Bliss (opera)
Encyclopedia
Bliss is an opera
in three acts by Brett Dean
to a libretto
by Amanda Holden. The libretto is based on Peter Carey's novel
Bliss
which had been made into the 1985 film Bliss
. The opera premiered at the Sydney Opera House
on 12 March 2010. It will then travel to the Edinburgh Festival
and open the 2010/11 season at the Hamburg State Opera
.
was musical director of Opera Australia
when it commissioned Brett Dean and Amanda Holden to write this work. Soon after, Young left Opera Australia for artistic reasons to take up the position of artistic director (Intendant) of the Hamburg State Opera. Her successor, Richard Hickox
, also supported the work; but died in 2008. Then, the Australian National Academy of Music
of which Brett Dean is the Artistic Director, was threatened with the loss of its funding from the Australian federal government.
During the development of the opera, Dean wrote the orchestral piece Moments of Bliss which premiered on 2 December 2004 at Hamer Hall, Melbourne, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
under Markus Stenz
. Dean composed the role of Harry Joy specifically for Peter Coleman-Wright; three of this role's arias were sung by Coleman-Wright in a concert on 2 October 2008 under the title Songs of Joy with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle
.
on 12 March 2010, and on 13 March 2010 ABC2
showed a director's cut
of the film Bliss, introduced by an interview of the film's director Ray Lawrence by David Stratton
. ABC1
showed a documentary on 16 March 2010, Artscape – Making Opera Bliss and the opera's second performance on 17 March 2010 was broadcast live by ABC2 and shown on Melbourne's Federation Square
and in cinemas throughout Australia.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
in three acts by Brett Dean
Brett Dean
Brett Dean is a contemporary Australian composer, violist and conductor.-Career:Dean studied at the Queensland Conservatorium where he received a Medal of Excellence. From 1985 to 1999, Dean was a violist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, he decided to pursue a career as a freelance...
to a libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
by Amanda Holden. The libretto is based on Peter Carey's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Bliss
Bliss (novel)
Bliss is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. Published in 1981, the book won that year's Miles Franklin Award.-Plot:Written as a dark, comic fable, the story concerns an advertising executive, Harry Joy, who briefly 'dies' of a heart attack. On being resuscitated, he realizes that the life he...
which had been made into the 1985 film Bliss
Bliss (1985 film)
Bliss is a 1985 Australian film directed by Ray Lawrence, co-adapted by Lawrence and Peter Carey, author of the original novel Bliss from which it is adapted....
. The opera premiered at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
on 12 March 2010. It will then travel to the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
and open the 2010/11 season at the Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
.
Development
The development of this work suffered several setbacks over the years. Simone YoungSimone Young
Simone Margaret Young AM is an Australian conductor. She is music director of the Hamburg Philharmonic and general manager of the Hamburg State Opera...
was musical director of Opera Australia
Opera Australia
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre in Melbourne...
when it commissioned Brett Dean and Amanda Holden to write this work. Soon after, Young left Opera Australia for artistic reasons to take up the position of artistic director (Intendant) of the Hamburg State Opera. Her successor, Richard Hickox
Richard Hickox
Richard Sidney Hickox CBE was an English conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic music.-Early life:Hickox was born in Stokenchurch in Buckinghamshire into a musical family...
, also supported the work; but died in 2008. Then, the Australian National Academy of Music
Australian National Academy of Music
The Australian National Academy of Music is Australia's centre of excellence responsible for training the country's finest young musicians. Located in the South Melbourne, Victoria, it is a member of the Australian Roundtable for Arts Training Excellence...
of which Brett Dean is the Artistic Director, was threatened with the loss of its funding from the Australian federal government.
During the development of the opera, Dean wrote the orchestral piece Moments of Bliss which premiered on 2 December 2004 at Hamer Hall, Melbourne, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Melbourne, Australia. It has 100 permanent musicians. Melbourne has the longest continuous history of orchestral music of any Australian city and the MSO is the oldest professional orchestra in Australia...
under Markus Stenz
Markus Stenz
Markus Stenz is a German conductor. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Volker Wangenhein and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa....
. Dean composed the role of Harry Joy specifically for Peter Coleman-Wright; three of this role's arias were sung by Coleman-Wright in a concert on 2 October 2008 under the title Songs of Joy with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
.
Performance history
A performance of the work lasts for about two hours and forty minutes. The opera premiered at the Sydney Opera HouseSydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
on 12 March 2010, and on 13 March 2010 ABC2
ABC2
ABC2 is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 7 March 2005, it is the responsibility of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television division, and is available nationally to digital television viewers in Australia...
showed a director's cut
Director's cut
A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...
of the film Bliss, introduced by an interview of the film's director Ray Lawrence by David Stratton
David Stratton
David James Stratton is an English- Australian film critic and television personality.-Life and career:Born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England in 1939, Stratton was sent to Hampshire to see out the war years with his grandmother, an avid filmgoer, where he was taken to the local cinemas regularly...
. ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
showed a documentary on 16 March 2010, Artscape – Making Opera Bliss and the opera's second performance on 17 March 2010 was broadcast live by ABC2 and shown on Melbourne's Federation Square
Federation Square
Federation Square is a civic centre and cultural precinct in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
and in cinemas throughout Australia.
Roles
| Role | Voice type Voice type A voice type is a particular kind of human singing voice perceived as having certain identifying qualities or characteristics. Voice classification is the process by which human voices are evaluated and are thereby designated into voice types... | Premiere cast, 12 March 2010 Conductor Conducting Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble... : Elgar Howarth Elgar Howarth Elgar Howarth is an English conductor and composer.Howarth was educated in the 1950s at Manchester University and the Royal Manchester College of Music , where his fellow students included the composers Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies, and the... |
|---|---|---|
| Harry Joy | baritone Baritone Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or... |
Peter Coleman-Wright |
| Betty Joy | soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody... |
Merlyn Quaife |
| Honey B | soprano | Lorina Gore |
| Alex | baritone | Barry Ryan |
| David Joy | tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2... |
David Corcoran |
| Lucy Joy | soprano | Taryn Fiebig Taryn Fiebig Taryn Fiebig is an Australian opera and musical theatre soprano and cellist.Taryn Fiebig initially graduated as a cellist from the University of Western Australia, before commencing vocal training, occasionally marrying the two on stage, with her cello accompanying her own singing.She joined Opera... |
| Johnny | tenor | Kanen Breen |
| Reverend Des / Police Officer 2 / "Nurse" | bass-baritone | Shane Lowrencev |
| Aldo / Nigel Clunes | tenor | Henry Choo |
| Mrs Dalton | mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above... |
Milijana Nikolic Milijana Nikolic Milijana Nikolic is an operatic mezzo-soprano.-Education:Nikolic was born in Sremska MitrovicaSremska Mitrovica was then in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, today it is in Serbia. where she began singing in the choir Sirmium Cantorum. She graduated in 2001 from the University of Arts... |
| Police Officer 1 / Betty's Doctor | tenor | Stephen Smith |
| onstage violin Violin The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello.... ist |
Erkki Veltheim | |
| Chorus, ballet | ||
| Director | Neil Armfield Neil Armfield Neil Geoffrey Armfield AO is an Australian director of theatre, film and opera.Born in Sydney, Armfield was the youngest of three boys. The son of a factory worker at the nearby Arnott's biscuit factory he was brought up in the suburb of Concord adjacent to Exile Bay... |
|
| Choreography | Kate Champion Kate Champion Kate Champion is a contemporary dance choreographer and the director of Force Majeure, a dance collective exploring strong physical performance.Champion began her dance training with Karen Kerkhoven and also studied in Munich... |
|
| Costumes | Alice Babidge | |
| Set design | Brian Thomson Brian Thomson Brian Thomson is an Australian theatre, opera and film designer. He has been active in Australian stage design for over three decades.Thomson began a long and successful collaboration with director Jim Sharman after they met at Heavenburgers on Sydney's Oxford Street in 1969; they worked together... |
|
| Lighting | Nigel Levings | |
External links
- Interview about Bliss with Peter Coleman-Wright by Andrew FordAndrew FordAndrew Ford is an English and Australian composer, writer and radio presenter.He was Composer-in-residence with the Australian Chamber Orchestra , held the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer Fellowship from 1998 to 2000 and was awarded a two-year fellowship by the Music Board of the Australia Council...
at Radio NationalRadio NationalABC Radio National is an Australia-wide non-commercial radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Radio National broadcasts national programming in areas that include news and current affairs, the arts, social issues, science, drama and comedy... - "A Joy in hell as Bliss hits the stage" by Matthew Perkins, 702 ABC Sydney702 ABC Sydney702 ABC Sydney is an ABC radio station in Sydney, Australia. It is the flagship station in the ABC Local Radio network and broadcasts on 702 kHz on the AM dial....
(11 March 2010), includes audio sample and production photographs - "Blissful performances on anti-hero's journey", review by Peter McCallum, The Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
(15 March 2010)