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UNSW Opera: a Preliminary History

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UNSW Opera: a Preliminary History UNSW Opera: A Preliminary History Dorottya Fabian Paper presented on 5 March 2016 at the Roger Covell’s 85th Celebration and Symposium (School of the Arts and Media, UNSW Australia, Webster building) The chamber opera company, UNSW Opera was founded by Roger Covell and Jean Wilhem in 1968 under the patronage of The University of New South Wales. As an academic staff since 1966, Covell was in charge of music on campus and in an entrepreneurial fashion typical of his energetic attitude, he took this opportunity to not only create various chamber and vocal lunch-hour concerts and evening recitals but, assisted by his colleague and wife, singer and choral director Patricia Brown, to establish long-lasting, professional and semi-professional groups that have played a major role in Sydney’s musical life for decades. UNSW Opera was among the first of these groups, together with the Grainger Singers, followed by the Dowland Singers, the Collegium Musicum Choir and the Australia Ensemble. The seeds of the company were sown right from the beginning of Covell’s employment at the university through public performances of what commentators called “dramatized lectures”, or “musical-educational-dramatic evenings”.1 In this “novel form of entertainment” performances of various pieces selected for a particular theme were “knit together by Covell’s comments, which were wittily laconic and clear and direct at the same time.”2 Both audiences and critics loved the shows with newspaper regularly reporting capacity audiences. Romola Constantino, for instance, enthused thus in 1967: Directing a large varied group on stage and holding together subjects which could easily straggle, Covell’s achievement was a noteworthy one; it whetted the appetite for more dramatized “lectures” of the same kind, even though they involve a heavy load of preparation and work beyond the usual limits of either lecturer or musical performer. These innovative dramatized lecture recitals remained a staple of musical entertainments organized and directed by Roger Covell throughout his time at the University. Over a thirty year period he has presided over more than 50 productions, including over 30 full-scale operas, many for the very first time in Australia. The opera performances were generally made possible by additional financial support from the Australia Council for the Arts and the NSW State Government Cultural Grant Fund. UNSW Opera opened with the first Sydney performance of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw in August 1968, in the company’s regular performance venue, The Science Theatre on the Kensington campus. The reception was enthusiastically positive. Critics hailed it as a “theatrical success of the first order” primarily because of the musical professionalism demonstrated by the singers and the orchestra under Roger Covell’s leadership. The soloists included singers from the Elizabethan Trust, Marilyn Richardson, Robert Gard, Pearl Berridge, and Rosemary Gordon. The children roles were sung by the 14 year-old John Butchard and the 15 year-old Janice Blacklock. The 1 David Salter, Telegraph 14 Oct 1967: Many years of “Tempests” 2 Romola Costantino, SMH (?) 14 Oct 1967: “Shakespeare cloaked in baroque music” orchestra consisted of thirteen professional musicians. As with all performances until her return to the US in the early 1970s, the producer was co-founder, Jean Wilhelm. Reviewers tended to find her stagings dull and unnecessarily “functionally austere”3 while praising the musical side of the shows, especially Covell’s “assured conducting and affectionate concern for singers and orchestra”4 and his “conspicuous sympathy, enthusiasm and instinct”5 for the music. Covell’s interest in and affinity for Britten’s music led to many more highly successful productions of the composer’s operas. The one to follow less than a year after the first Turn of the Screw performance was another Sydney first: Albert Herring in July 1969. The cast included Peral Berridge as Lady Billow; Robert Gerard as Albert Herring; Ronal Maconaghie as Sid who, according to one reviewer, “added yet another well-judged characterisation to his record and reputation as one of Australia’s foremost singer/actor.” Margaret Cummings sang Miss Wordworth; Marie Tusoe appeared as Nancy and Graeme Ewer and Ross Whatson as village dignitaries. Apparently Barry Strong “was delightful” as village vicar; Mary Blake “a convincing housekeeper Florence Pike in spite of her break between registers” and Ruth Hough “did well” as Mrs Herring.” We learn from the same review that “all the other parts [were performed by] … competent singers, all of whom displayed considerable acting talent , including Janice Blacklock, Diana Covell [Covell’s daughter] and Norman Williams as the three children, Emmie, Cis and Harry.”6 Fred Blanks considered the performance “nothing short of a triumph of comic ingenuity” praising Covell’s conducting of a “nearly note-perfect orchestra (led by Gordon Bennett)” and noting that “David Copping’s set made a magnificent contribution”. He concluded his review with enthusiasm: “Albert Herring … is the finest musical venture yet undertaken under Roger Covell’s guidance and no one who has ever enjoyed opera ought to miss it.”7 Several other Britten operas were programmed over the years: Let’s Make an Opera four times (1971, 1972, 1977 and 1988); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1973) that featured the 19-year old Counter-tenor Graham Pushee’s operatic debut as Oberon and which was the Australian premier of the opera (on June 1); Paul Bunyan (1979); Curlew River and The Prodigal Son (1989) and The Turn of the Screw again in 1978 as the 10th anniversary performance. The opera company was also making inroads in bringing other little known repertoire to Sydney audiences. In their second year of existence, in April and May 1969 they gave the Australian premier of Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea. This was a much anticipated and hugely successful production with Marilyn Richardson in the title role, John Maine as Nero and Lauris Elms as Ottavia. Although the production was still Jean Wilhelm’s, the staging gained by the contribution of Kim Carpenter as set designer. From reviews we also learn that Roger Covell not only “presided over a venture he has nurtured from conception to maturity … commanding a small instrumental ensemble of stylish expertise” but he also “translated Busenello’s libretto … into easy-flowing English”.8 Over the years he has done that feat many more times, with librettos of Rossini, Scarlatti, and even Verdi, among others. 3 Fred Blanks on The Transposed Heads: SMH 29 June 1970 4 Wolfgang Wagner The Australian 28-07-1969: An Opera cast all born and bred in Suffolk 5 Nadine Amadio in Australian Financial Review September 1976: Peri’s Euridice 6 Wagner, The Australian 28-07-1969: An Opera cast all born and bred in Suffolk 7 Fred Blanks, SMH 21 July 1969: Albert Herring 8 Fred Blanks SMH 1969: Poppea review Another Monteverdi premier Covell presided over was The Return of Ulysses in 1975. It was a very special event as the performances were given in the Opera Theatre (now Dame Joan Sutherland Theatre) of the Sydney Opera House due to the invitation by Australian Opera. Gerald English sung the title role to great acclaim. Other singers included Robert Gard, Rosemary Gunn, Rosalind Keene, Penelope Bruce, Ron Stevens, Judy Glen, Neal Easton, Nevile Wilkie, Graham Pushee, Conal Coad, Meg Chilcott, Patiricia Brown, David Goddard. The sets were designed by Tom Lingwood and the opera was produced by German-born director, Bernd Benthaak. According to one reviewer, for the performance Roger Covell prepared his own edition in a new translation making some cuts but recreating the original sounds to the extent of including renaissance instruments like the theorbo, orpharion, chitarrone, bandora and sackbut in a continuo group and contrasting this with a ritornello of strings and recorders.9 The actual performance had its challenges as we learn from Nadine Amadio’s review: [Conal Coad] sang on while faulty machinery caused the stage to erupt… While all the other Olympians made their cleverly arranged “magical” appearances with a minimum of fuss, Coad as Neptune rising from the depths struck disaster and the prospect of a yawning fifty foot drop. 10 But such excitement only added to the success of the evening because “[Gerald] English’s amazingly clear diction made Covell’s translation vivid and logical and imbued it with some of the atmosphere of the original language”11 whetting everybody’s appetite for more performances of Monteverdi’s music. UNSW Opera responded to such calls from the public by putting on Euridice from 1600 (another Australian premier, this time of the first surviving opera by Monteverdi’s contemporary Jacopo Peri with a new translation again by Covell) in 1976 followed by Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda in 1980. The praise for Peri’s Euridice was as strong as for Ulysses a year earlier: “don’t miss the opportunity of hearing and seeing the excellently designed and directed production…” urged Nadine Amadio adding: I must say one does not expect to see a work of such tremendous historical importance performed with such an awareness of the visual and dramatic potential. … [A] vital musical group under the direction of Roger Covell gave us the authentic sounds and textures of this great early work – the sets, the costumes and the deeply involved contribution of the singers brought a vivid life to the drama. … The idea of moving huge masked figures around the stage from level to level like mighty symbols gave the opera a haunting power. The sweeping mime of the death-masked Proserpina added a touch of ancient classic tragedy. These were some of the many touches that made this production work so well.
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