The Children's Bach (opera)

Last updated October 04, 2019

The Children's Bach is a chamber opera by the Australian composer Andrew Schultz to a libretto by Glenn Perry, based on the 1984 novella of the same name by Helen Garner. The work was commissioned by the Melbourne-based group Chamber Made and their Artistic Director Douglas Horton with the aid of an Australia Council Project Fellowship; it premiered at the Malthouse theatre's Merlyn Theatre on 20 June 2008.

Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's Cardillac (1926). Earlier small-scale operas such as Pergolesi's La serva padrona (1733) are sometimes known as chamber operas.

A composer is a musician who is an author of music in any form, including vocal music, instrumental music, electronic music, and music which combines multiple forms. A composer may create music in any music genre, including, for example, classical music, musical theatre, blues, folk music, jazz, and popular music. Composers often express their works in a written musical score using musical notation.

Andrew Schultz is an acclaimed Australian classical composer. A musician with a large and widely performed output and an international sphere of activity he has, since 2008, lived in Sydney, New South Wales. He studied at the Universities of Queensland and Pennsylvania and at King's College London and he has received many awards, prizes and fellowships including a Fulbright Award (1982), the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award (1985), Grand-Prix, Opera Screen de Opéra-Bastille (1991), the APRA Award for Classical Composition of the Year (1993), the Schueler Award (2007), the Paul Lowin Prize (2009) and the Centenary of Canberra Symphony Commission (2012). He holds a Bachelor of Music (Hons), Master of Music, and Doctor of Philosophy in musical composition.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast, 20 June 2008 Conductor: Brett Kelly
Dexter	baritone	Andrea Carcassi
Athena	mezzo-soprano	Kathryn Grey
Billy, their son		Jackson Cairnduff/ James Christensen
Phillip	tenor	James Egglestone
Elizabeth	mezzo-soprano	Dimity Shepherd
Vicki, Elisabeth's sister	soprano	Teresa 'Tess' Duddy
Poppy, Phillip's daughter		Hannah Kostros/ Alexa Madden
Director		Chris Kohn
Lighting design		Richard Vabre
Design		Dale Ferguson
Sound design		Russell Goldsmith

The work is of 80 minutes duration and is scored for a cast of six, and six instrumentalists (violin, cello, double bass, clarinet, percussion, piano).

The violin, sometimes known as a fiddle, is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused. The violin typically has four strings, usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings, though it can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow.

The cello ( CHEL-oh; plural celli or cellos) or violoncello ( VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh; Italian pronunciation: [vjolonˈtʃɛllo]) is a bowed (and occasionally plucked) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C₂, G₂, D₃ and A₃, an octave lower than the viola. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef and treble clef used for higher-range passages.

The double bass, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra.

Synopsis

The Children’s Bach is a contemporary story set on the banks of Merri Creek in inner-suburban Melbourne. Dexter and Athena live in a ramshackle house with no TV and an outside loo. But they are comfortably happy although life with their disabled son, Billy, has taken its toll. Against this family crashes another; Phillip, Elizabeth and Vicki: urbane, musical and stylish. And like most crashes there’s collateral damage.
The Merri Creek is a waterway in southern parts of Victoria, Australia, which flows through the northern suburbs of Melbourne. It begins near Wallan north of Melbourne and flows south for 70 km until it joins the Yarra River at Dights Falls. The area where the creek meets the river was traditionally the location for large gatherings of the Wurundjeri people and is suspected to have been the location for one of the earliest land treaties in Australia between Indigenous Australians and European settlers.
— from the program notes^[1]

Related Research Articles

Eddie Perfect is an Australian singer-songwriter, pianist, comedian, writer and actor.

Constance Lalage "Lally" Katz is an American and Australian dramatist writing for theater, film, and television. She now resides in Los Angeles.

Victorian Opera is an opera company based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The company was founded in 2005 by the Victorian Government as a replacement for the Victoria State Opera. It commenced operations in January 2006 with Richard Gill as Artistic Director. Richard Mills is the current Artistic Director. The company is supported through government funding, patron contributions and corporate sponsorship.

Alan John is an Australian composer. He studied music at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1980. His compositions include original music for various plays, films and TV series, and the musicals Jonah Jones, Orlando Rourke and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

The Green Room Awards are peer awards which recognise excellence in cabaret, dance, drama, fringe theatre, musical theatre and opera in Melbourne.

Theatre of Australia refers to the history of the performing arts in Australia, or produced by Australians. There are theatrical and dramatic aspects to a number of Indigenous Australian ceremonies such as the corroboree. During its colonial period, Australian theatrical arts were generally linked to the broader traditions of English literature and to British and Irish theatre. Australian literature and theatrical artists have over the last two centuries introduced the culture of Australia and the character of a new continent to the world stage.

Caroline Craig is an Australian actress, based in New York City. Caroline completed a BA at Melbourne University before graduating from NIDA in 1999.

Malthouse Theatre is the resident theatre company of The Coopers Malthouse building in Southbank, part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct. In the 1980s it was known as the Playbox Theatre Company and was housed in the Playbox Theatre in Melbourne.

Chamber Made Opera is an Australian arts organisation based in Melbourne, creating contemporary opera and music theatre.

Dame Margery Merlyn Myer was an Australian philanthropist, who was notable for her charitable work.

Garry Stewart has been the artistic director of the Australian Dance Theatre since 1999, following Meryl Tankard.

<i>Through the Looking Glass</i> (opera) opera

Through the Looking Glass is a chamber opera by the Australian composer Alan John to a libretto by Andrew Upton, based on Lewis Carroll's book and on the life of Alice Liddell, the girl for whom Carroll wrote the story's prequel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

<i>The Childrens Bach</i> book by Helen Garner

The Children's Bach (1984) is a novella by Australian writer Helen Garner. It was her third published book and her second novel. It was well received critically both in Australia and abroad.

Alan Gilmour is a playwright and librettist. Born in Edinburgh and raised in Hamilton, Scotland, he studied, lived and worked in London before moving to Melbourne, Australia.

St Martins Youth Arts Centre is a youth-focused performing arts centre in South Yarra in inner Melbourne. It is a non-profit organisation that makes contemporary theatre works for adult audiences and runs weekly drama workshops for young people.

Matthew Lutton is an Australian theatre and opera director.

Kip Williams is an Australian theatre director. Williams is the Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company.

Tom Wright is an Australian theatre writer, mostly known for his adaptations and translations.

Marion Potts is an Australian theatre director.

Rembrandt's Wife is a chamber opera composed by Andrew Ford with libretto by Sue Smith.

References

↑ "What's On". Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne. 2008. Archived from the original on May 26, 2008. Retrieved 21 June 2008.

External links

Usher, Robin (17 July 2008). "A novel approach to modern opera". The Age . Retrieved 21 June 2008.
Burch, Peter (24 June 2008). "Between the lines". The Australian . Retrieved 28 June 2008. (Review)

<i>The Age</i> Melbourne daily newspaper

The Age, a daily newspaper, has been published in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, since 1854. Owned and published by Nine, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and southern New South Wales. It is delivered both in hardcopy and in online formats. The newspaper shares many articles with other Nine Publishing metropolitan daily newspapers, such as The Sydney Morning Herald.

The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964, and is the country's most circulated nationally distributed newspaper, available in each state and territory. It rivals with other nationally distributed newspapers like the business-focused Australian Financial Review and The Saturday Paper. The Australian is owned by News Corp Australia.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "What's On". Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne. 2008. Archived from the original on May 26, 2008. Retrieved 21 June 2008.