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Reflections from Mount Isa

Opera in a boundless landscape I’m in “The Isa” for the last hurrah of the crazy-brave adventure that has been OperaQ’s Project Puccini, and I’m thrilled to crow that our improbably ambitious journey across regional Queensland, incorporating a total of 384 local choristers into our beautiful new production of Puccini’s La bohème, has been an unqualified success Like the extraordinary team of people who will bring the performance to life tonight, I’m simultaneously relieved and sad that it’s over, but the overwhelming emotion is the thrill of achieving a seemingly impossible goal. From its planning phases two years ago until the final strains of Puccini’s achingly sad Act 4 silence at the Mt Isa Civic Centre tonight, this project has been special, and ensuring its success will continue to focus the minds of everyone involved With Project Puccini ‘everyone involved’ means literally hundreds of people across thousands of kilometres: the army of locals who participated or worked on the show; the touring company of stage technicians; wardrobe/wigs; tour and stage management; principal singers; QSO musicians; the show’s assistant director and conductor; and the OperaQ support team in our South Bank HQ. Every one of them has contributed to the project heart…

September 5, 2014