Driftwood is a new Australian musical about Austrian/Australian sculptor Karl Duldig and his artist/inventor wife Slawa Horowitz-Duldig, based on the memoir written by their daughter Eva de Jong-Duldig. Now their granddaughter, soprano Tania de Jong, will play Slawa in a musical, which she initiated and created with writer Jane Bodie and composer/musical director Anthony Barnhill. Driftwood follows Karl and Slawa’s romantic and artistic lives in pre-war Vienna, Slawa’s invention of the foldable umbrella, and their escape from the Holocaust to Melbourne where they lived out their lives as artists. Tania de Jong spoke to Limelight about the musical and explains how it has been created.

Tania de Jong and mother

Eva de Jong-Duldig and Tania de Jong. Photo © James Terry

Driftwood is about your grandparents. Did you know them well?
I knew them very well. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents at their home, which is now the Duldig Studio art gallery and museum in Melbourne. They loved encouraging me to draw, paint and sculpt and generally create things. Sadly, my grandmother Slawa died when I was...