An opera festival that celebrates beautiful singing – but isn’t that what opera is about? In a way, yes, but there was a special time in opera history (that is still very much with us today) when beautiful singing was enshrined in the operas of the day.
And Brisbane Bel Canto is Opera Queensland’s salute to this golden age. CEO and artistic director of Opera Queensland Patrick Nolan wanted a festival to celebrate this idea of beautiful singing – and it’s the only one of its kind in Australia.
Small yet, some might say, perfectly formed, Brisbane Bel Canto runs March 4 to 8, with the centrepiece being two performances of Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella).
“Bel canto is a really important moment in the history of opera,” Nolan explains. “Close to the beginning of the 19th century Mozart had transformed the idea of what opera could be. Then Italian composers picked it up and ran with it. They saw that the great power of opera was the magnificence and dynamism of the human voice … of beautiful singing, bel canto.
“So, we get this extraordinary flourishing of works from Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. What we wanted to do with Brisbane Bel Canto was to celebrate what a magnificent medium the human voice is for storytelling and connecting us to our complex, broken, rich humanity. There’s nothing greater than the human voice to celebrate who we are and to connect us.”
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Nolan says he’s excited to welcome two rising stars to Queensland for the first time – Italian mezzo soprano Mara Gaudenzi as Angelina (Cinderella) and Czech tenor Petr Nekoranec as Don Ramiro in this retelling of a classic fairytale.
“As befits artists involved in a bel canto festival, they have been widely praised for the beauty of their voices,” Nolan says. “With Richard Mills leading the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, this promises to be a great night in the theatre.”
A great afternoon in the theatre, too, for that matter, with a matinee to follow the evening performance a few days later.
Nolan points out that the festival will feature a program of concerts covering music from the beginning of operatic song in Italy to a song cycle composed in Australia relatively recently.
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The Birth of Bel Canto, which will be presented in the City Tabernacle Baptist Church, traces the roots of bel canto opera back to the madrigal. Known for its romantic poetry, intricate musical textures and emotive vocal lines, the madrigal forms the basis of the bel canto style.
But The Birth of Bel Canto won’t be a lecture – it will be a recital bringing to life expressive works by Montiverdi, Gesualdo, Strozzi and other leading composers of the time. Five singers will be on hand for this one-hour event.
A variety of venues is an important part of this festival, which was born of discussions Nolan had with Mills.
“He specialises in bel canto music,” Nolan explains. “We thought it would be a wonderful thing to create a week for people to encounter great singing.”
La Cenerentola (Cinderella) – a tweaking of the tale to highlight compassion and positive human aspects – will be directed by Laura Hansford. Richard Mills conducts that and also Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle (Little Solemn Mass), which will be presented in The Cathedral of St Stephen in Brisbane’s CBD.
Nolan will direct Red Dirt Hymns, which will be performed in the Opera Queensland Studio, South Bank. That’s the contemporary piece featuring music by composer Andrew Ford. It’s a collection of secular hymns with lyrics by some of Australia’s finest writers including our own Sarah Holland-Batt and Ellen van Neerven and West Australian John Kinsella.
“Red Dirt Hymns brings us into the present,” Nolan says, adding that so far we have forgotten to talk about another very important event at the festival – Long Lunch With Stefano De Pieri, with the famed chef curating a special lunch accompanied by – you guessed it – beautiful singing.