LA PASSION DE SIMONE SYDNEY CHAMBER OPERA IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE SONG COMPANY l AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE Photo: Samuel Hodge Photo: ABOUT THE SHOW LA PASSION Passion and philosophy collide in a glimmering ascent DE SIMONE to enlightenment. Simone Weil bestrode the 20th century as a figure of SYDNEY CHAMBER OPERA IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE SONG COMPANY l AUSTRALIA impossible grace. Acclaimed Finnish composer Kaija AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE Saariaho tells her story through music in this deeply CARRIAGEWORKS spiritual work, never before seen in Australia. 9–11 JANUARY Saariaho’s score is luminous and coruscating, blending 75 MINS a single incredible soloist with the voices of The Song Company and 19 virtuoso instrumentalists. Star soprano Music Kaija Saariaho Jane Sheldon (The Howling Girls, An Index of Metals) leads Text Amin Maalouf the audience through Weil’s extraordinary life, from her Jack Symonds rejection of labour during World War II to her exile into Conductor DIRECTOR’S NOTE Kaija Saariaho is a prominent member of a group of Director Imara Savage self-imposed starvation in protest of the Holocaust’s “All the natural movements of the soul are controlled Finnish composers and performers who are now, in Set & Costume Designer Elizabeth Gadsby atrocities. Director Imara Savage and designer Elizabeth by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace mid-career, making a worldwide impact. She studied Lighting Designer Alexander Berlage Gadsby, the creative team behind the acclaimed Fly Away is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where Video Artist Mike Daly Peter, return to Sydney Chamber Opera for this shimmering can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at Sound Designer Bob Scott meditation on defiance in the face of inhumanity. is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her Soprano solo Jane Sheldon is continually at work filling up all the fissures through characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by combining live music and electronics. Chorus The Song Company: Susannah Lawergren, SYDNEY CHAMBER OPERA which grace might pass.” Although much of her catalogue comprises chamber works, Jessica O’Donoghue, Owen Elsley, Mark Donnelly Resident company at Carriageworks, Sydney Chamber Simone Weil since the mid-90s she has turned increasingly to larger Opera is a fresh and youthful answer to some of the difficult Violins Alex Norton, Veronique Serret “I could not forces and broader structures, such as the operas L’Amour questions facing today’s opera industry. Jack Symonds and Viola James Wannan Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither de loin and Adriana Mater. Louis Garrick established SCO in 2010 and it has rapidly Cello Mee Na Lojewski Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, developed into an important and distinctive voice in the Saariaho has claimed the major composing awards in the Double Bass Kirsty McCahon Looking into the heart of light, the silence.” Australian music and theatre landscapes. Grawemeyer Award, the Wihuri Prize, the Nemmers Prize, Flutes Jane Bishop, Lamorna Nightingale T.S. Eliot The Waste Land the Sonning Prize, the Polar Music Prize and in 2018 she Under Artistic Director Jack Symonds, SCO continues to Oboe Jasper Ly was recognised with the BBVA Foundation’s Frontiers of gain critical acclaim for its innovative programming, musical Clarinet Jason Noble “Whatever you do, make it an offering to me – the Knowledge Award. Saariaho continues to collaborate for rigour and strong focus on compelling theatre-making. SCO Bassoon/Contrabassoon Noriko Shimada food you eat, the sacrifices you make, the help you the stage: Only the Sound Remains, her most recent opera makes opera with a 21st century outlook that resonates Horns Gergely Malyusz, Neil O’Donnell give, even your suffering.” collaboration with Peter Sellars, opened in Holland in 2016. with a new, younger audience, and that shows how vibrant Trumpet Callum G’Froerer Bhagavad Gita and relevant the artform can be. In the same year her first operaL’Amour de loin was Trombone Matthew Harrison presented in its New York premiere by the Metropolitan Each year SCO stages productions of 21st and 20th century Rather than staging this work as a traditional opera we Harp Genevieve Lang Opera in a new production by Robert Lepage. The Park repertoire with a balance of specially commissioned have responded to the piece as an installation of object, Celesta Susanne Powell Avenue Armory and New York Philharmonic presented work by leading homegrown composers and the latest orchestra, video and voice. Tapping into ideas around Percussion Joshua Hill, Bree van Reyk, Kaylie Melville a celebration of her orchestral music with visual international operas in their Australian premieres. SCO also mysticism, asceticism, endurance, suffering, gravity accompaniment in October 2016. February 2017 saw Production Manager Damion Holling performs song cycles and cantatas in unusual stagings, and liberation, we were influenced by the words and Paris come alive with her work when she was the featured Film Producer Sarah Nichols and canonical repertoire reinvigorated by the country’s life of Simone Weil, and equally by Saariaho’s luminous composer for Festival Presences. She is currently Assistant Director Clemence Williams most daring theatrical talent. score in which the world seemed ever in flux, a constant composing a new opera to premiere in 2020. Assistant Conductor Huw Belling state of transformation, a wall of sound in which Stage Management Georgiane Deal, Elizabeth Paterson particles become physically manifest in space. The Surtitles Johannes MacDonald work is an exploration of the paradox of gravity and light, and a response to the fractured, multi-faceted All foodstuffs used in this production are ethically remembering of Simone as evident in the libretto. sourced and will be recycled for use as animal feed. Imara Savage, director ««««« “A COLLABORATION OF STAGGERING AMBITION, REALISED WITH A LEVEL OF FINESSE THAT MAKES IT A PRIVILEGE TO EXPERIENCE IN ITS OWN RIGHT” ONE THE MUSIC INFINITY PLAYKING PRODUCTIONS, DANCENORTH, JUN TIAN FANG AND BEIJING DANCE THEATRE AUSTRALIA/CHINA l WORLD PREMIERE 23–27 JANUARY CARRIAGEWORKS This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, managed by the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc., commissioned by Melbourne International Arts Festival, Sydney Festival and Perth Festival. ONE INFINITY ALSO AT SYDNEY SYMPHONY UNDER THE STARS SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA l AUSTRALIA 19 JANUARY THE CRESCENT PARRAMATTA PARK FREE SYDNEY SYMPHONY UNDER THE STARS SYDNEYFESTIVAL.ORG.AU.