Opera

Michael Halliwell reviews 'The Rabbits' (Opera Australia/Barking Gecko Theatre Company)

ABR Arts • 12 October 2015

Opera

Michael Halliwell reviews 'The Rabbits' (Opera Australia/Barking Gecko Theatre Company)

ABR Arts • 12 October 2015

Australia is being overrun by a rabbit phenomenon, but not of the annoying, four-legged variety. It’s The Rabbits: the opera, the musical, the song cycle, or what? Does it matter?

Premièred to highly positive reviews at the Perth Festival in February this year, it has now reached the Melbourne Festival. Some have seen in the success of this work the possible salvation of opera in Australia, but it is too early to say whether the piece might be the harbinger of new works that successfully straddle the generic divide between opera and musical theatre. There are many works that sit somewhat uneasily on the fence between the two genres: Leonard Bernstein’s Candide is a work that garnered much critical acclaim when first performed in 1956, as well as a rather less effusive reception from many in the operatic establishment. Bernstein’s music was described sniffily by some as a pastiche of musical styles, and he does incorporate a wide range of different musical idioms to suggest Voltaire’s eighteenth-century setting. Candide’s performance history is a study in the almost continuous re-working and even re-imagining necessary to find the final form it might take.

Michael Halliwell

Michael Halliwell studied literature and music at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, at the London Opera Centre, and with Tito Gobbi in Florence. He has sung in Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia and was principal baritone for many years with the Netherlands Opera, the Nürnberg Municipal Opera, and the Hamburg State Opera singing over fifty major operatic roles, including several world premiere productions. He has served as Chair of Vocal Studies and Opera, Pro-Dean and Head of School, and Associate Dean (Research) at the Sydney Conservatorium. He is President of the International Association for Word and Music Studies. His publications include the monographs, Opera and the Novel (Rodopi: 2005); and National Identity on Contemporary Australian Opera: myths reconsidered (Routledge, 2018), as well as many chapters and articles. He still performs regularly and recent CDs include When the Empire Calls (ABC Classics, 2005); O for a Muse of Fire: Australian Shakespeare Settings (Vox Australis, 2013); Amy Woodforde-Finden: The Oriental Song-Cycles (Toccata Classics, 2014); That Bloody Game; Australian WWI Songs (Wirripang, 2015).