armfield’s production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 2021 Adelaide Festival, performing with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has appeared in the chorus for State Opera South Australia’s Bohème on the Beach and with The Turn of the Screw makes her State Opera solo debut.

She has played many local theatre roles with Pelican Productions, Shane Davidson and Adelaide Youth Theatre, including Jane Banks in Mary Poppins, Flounder in The Little Mermaid and the title role in Matilda.

She is a member of the St Peter’s Girls’ School Chamber Choir and In-Ta Jazz vocal ensemble, and played the lead role of Caractacus Potts in Chitty-Chitty-BangBang. At age 8, she took to the stage at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre as a vocal soloist for the South Australian primary schools’ Festival of Music, returning the following year. She trains in all forms of dance and is also learning to play piano, guitar and percussion. In 2020 she was honoured with a Young Composers Award from the South Australian chapter of the Australian Society of Music Education.

Elizabeth Campbell performs with all the major Australian opera companies, symphony orchestras and choral societies, as well as on the recital stage. She returns to State Opera South Australia for The Turn of the Screw, having most recently appeared as Emma in Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Christina in Christina’s World and Katisha in The Mikado. In May she will feature at the Coriole Festival, McLaren Vale.

Other recent performances include A Child of Our Time for the 2021 Adelaide Festival, Mrs Sedley (Peter Grimes) with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Emma (Summer of the Seventeenth Doll) and Mother (Hansel and Gretel) with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

She has sung all the major choral works and performed Messiah at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, toured the USA with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and given recitals at Wigmore Hall, in Antwerp, the Hague, and across Australia.

Her vast operatic repertoire ranges from the title roles in Carmen and Xerxes, to leading roles in Aida (Helpmann Award), Madama Butterfly (two Green Room awards), and Dead Man Walking (Helpmann Award).

Elizabeth Campbell is featured on numerous recordings, including Mahler’s Symphony No.2 and Song of the Earth; Elgar’s Sea Pictures; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis; Koehne’s Three Poems of Byron; the Australian song anthologies Woman’s Song and Banquo’s Buried, and State Opera South Australia’s 2004 production of Wagner’s Ring cycle.

South Australian soprano Fiona McArdle made her professional debut with State Opera South Australia in 2017 singing La Ciesca in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. Since then she has appeared for State Opera as Magdalene (Der Meistersinger von Nürnberg) and Second Saleswoman (La Vida Breve).

She completed a Master of Music degree at the New England Conservatory, Boston in 2018, and highlights during her studies included roles in Cunning Little Vixen, Gilgamesh and Doctor Miracle. During her time in the USA, she worked with Pittsburgh Festival Opera, playing Mistress Zimmerlein in The Silent Woman, and appeared in the premiere of Symphony New Hampshire’s The Essential Ring Parts I and II, singing Flosshilde and First Norn.

Moving to London, she made her lyric soprano debut as Mimì (La bohème) with Hampstead Gardens in 2019.

Her performing experience includes touring with Co-Opera, appearing as La Zia Principessa (Suor Angelica), Suzuki (Madama Butterfly) and Dorabella (Così fan tutte). She has also performed in concert with Graham Johnson and Malcolm Martineau, and in the Fringe Festival and Adelaide Hills Winter Music Festival. In August she will appear in the State Opera recital Songs for a Muse with Konstantin Shamray.

Her accolades include the 2014 Beta Sigma Phi Classical Music Award, 2017 Kinnon Award in the Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award, and 2017 Encouragement Award in the GermanAustralian Opera Grant competition.

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra VIOLIN 1

FLUTE, PICCOLO, ALTO FLUTE

TIMPANI

Elizabeth Layton** Guest Concertmaster

Geoffrey Collins**

Andrew Penrose*

OBOE, COR ANGLAIS

PERCUSSION

Peter Duggan*

Steven Peterka**

CLARINET, BASS CLARINET

HARP

Mitchell Berick*

Lucy Reeves Guest Principal

VIOLIN 2 Alison Heike** Principal 2nd Violin

VIOLA Justin Julian**

BASSOON

PIANO, CELESTA

CELLO

Mark Gaydon**

Michael Ierace Guest (State Opera)

Sharon Grigoryan** Guest Section Principal

HORN

** denotes Section Principal

Adrian Uren**

* denotes Principal Player

DOUBLE BASS David Schilling** PHOTOS: SODA STREET PRODUCTIONS

Behind the Scenes Production Team

Adelaide Festival Centre Production Team

STAGE MANAGER Karen Farmer DEPUTY STAGE MANAGER Steph Price ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Roisin Linehan RÉPÉTITEUR Michael Ierace SURTITLES OPERATOR Aaron Pelle SCENIC ART Anto Dal Santo PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Brenton Watson WARDROBE SUPERVISOR Tracey Richardson WARDROBE CONSTRUCTION & MAINTENANCE

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Jane Baird HEAD MECHANIST Vince Louch STAGE MECHANISTS Matt Smith, Ned Hall,

Denise Strawhan

Ian Strawhan FLY OPERATOR Adrian Peskett HEAD LIGHTING Paul McGee LIGHTING BOARD OPERATOR Martin Howard FOLLOW SPOTS Luke Pilla, Kat Kleemann AUDIO TECHNICIAN Jamie Mensforth FOH SOUND OPERATOR Mick Jackson

WARDROBE CONSTRUCTION Katie Szabo WIGS & MAKEUP SUPERVISOR Jana DeBiasi WIGS & MAKEUP ASSISTANT Dina Giaccio DRESSERS Sue Nicola, David Adams HEAD MECHANIST & SET CONSTRUCTION Ben Brooks MECHANIST & SET CONSTRUCTION Mark Fisher CHAPERONES Vanessa Shirley, Tim de Jong,

Carolyn Ferrie

State Opera South Australia Board of Management

Staff

John Irving Chair Imelda Alexopoulos Dr Beata Byok Jane Doyle Peter Michell Dr Thomas Millhouse Master Elizabeth Olsson Polly Tembel

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Yarmila Alfonzetti ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Stuart Maunder AM HEAD OF MUSIC Anthony Hunt PRODUCTION MANAGER Ben Flett ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Monique Hapgood ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Phillipa Sprott CONTRACTS ADMINISTRATOR Li Li Fisher HEAD OF MARKETING & DEVELOPMENT

Artistic Ambassador Marilyn Richardson, Hon.DMus Qld

Cultural Ambassador Dr Christine Rothauser

Sidonie Henbest PHILANTHROPY MANAGER Mark Colley COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Laura Danesin MARKETING EXECUTIVE Olga Grudinina DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Richelle Weiher DATABASE COORDINATOR Hannah Neophytou DONOR ADMINISTRATORS

Suzie Stevens, Max Walburn BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

Emanuel Auciello CHIEF FINANCE OFFICER Nicole Mathee ACCOUNTANT Sarah Hart BUSINESS SUPPORT OFFICER Elisabet Cada

FACING PAGE CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Kanen Breen consults the score; Rachelle Durkin and Elizabeth Campbell; Kanen Breen and Fiona McArdle; Max Junge and Kanen Breen.

Donors State Opera South Australia thanks its donors for their generous support.

PLATINUM

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S CIRCLE

Peter & Pamela McKee Master Elizabeth Olsson

John & Kate Irving Drs Geoff & Sorayya Martin Master Elizabeth Olsson Dr Leon Pitchon Dr Christine Rothauser Sibby Sutherland

GOLD Leigh Emmett Kevin & Kaaren Palmer Bruce Saint Sibby Sutherland

SILVER The Alfonzetti Family Stuart Maunder AM Josephine Prosser

OPERA ACADEMY Sally Crafter in memory of Shirley Crinion formerly Shirley Crafter Sue Crafter in memory of Shirley Crinion formerly Shirley Crafter The Friends of State Opera John Holmes Joan Lyons Beth & John Shepherd Barry Worrall & Susan Coldicutt The Friends of State Opera

CONTINUO BEQUEST CIRCLE Master Elizabeth Olsson Dr Christine Rothauser Dr Geoffrey Seidel

BRONZE Dr Margaret Arstall Maggie Beer Susan & Graeme Bethune The Hon. David & Mrs Elizabeth Bleby David Bullen Pam Caldwell Peter & Margaret Cannon Bruce Cleland Angela Cook & Derek Brown Colin Cowan Tony & Rachel Davidson Jan & Peter Davis Bruce Debelle AO, QC Rosalie & Jacob van Dissel Jane & Ian Doyle Dr Paul Drysdale Em. Prof. Anne Edwards Meg & Jack Favilla Rick Frolich Barbara & Paul Green L & J Greenslade Sam & Margo Hill-Smith

Robert Kenrick Teresa LaRocca Margaret Lehmann Hugh MacLachlan & Fiona MacLachlan OAM Dr Ruth Marshall & Tim Muecke Dr Thomas Millhouse & Dr Marina Delpin K & D Morris Chris Perriam Andrew Robertson Ben Robinson Glenys G Scott Gwynnyth Shaughnessy Glenys Steele Scott Christopher Stone Anne Sutcliffe Guila Tiver & Denis Harrison Sue Tweddell Glen & Robina Weir Prof. Julian White AM & Dr Beata M Byok Anonymous (2)

WE STARTED WITH A VISION. With your help, we have been able to deliver more opera to more people in exciting places.

With your continued support, we can set even higher goals around education, developing new Australian works and continuing the legacy of artistic excellence that this company is known for globally.

Find out how you can support State Opera today…

stateopera.com.au/support Donations over $2 are tax deductible

We also thank our many Supporters for their valued contributions in the past year.

State Opera gratefully acknowledges support from The Australian Federal Government through

The South Australian Government through Arts South Australia

I N D U ST R Y PA R T N E R

S U R T I T L E S PA R T N E R

SUPPORTERS

T H A N KS TO …

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RAA Soda Street Productions Theatre Safe Australia

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AND THE FLEETING HOUR

STATE OPERA SOUTH AUSTRALIA PRESENTS

SHALL BE ADORNED WITH PLEASURE

25 AUG — 3 SEP HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE 7.30PM

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THE TURN OF THE SCREW APRIL–MAY 2022 | FESTIVAL THEATRE, ADELAIDE