Blog Posts

Eugene Onegin – Sydney/Adelaide rehearsals – Nov-Dec 2016

16/12/2016

Rather a challenge, trying to keep a new tiny human alive for the first time. So I decided a great idea would be to try and learn Russian at the same time. Because nutjob. But honestly, when you’re offered the chance to sing the role of Tatjana you are going to work as hard as you need to to make it possible, carving out ten minutes at a time over months, or silently mouthing libretti while you rock a child to sleep. The good news is, bubba seems to have developed a taste for opera, or at least he smiles when I start singing Tchaikovsky at him, and occasionally joins in with a little Schoenberg over the top.

Rehearsals for this new touring production (March to May 2017) are taking place across 5 weeks at the end of this year in Sydney and Adelaide, and I’m very excited to be working on such a challenging production with such a fabulous cast. Tchaikovsky’s take on Tolstoy’s famous work places the poor maligned Tatjana at the moral centre of the piece, revising any ambiguity in the original and having her stand strong (though desolate) in her ultimate rejection of the flawed man she loves. There is such a great dramatic arc and our director (a Russian scholar) has waited many years to have a chance to direct it, so I certainly have my work cut out for me already.

Very much looking forward to touring this production through regional centres in Victoria, NSW and South Australia in the first part of next year for Co-Opera! Wish me luck!

“Dynasty of Song – Garcia, Malibran, Viardot” – Art Song Canberra

13/11/2016

Manuel Garcia was a celebrated Spanish tenor, the most famous vocal teacher of the 19th century and an affirmed tyrant. His daughters, Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot, would become respectively the greatest opera superstar of the 19th century and an acclaimed pianist and singer with far-reaching influence. Together their stormy lives intertwined with a glittering array of 19th century musical celebrities from Rossini and Lorenzo da Ponte to Tchaikovsky, Chopin and Faure. All three of them were also composers, and their songs are marked by their vocal prowess.

When I began to research the musical legacy of this extraordinary family for my concert for Art Song Canberra, I was so taken by the fascinating histories of their lives I decided my recital would have to be more lecture-recital than normal, in order to fill my audience in on the amazing people behind the broad scope of songs presented. Some are fiery Spanish ditties, some sophisticated French chansons, some very dramatic (operatic even) and some are clearly vehicles for their writers’ virtuosity. (Which is why, when I put them all together and first tried to run the program I was like, “Oh dear god why have I done this to myself right now” *hehem*) Meanwhile the stories that bookend them range from the hilarious to the tragic (with some being both at once).

Throw in my first attempts at castanet playing (why, Karen, WHY?) and here is a recital into which I put a lot of myself, because I became so enthralled by the subject matter. Which actually is the BEST way to work and perform, as I think that enthusiasm always comes across on stage!

As earthy, imperfect, idealised, crazy and tragic as these people were, I had a lot of fun presenting pieces by them which are rarely performed (as well as better known songs), and adding my adulation to their legacy.*

*In an equally unusual side note, due to my touching on Viardot’s long-standing affair with the famous Russian writer Ivan Turgenev and a Turgenev expert having got wind of the concert, a flyer for our little concert now resides in the Turgenev Museum in Moscow!

Please follow this link for Len Power's very kind review in City News:

Len Power's City News review

“Great Minds Against Themselves Conspire….” Dido & Aeneas – Mopoke Theatre Productions – 7-9 October 2016

19/10/2016

Director Nicholas Cannon’s vision for this particular Dido & Aeneas was a genuinely fresh and interesting one, placing the tale of Dido’s tragic love for Trojan hero Aeneas in a modern post-apocalyptic setting which asks the question “What would happen to society if a major international city (such as Troy was) were razed to the ground?”. In our current globalised and interconnected world there would be huge ramifications if, for example, New York or London suddenly ceased to exist.

Performed in the gorgeously ruined Queens Theatre in Adelaide (the cleverly lit crumbling walls of the former theatre were enough – along with a fire and some old clapped-out vehicles - to evoke a society which has chaotically ground to a halt several months after such a worldwide shock), and accompanied expertly by Adelaide’s premiere baroque ensemble Ensemble Galante, this was a really special rendition of this work.

With Bethany Hill (Dido) and David Hidden (Aeneas)

In this context, Dido is a leader (probably with a military background) who has emerged in society’s time of need – she is also the community’s moral fibre, and a comforter rather than a Queen. I reprised the role of Belinda (a favourite of mine now) who in this context was a high ranking military adviser. Aeneas appears as the leader of the foreign Navy – now homeless, and leading his traumatised men. Cannon’s own background as a performer and his training at the Jacques Lecoq school of acting and mime in Paris meant that every member of the cast and small chorus ensemble was called upon to move and dance a great deal (there was one particular scene where I sometimes used to worry that our leading lady was in great peril being hoisted upon shoulders and bounced along cheering!)……and on top of that we were performing in the round!

The drama was not entirely on the stage either: during (my) first week of rehearsals South Australia suffered a state-wide power cut during crazy storms! We ploughed through one afternoon rehearsal with no lighting or tea (the horror!) but had to pull the plug on the evening rehearsal for the safety of those trying to travel in. It was a nightmare trying to get out of the city with all the traffic lights out, and gave us plenty of food for thought for our apocalyptic scenarios. Back at home, we then had 16 hours without heat or light and I was coping with my precious 4.5 month old baby. So it was a tough gig! But worth it.

I made some beautiful new friends from amongst the cast. I am always deeply affected singing Belinda – there is rarely a time (even in rehearsal) when I don’t end up in tears in the final scene. In this production I was the last to leave the stage – bereft (and no doubt more emotional than usual due to extreme sleep deprivation). And as I passed through the curtain my colleagues would line up to hug me til I stopped crying and felt reconnected to reality again. What sweet, sweet people!

This was a really magical musical and theatrical experience for all of us involved, and three sold out audiences agreed with us.

"Fragility" Song Cycle

25/4/2016

It is with great pride and excitement that I received the first mastered version of our recording of Joshua McHugh's "Fragility" cycle, and that I present to you here one of the finished tracks. The whole work will shortly be available for download on iTunes. Please follow the link here to the composer's website, or take a listen below!

Joshua McHugh - Fragility

Article in "La Fiamma" Italian language newspaper

30/3/2016

A fantastic write up courtesy of Signora Yvette Alberti Devlin about our wonderful time at the Italian Ambassador's Residence.

Gems of Italian Baroque Music

26/2/2016

True to my threats, I wheedled my way into yet another concert with the baroque-funtimes duo of Hannah Lane (Italian triple harp) and Nick Pollock (theorbo), otherwise known as Ensemble 642. This time, we descended on the Italian Ambassador’s Residence in Canberra with a tapestry of beautiful Italian Seicento music to delight an audience of Italian business leaders gathered from around the country.

We wowed them with pieces both luscious and attitudinous!

Seriously though, and despite having to rehearse through grinding, sweaty-fingered heat for the whole day leading up to the concert, it was a great concert. Such a receptive audience, who were so interested in the context and practicalities of the amazing pieces we were presenting, and such gracious and enthusiastic hosts in His Excellency the Ambassador and his wonderful wife. And there is no acoustic like a solid-marble room, let me tell you! I felt like our 100-odd guests were with me for every single note, no matter how close I held the music to my chest in some moments.

I think the intimacy of baroque chamber music is one of the things that draws me to it again and again, and that sense of getting right to the heart of things….even things that were felt and written and first sung four hundred years ago. And the sense of assisting people to laugh and cry, in much the same way they would have done in response to the same music four hundred years ago, despite our world looking so different now….that’s a very special feeling.

[Photos with thanks to Yvette Devlin]

Nick Pollock, Karen Fitz-Gibbon, HE Pier Francesco Zazo, Mrs Svetlana Sharapa Zazo, Hannah Lane

Fragility - 15 November & December 2015

15/11/2015

In early September I was lying on an acupuncturist’s table feeling sorry for myself when I heard my phone go.

I had been very sick over the winter and unable to work at all (apart from some wonderful, spirit-saving lessons/coachings with the amazing Ms Emma Matthews, and the inspiring Maestro Richard Gill) and I thought to myself, “You know what I really need is to be making music with my friends. Always sure to restore your mojo is if you just focus on the music and the joy. Forget the rest of it.” When I picked up that voicemail, my prayers had miraculously been answered.

Currently New York-based composer and pianistic pedagogue Joshua McHugh had been a good friend of mine since we met at University, and bonded over an affinity for pinecones and nonsense. Josh had recently performed a concert which included a set of original art songs written for and performed by two other dear singer friends of ours, now based in Vienna. The concert had gone so well that the venue wanted him to organise another, but our friends had returned to Vienna after a whirlwind ‘holiday’ in Australia. “I have a concept for a song cycle,” he said, “and if you’re interested in singing it for me I can tailor it to your voice as I compose it.”

Um……YES?!?!?!?!!!

Only two months later, we were on stage at the Crisp Galleries in Yass, performing the 11-part, 2 act “Fragility” together with a selection from Josh’s works for solo piano, in a semi-staged setting. This beautiful, lyrical work first traces the mental deterioration of a somewhat Miss-Havishamesque character rattling around in her boudoir, before redeeming her through her own suffering on a lonely beach populated only by her memories.

The month after that, we spent two days in a recording studio in the Blue Mountains, just outside of Sydney, committing the work to digital record before Josh flew to the United States.

It had been a while since I’d been in a recording studio set up (and for this one I was in a separate booth of my own) and I had forgotten how challenging it is wrestling one’s own perfectionistic demons! Fortunately I used chocolate to defeat those demons and we got through it.

For more information on this piece and Josh’s work in general, check out his website, here. I’ll be posting a taster of the “Fragility” recording once the mastering is finished – exciting!

Wine and Song (and I guess Women, obviously; I kind of get to be a woman all the time…)

18/10/2015

Spring, and vineyards, and music – what is not to love about that? Myself and the members of fabulous Melbourne-based early music duo Ensemble 642 were asked to perform at “The Long Lazy Lunch”, hosted this year by the Hurley Vineyard on the Mornington Peninsula, as a fundraiser for the Peninsula Summer Music Festival summer school in 2016.

My brave pluckers had run the continuo gauntlet of not just one but several instrumental malfunctions disrupting rehearsals (due to weather fluctuations in the previous week of preparations), and I too had been taken down by a rather nasty spring cold, so it was an occasion where the adrenalin was running high and because of that, as always, magic happened on stage.

It was one of those beautiful Spring days where it is warm in the sunshine but still really cold in the shade, and a chill but gentle breeze played round us as we waited out the back (enjoying, when we could, our own portions of the beautiful food). We performed in the barn surrounded by many giant barrels of aging wine, while our patrons feasted their way through various wines and courses provided by well-respected chefs from the likes of Port Phillip Estate, Montalto, Paringa Estate, Avani, Ten Minutes by Tractor and of course Hurley Vineyard. One of the owners of Hurley Vineyard commented to us afterwards how much she loved the idea that their currently developing wine might have been imprinted by the cheeky or heart-wrenching baroque music wafting through the barn that afternoon.

To finish an absolutely perfect day, after the clearly very happy audience had finally dissipated and we had packed up and were waiting for our ride back up to Melbourne, the other very kind owner of Hurley Vineyard just started plonking opened-but-unfinished bottles of wine and champagne in front of the three of us (as well as a bottle of Hurley souvenir wine for each of us to take home!) and said, “Well now, you kids should probably be able to deal with this, if you’ve got an hour or so to kill? Why don’t you wander down to the lake?”

We finished the dying hours of the day swigging delicious wine on a small jetty, laughing, watching the ducks, with Nick holding forth on the bizarre connections between the origins of the modern rediscovery of the lute and Nazi propaganda (yup – totally mind-boggling, as are many of the things in Nick’s brain). Performing with Ensemble 642 is such a treat – both on stage and off – and I’ll be hunting out more opportunities to do so in future if I can! In the meantime, you should check them out if you are in Melbourne! [See above link]

“Australia Marches On!” Changing Attitudes to War in Australian Song, 1914 – Present

1/4/2015

The music of a country, and in particular its native song, has long been acknowledged as giving insight into the traditions, origins and socio-cultural attitudes of the people of that country. A collection of little-performed Australian Song, much of it sourced from the archives of the National Library of Australia (NLA), gives a valuable new perspective from which to examine the evolution of social ideas in a youthful nation, specifically when focused upon a topic as emotive and profound as war.

Way back when I was doing my degree (feels like a lifetime ago, but it was really only 5 years hence) I wrote my Honours thesis on reflections of our national psyche as painted through song – specifically songs written by Australians, and which had not yet been recorded. The National Library of Australia was kind enough to give me access to its archives, and it was quite an adventure for me delving into our musical history.

Sometimes it was outright hilarious, sometimes offputtingly racist and sexist (as one would imagine, going back up to 100 years and dealing with international hostilities and the breakdown of gender norms - particularly through the Second World War when women were asked to move into new roles on the Home Front). Sometimes of course it was heartbreakingly sad, and I do have memories of cursing myself for committing most of a year’s worth of study to such a topic after I broke down crying over a history textbook one afternoon in 2010. The resultant selection of pieces runs the gamut from WWI marching and music hall songs (one of which was sung by our troops on not one but TWO torpedoed ships AS THEY WERE SINKING), through to pieces composed by prisoners of war in Changi POW camp, and contemporary art song by people who lived through WWII, as well as by those who came after.

It was, and remains, a topic close to my heart and as such I was thrilled to have the chance during the Gallipoli Centenary to “get my nerd on” and present a lecture recital for the National Library of Australia in Canberra, with an expanded musical program. It was kept as an intimate affair in the lovely marble foyer of the Library, and combined with a private viewing of the NLA’s “Keepsakes” exhibition (of private memorabilia from WWI).

Afterward I was surprised, but very gratified, when an audience member told me how angry the concert had made him. Obviously I can’t afford to be preaching personal opinions in that context and kept my lecture as historical and neutral as I could, but it was great to know that others were also stirred by the intensity of the propaganda in much of the music before mid-century, and by the tragedy of it all, just as I had been when preparing it.

I was also deeply honoured to have a tall, dignified elderly gentleman come to speak with me afterwards. He was a veteran who had served in Korea, and shook my hand to thank me, saying that he had been moved almost to tears.

You know, I’m sure much of this blog sounds annoyingly, breathlessly earnest and overenthusiastic (in great part because certain parts of oneself need to be censored on the internet). But believe me when I say I am regularly humbled by this job, or rather by the reaction to it. I am not a patriot by any stretch of the definition…..but to be able to be of service to, and do something special for someone who has served our country in that way….. and to be thanked by HIM? Yup, humbled.

Hobart Baroque Workshop, Tasmania 6-8 March

18/3/2015

Photo credits: Ray Joyce Photography

In early March I travelled excitedly down to Hobart for the Hobart Baroque Workshop, for three days of intense coaching from Australian baroque experts, lectures and performances in and around the village of Fern Tree, tucked in amongst giant trees in the shadow of Mt Wellington. I went specifically to work with a harpist friend and to meet and work with a lutenist from Melbourne on various beautiful 17th century Italian pieces. We were asked for a ‘working title’ for our trio and in the end settled for “Socks and Sandals”. (It was WAY too cold down there to even attempt to live up to our name, alas.)

As luck would have it, I was struck down with a filthy cold just as we were gearing up for the workshop, so I was glad in the end that I spent the first night in Hobart proper, as massive winds brought down trees up the mountain and my dear “pluckers” – installed at the AMAZING farmstay where I was to join them 24 hours later – were left without heat or power. Early music nerds that they are, bless them, they apparently revelled in practising by candlelight whilst I was unconscious and slept through the worst of the weather.

When I did arrive, however, it was a truly magical place. My favourite parts about the farm were our wonderful hosts, the amazing veggie gardens and the wallabies that pretty much took over at night, bouncing along like round, furry basketballs in the moonlight if you happened to go out to the outhouse during the night and startled them.

Despite having to drag my fevered, be-lozenged carcass around for most of the three days and really feeling rather wretched, it was an incredible chance for me to get some specialised input, finally read some treatises (which I had been resisting) and talk to various early music specialists about the ideas behind the music. We even had a class in French baroque dance! (How did we fit all this in??!) And, as the only vocalist on the course, I got to sing an aria with the full workshop orchestra (including 2 harpsichords) in our cumulative public performance on the Sunday afternoon.

My friend and I hung around in Hobart for a few days afterwards as I was heading straight from there to a performance in Canberra, and as well as working on my performance notes (and trying to recover) we made the most of the opportunity to take a trip out to MONA (The Museum of Old and New Art) which was also massively enjoyable. Lying on a beanbag on the lawn outside MONA, watching the rehearsal of a dance piece taking place on the outdoor stage and full of wine, music and art, I honestly felt like I was in some kind of creative heaven. I suspect my version of heaven would indeed have ducks wandering around vineyards, and a giant trampoline with water views, so I can see how that happened. Very happy times.