Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Wednesday 24 July
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
David Mitchell found it ‘addictive and gratifying – not unlike sudoku’. Anna Goldsworthy has written one for children’s classic The Magic Pudding. And Ian Rankin wrote one for Scottish Opera.
What is it? The libretto.
And it’s a form that’s increasingly popular, stretching the creative muscles of some of the world’s best writers.
This special event, in partnership with Chamber Made Opera, looks at what happens to words when they are set to music – and explores the rewards and challenges for writers working with the form.
Join composer Brett Dean, librettists Peter Goldsworthy and Joanna Murray-Smith as they sing the praises of the libretto, with Caroline Lee.
Featuring
Joanna Murray-Smith
Joanna Murray-Smith is a Melbourne-based playwright, screenwriter and novelist.
Her plays, which include Honour, Rapture, Bombshells, Nightfall, Redemption, Love Child and Flame, have been produced around the world.
Honour has been produced in over two dozen countries, including productions on Broadway and at the National Theatre in London and most recently in the West End. Both Honour and Rapture won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Best Play.
Most recently, Melbourne Theatre Company produced The Female of the Species. Joanna has also published three novels: Truce, Judgement Rock and Sunnyside.
Brett Dean
Following studies in Australia, Brett Dean travelled to Germany in 1985 and became a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra as viola player. In addition to his orchestral career, he has performed as a soloist. In 1988, he began composing, initially as an arranger. Since 2000, he has lived in Australia as freelance composer.
Brett has worked in improvisation for radio and film projects in Australia and became established as a composer in his own right through worldwide performances of the ballet One of a Kind (Nederlands Dans Theater, choreographer Jiri Kylian) and by the clarinet concerto Ariel’s Music, which won an award from the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers.
Paintings from his partner Heather Betts have initiated numerous compositions. Leading interpreters of Dean’s music include Sir Simon Rattle, Markus Stenz, Simone Young, Frank Peter Zimmermann and Daniel Harding.
Caroline Lee
Caroline is a performer, writer and editor. Her novel, Stripped, was serialised in 2008-2010 in Meanjin. Most recently she has appeared in Bell Shakespeare’s production of Phèdre by Racine, played the role of Venus in The Minotaur Trilogy with Chamber Made Opera as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and toured Australia in The Flood, an Australian Gothic drama by Jackie Smith.
Caroline appeared in Small Metal Objects in Cardiff with Back to Back Theatre, performed seasons of Care Instructions at the Malthouse and in Denmark, and toured the puppet show for adults A Quarreling Pair to New York and Rome.
Peter Goldsworthy
Peter Goldsworthy wrote the libretto for Richard Mills' multi-Helpmann award winning opera Batavia. His most recent songwriting collaboration was with composer Graeme Koehne, on The Ring-tone Cycle - a Cabaret Quintet for Piano Trio, Soprano and iPhone, which premiered at last year’s Adelaide Festival.
This year Penguin are releasing his childhood memoir, His Stupid Boyhood, Text are reissuing his 1996 novel Wish in their Text Classics series, and Harper Collins reissuing his 1989 novel Maestro as an Angus & Robertson Australian Classic.
In 2010 he was awarded an AM for service to literature.