Baroque Banter

Join Artistic Director Erin Helyard for a fascinating journey into the story of Allegri's Miserere. Be transported to the world of 17th century sacred music and discover some of the secrets behind this enigmatic piece of Baroque vocal writing. Featuring: Voiceovers by Jill Halleron Featured Musical Excerpts: Allegri's Miserere excerpt from Pinchgut Opera's concert Splendour of Venice recorded at Phoenix Central Park. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSZW9O2AvWA Falsobordone, the Miserere of Allegri, and a most bizarre musicological error - performed by tenor Jacob Lawrence and Elam Rotem on keyboard. Courtesy of www.earlymusicsources.com - Elam Rotem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9y5N13un9s Castrati Alessandro Moreschi - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qch5ZrXL_wA LINKS: Graham O’Reilly’s definitive treatment of the history of the Miserere: https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781783274871/allegris-miserere-in-the-sistine-chapel/ Recommended recordings of the pre-20C Allegri Miserere: Pro Cantione Antiqua / Mark Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPdXtPP0iRM A Sei Voci / Bernard Fabre-Garrus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuzgsWatoaI Le Poeme Harmonique / Vincent Dumestre https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_qkjQbdRY Ensemble William Byrd / Graham O’Reilly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVdcpyI5NCg&list=UULF4tBQ9_FgKWo0_xhuYV2X7Q&index=37 Existing documentaries: BBC 4 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi2n7srJ_v8 Inside the Music: How Allegri’s Miserere should really sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6hD8YtO5HI Whatever happened to Allegri's Miserere ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK35jU3cfiU The Sixteen: a new version of Allegri’s Miserere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAwzChKpDi0 Falsobordone, the Miserere of Allegri, and a most bizarre musicological error https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9y5N13un9s

Join award-winning writer and actor Kate Mulvany OAM and acclaimed director Lucy Clements as they discuss the new prologue for Pinchgut's new production of Dido and Aeneas. In the spirit of providing a backstory and context, Kate has written us a new spoken-word prologue that helps us freshly understand Purcell’s original setting. Discover what it was like to create this piece.

Host Keiren Brandt-Sawdy chats with conductor Erin Helyard and director Louisa Muller about one of the most beloved works in the Baroque repertoire. Discover fresh insight into Pinchgut's first staging of a Handel opera, with Rinaldo. Get ready to be swept away by the magic and adventure when you witness this towering masterpiece of music and drama on stage at City Recital Hall this November.

Baroque Banter 11: French Imports. In this Baroque Banter Erin Helyard talks about the influence of Italian music and musicians in France in the seventeenth century. He talks about opera, dances, chaconnes, passacaglias and the multicultural mix that makes Baroque music so special. Excerpts by Erin on harpsichord.

Pinchgut Opera’s pre-concert podcast with Genevieve Lang and Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director, Erin Helyard. Passion, divinity, transcendence: Pinchgut Opera presents its first concert of the season, Membra Jesu Nostri by Buxtehude. A cycle of seven cantatas composed by German composer Dieterich Buxtehude in 1680. The music is loving: pure, balanced and deeply expressive, demonstrating an extraordinary attention to unity of conception. Pinchgut’s presentation of this astonishing work brings together a stellar chorus of soloists, including Alexandra Oomens and Lauren Lodge- Campbell, who both return to Australia after performances throughout Europe with some of the world’s eminent Baroque ensembles, along with the sublime sounds of Andrew O’Connor, Hannah Fraser and Louis Hurley. Joining them will be a specially selected group of expert players of the Orchestra of the Antipodes, led by Erin Helyard. This is sacred, meditative music of the highest order and beauty, presented with all the intimacy, emotion and power that inspired its creation over 300 years ago.

To help you prepare for your attendance at Médée, we invite you to listen to Pinchgut's pre-opera podcast. Hosted by Genevieve Lang, with guests Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director Erin Helyard, and Director Justin Way. For more than 20 years, Pinchgut Opera's end of year production has remained one of the highlights of the live performance calendar, and this year will be no exception. Charpentier’s towering masterpiece, Médée, brilliantly showcases our Australian cast, the chorus Cantillation and players of the Orchestra of the Antipodes in all their splendid glory. Charpentier’s sensual lyricism and dramatic insight take us deep inside the mind and heart of this powerful and damaged woman who refuses to be a victim – even at the cost of her own flesh and blood. Médée is high drama and emotion: French tragédie lyrique in its most classic form. The sorceress Médée is driven by desperation and the abandonment of her lover Jason to do the unthinkable, and ultimately murder her own children. Returning to Pinchgut after her star turn in The Return of Ulysses, mezzo-soprano Catherine Carby takes on the role of the tortured Médée, with the brilliant Michael Petruccelli, who was thrilling in 2019’s Farnace, as her lover Jason. Cathy-Di Zhang, Andrew Finden and Adrian Tamburini are joined by Cantillation and the inimitable Orchestra of the Antipodes to tell this passionate and unforgettable story.

Pinchgut Opera's pre-opera podcast, hosted by Genevieve Lang, with very special guests Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director Erin Helyard, and Director Constantine Costi. Witty, beautiful and psychologically fascinating, Orontea is set in a heightened contemporary world somewhere between Egypt and Las Vegas. The story centres around a love octagon, where decadence, pleasure and power fuel our colourful cast of grandiose and joyful characters as they pursue their personal passions above all else. When it premiered at Innsbruck in February 1656, Orontea became one of the most successful operas of the entire century, deftly combining Cesti’s melodic inventiveness with Cicognini’s clever and comic libretto. With Pinchgut’s imaginative staging and musical assurance, Orontea is guaranteed to amuse and delight our audiences of today, just as it did then.