Emma Muir-Smith

Emma Muir-Smith is a writer, performer, and director. She holds an MMus in Opera Performance from the Victorian College of the Arts and Music and an MA in Text and Performance from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her recent work includes Listen to my Story (librettist/assistant director, Co-Opera South Australia 2020), The Selfish Giant (librettist, Victorian Opera 2019), Alice Through the Opera Glass (librettist, Victorian Opera 2019), Inspire Tour (assistant director, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain 2019). She and Simon Bruckard (composer) received a 2020 Green Room Award for The Selfish Giant. Emma has performed with Victorian Opera (Developing Artist 2014-2015) and Opera Australia, as well as number of companies across the UK and Europe.

Grappling with the complexities of Verdi's 'Macbeth'

ABR Arts • 24 May 2021

As the third Verdi opera on offer in Melbourne this season (along with Opera Australia’s Aida and Ernani), Melbourne Opera’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth at Her Majesty’s Theatre is a mixed offering. Verdi wrote Macbeth – one of his earliest operas and less celebrated than his later Shakespearean works, Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893) – when he was thirty-three; it had its prem ... (read more)

Fangirls | A joyous rollercoaster of teenage life in the digital age

ABR Arts • 03 May 2021

The Australian musical Fangirls is, in both writing and production, of a calibre rarely seen in home-grown musical theatre. With book, music, and lyrics by Yve Blake, Fangirls explores the underestimated power of teenage girls. After its première at Queensland Theatre and Sydney’s Belvoir in 2019, this stellar production makes its latest stop at Arts Centre Melbourne, following a run at the Ade ... (read more)

Das Rheingold (Melbourne Opera)

ABR Arts • 05 February 2021

Finally liberated from the solitude of our lounge rooms and Netflix subscriptions, sitting in Melbourne’s Regent Theatre shoulder-to-shoulder on Wednesday night felt like a forbidden treat. The palpable exuberance of being back on the town, though, was tempered by a profound appreciation of our delicately privileged position. As the first major opera performance in Melbourne after a protracted C ... (read more)