Mezzo-soprano Jessica O’Donoghue – Co-Artistic Director of The Song Company – and composer Jack Symonds present a convincing case that opera is still very much a living and evolving artform with undead, a compelling digital album featuring 11 world premiere recordings of works by Australian composers.
Symonds is Artistic Director of Sydney Chamber Opera and it is through their productions that O’Donoghue has brought the roles to life. Her versatility and beauty of tone are immediately apparent in two contrasting arias by Mary Finsterer, the haunting Your Dusk is Near from Biographica and the mock-Baroque Eternal City from Antarctica. O’Donoghue is studying composition and this album includes three extracts from her current project, Running Man which explores various facets of mental illness. Symonds is a sensitive accompanist and The Flood from his opera Gilgamesh presents a powerful contrast to the Finsterer pieces.
Other SCO regulars Andrée Greenwell, Huw Belling and Peggy Polias are represented with excerpts from their operas Three Marys, Fumeblind Oracle and Commute, respectively. A highlight is Paul Stanhope’s chilling Hanging Rock, set to Tom Wright’s stage adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s classic Picnic at Hanging Rock, and O’Donoghue’s undoubted narrative skills and theatricality are on display in Thomas Adès’s Life Story, his setting of Tennessee Williams’s bitter-sweet chronicle of pillow talk during a one-night stand. Listen for the punchline as there are sadly no text downloads for the album. The singer is encouraged to channel Billie Holiday and O’Donoghue, noted for her spellbinding live performances, pulls this off brilliantly aided by Symonds’ unerring pianism.
Title: Undead
Works: Arias from Australian operas
Performers: Jessica O’Donoghue ms, Jack Symonds p
Label: ABC Classic ABCL0128D
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