Gaetano Donizetti
In October 2016, State Opera SA and the Elder Conservatorium presented its first genuine industry partnership co-production with Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. It featured State Opera SA established, young and emerging artists working closely with students from the Elder Conservatorium. It was so good that it sold out and in 2017, Die Fledermaus was part of State Opera SA’s mainstage season.
The 2017 collaboration with ‘the Con’ was the comic opera Don Pasquale.
The ageing Don Pasquale wants to marry – he doesn’t really care to whom, and so a plot is hatched by the scheming Dr Malatesta, abetted by Pasquale’s nephew Ernesto and Norina, Ernesto’s recently widowed young lover. Pasquale doesn’t stand a chance in the face of this trio, but the route to a happy ending takes many comic twists and turns.
This production was conducted by Luke Dollman and featured a principal cast of professional singers working with vocal students from the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide and members of the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra.