Delight in the remarkable power of the human voice with leading opera artists and rising stars in Opera Queensland’s Studio Series, a program of intimate recitals and unforgettable performances in the Opera Queensland’s newly refurbished Studio at South Bank.
Opera Queensland is partnering with the Brisbane Music Festival (BMF) to deliver two of the recitals. The BMF is directed by Alex Raineri, one of Australia’s most accomplished pianists who will perform in four of the recitals over the course of the series.
The 2021 Studio Series begins with American-Australian soprano and composer Jane Sheldon in her Opera Queensland debut. Jane will perform with Alex Raineri to deliver Songs of Love and Death on 12 and 13 February with music by Debussy and Messiaen. Chinese-Australian tenor Kang Wang also makes his solo debut with Opera Queensland in Secret – A Love That Never Was, joined on stage by renowned pianist John Woods. Their recital charts a tale of unrequited love featuring songs by Tosti, Donaudy and Maristella on 26 and 27 February.
Yorta Yorta soprano and composer Deborah Cheetham AO will perform her own work as well as songs by composers such as Strauss, Puccini, Glanville-Hicks and Kats-Chernin alongside pianist Toni Lalich OAM in Songs My Mother Sang to Me on 19 and 20 March. Gregory Massingham and Stephen Emmerson present the complete song-cycle, Winterreise, one of Schubert’s final works, on 7 and 8 May against a backdrop of majestic winter landscapes by German painter Caspar David Friedrich.
Raineri returns with soprano Eva Kong in Death Becomes Her, a program of evocative songs spanning arias from Roméo et Juliette and Madama Butterfly to Debussy’s Quatre Chansons de Jeunesse and Korean repertoire on 4 and 5 June.
Opera Queensland’s second collaboration with the 2021 Brisbane Music Festival partners soprano Sarah Crane and baritone Shaun Brown in A Poet’s Love featuring Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder and Schumann’s Dichterliebe on 6 and 7 August, with Alex Raineri on piano. Following sold out performances with Opera Queensland in 2019, soprano Alexandra Flood returns to explore the influence of Middle and Far Eastern melody on Western classical music traditions in Eastern Promises on 17 and 18 September. Alex Raineri will accompany Alexandra in this final performance of the 2021 Studio Series.
Performances are held on Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons and run for approximately 60 minutes without interval.
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