Perhaps Pinchgut Opera's finest production to date, a brave presentation of a classic Baroque opera, little heard in Australia apart from Handel, benefits from the star presence of Vivca Genaux in splendid form.
Handel's Athalia is a wonderful English oratorio but this production, while musically wonderful, was marred by a problematic staging with infuriating surtitles.
Pinchgut Opera's L'incoronazione di Poppea is a glorious feast of singing, acting and playing but the production is brutal, taking Monteverdi's vision of corruption in high places to excessive lengths.
Historically informed rarities from Rameau and Vinci aim to recreate the world of 18th-century opera-going in Paris. But a misaligned production distracts from this specialised experience.
Handel's oratorio Theodora performed by Pinchgut Opera in Sydney was played and sung beautifully in a rather drab production. Kudos to the soloists especially countertenor Christopher Lowery and conductor Erin Helyard.
Confusion has such lovely music! Sydney's pioneering Baroque and early classical opera specialists, Pinchgut Opera offered Haydn's Armida as its 16th production.
Another ancient hit revived and delivered with panache by Sydney-based Pinchgut Opera: Gretry's L'Amant jaloux (1778) proved it still could raise laughs, aided by a superb cast.
In the opening scene of Pinchgut Opera's latest production, Gluck's rarely performed Iphigénie en Tauride, a swirling musical, dramatic and visually strobe-enhanced tempest is belted out.
It has been Salieri’s tragedy to have largely been overlooked by history, but The Chimney Sweep shows his mastery of musical stagecraft. It was given a spirited and musically satisfying performance by Pinchgut Opera.
Giasone was the most performed opera of the 17th century, but this was no dry, reverent exhumation. This was something much better from Pinchgut Opera: a joyous, animated resurrection.
For the past ten years, Pinchgut Opera has established a reputation for excellence through mounting one opera production annually in Sydney (the name derives from an island in Sydney’s harbour, established as a prison from the beginnings of settlement). Their focus has hitherto been on lesser-known Baroque works, with a few later 18th-century outliers.
