Mourning Cloak
Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison
NEW AUSTRALIAN WORK
WORLD
Premiere Season
Liza Lim
The Navigator
Directed by Barrie Kosky
libretto by patricia sykes
Presented by Melbourne International Arts Festival and Brisbane Festival
“It is a peacock´s dance, a danse funebre, a love ritual,
a melting emerald.” Barrie Kosky
Dripping with sensuality, The Navigator is a highly charged, emotional
work about desire and the journey towards connection and transformation.
Narrative conventions are shattered and reconstructed to enable the opera
to float in a time and space that is fabricated by the music. Internationally
acclaimed composer Liza Lim has collaborated with award-winning
poet and librettist Patricia Sykes to create this beguiling work of shifting
narratives and reflecting universes.
Director Barrie Kosky brings this magnificent opera to life for the stage.
Through a complex play of light and costume a world of echoes is created,
one that is in juxtaposition with the searing music gloriously performed by
the ELISION Ensemble.
The Navigator begins with the song of cicadas, a high pitch of desire and
the rustle of feathers of an entrapped Angel of History. In Greek and Roman
mythology the cicada symbolised resurrection, the onset of war, immortality,
spiritual realisation and spiritual ecstasy. Here, it is a perfect prelude to this
story about the extremity of passion, about Eros and Thanatos, desire and
death, the gamble of lovers and of war and choices made.
the Arts Centre, Playhouse
Thu 9 – Sat 11 Oct at 8pm
Sun 12 Oct at 2pm
1hr 40min no interval
Full
Groups (8+)
Conc
Student / MF-Y
$55
$49.50
$41.25
$25
Liza Lim is an Australian composer with international gravitas. Her work
has been performed by some of the world’s most eminent ensembles.
Recent achievements include commissions from Lucerne Festival, Bayerischer
Rundfunk Orchestra, Composer-in-Residence with the Sydney Symphony,
Festival d’Automne in Paris, Salzburg Festival and a Fromm Foundation grant
from Harvard University.
WARNING: Adult Themes, Some Violence, Partial Nudity
Librettist Patricia Sykes
Composer Liza Lim
Director Barrie Kosky
Conductor Manuel Naw