Breaking Glass Premiere Online

With the live world premiere of Breaking Glass thwarted by Covid-19, this quadruple bill is now online, co-presented by Sydney Chamber Opera and Carriageworks. You can view the operas on demand here and here.

Works:
HER DARK MARAUDER 
Music Georgia Scott
Text Pierce Wilcox
Director Danielle Maas

COMMUTE
Music & Text Peggy Polias
Director Clemence Williams

THE TENT 
Music & Text Josephine Macken
Director Danielle Maas

THE INVISIBLE BIRD 
Music & Text Bree van Reyk
Director Clemence Williams

Singers: Jessica O’Donoghue, Jane Sheldon, Simon Lobelson, Mitchell Riley

Ensemble: James Wannan (violin/viola), Ben Ward (double bass), Lamorna Nightingale (flute), Jason Noble (clarinet), Alison Pratt (percussion)

Conductor/Piano: Jack Symonds ::: Set & Costume Design: Charles Davis ::: Lighting Design: Alexander Berlage ::: AV Design: David Bergman ::: Sound Design & Audio Production: Benjamin Carey ::: Writer & Dramaturg: Pierce Wilcox ::: Assistant Conductor: Huw Belling ::: Production Manager: Jason Thelwell ::: Stage Management: Ellen Castles, Ayah Tayeh ::: Subtitles: Johannes MacDonald

Filmed and edited by Hospital Hill

Image: Daniel Boud

Content advisory: This production explores themes of suicidal ideation, and harassment.

From Sydney Chamber Opera:

Even in ideal circumstances, putting on new opera is next to impossible. Towards the end of March, the circumstances the whole country found itself in were about as far from ideal as could be imagined, yet we had a new work on the verge of premiering.

Breaking Glass is the result of two years working with four exceptionally talented composers whose voices are essential as opera moves into the third decade of the 21st century. The stories these women are telling through this endlessly reinvented artform could not and would not be told anywhere else, by anyone else. Opera still has a long way to go in addressing its historical inequities, but this project is the natural outgrowth of SCO’s commitment to gender equality in the lead artists making our work. Quite apart from representation, most importantly the quality of the music, text and possibilities for drama afforded by these pieces is outstanding and it has been a great pleasure watching them evolve into an exciting and diverse evening of genuinely new propositions for the future of opera.

In less than half an hour each, these operas instantly and incisively create new worlds: The Tent is a deeply original sonic environment of great subtlety, ambiguity and transformed expression, just as Commute is direct, propulsive and gritty, gradually revealing a hopeful dawn. Her Dark Marauder is an expressionistic nightmare, powerfully amplifying the detail of the human breath and psyche, whilst The Invisible Bird is a true epic travelling through comedy, repose and lament, re-emerging with a visionary energy.

SCO was – just – in a position to fully record this production before Carriageworks closed its doors like the rest of the country’s arts institutions. The editing process has been a great challenge to marry audio recordings to video documentation, but we are immensely proud of the result and, even though it is a shame not to get the opportunity to perform to a live audience, it felt like both an enormous risk and privilege to be making something out of nothing when many around us were losing hope and the world was shutting down.

SCO’s greatest thanks are to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, whose Composing Women Program begat this project and to our home at Carriageworks who so consistently support us in being this country’s most active and fearless creators of new opera.

poem for a dried up river World Premiere

“A riveting study in breath” - New York Times

Jane gave the world premiere of her new piece poem for a dried up river at the Resonant Bodies Festival in New York on September 3. Coverage here. New York Times review here.

Text: Alice Oswald
Designer and co-creator: Elizabeth Gadsby

Choreographic consultant: Danielle Micich

Instrumentation:
Soprano: Jane Sheldon
Soprano: Sarah Brailey
Trombones, Conch Shell: William Lang
Violin: Adrianne Munden-Dixon
Viola: Hannah Levinson
Cello: Julia Henderson
Percussion: Jessica Tsang
Percussion: Caitlin Cawley
Electronics (sound design by Benjamin Carey)
Conductor: Jeffrey Gavett

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This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

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Reviews are out for Oscar and Lucinda

In July and August, Sydney Chamber Opera gave the world premiere performances of Oscar and Lucinda at Carriageworks.

Music by Elliott Gyger
Libretto by Pierce Wilcox
after the Novel by Peter Carey

Co-commissioned and co-produced with Opera Queensland and Victorian Opera

Conductor: Jack Symonds / Director: Patrick Nolan / Set & Costume Design: Anna Tregloan / Lighting Design: Damien Cooper / Assistant Director: Constantine Costi

With Jessica Aszodi, Brenton Spiteri, Jeremy Kleeman, Simon Lobelson, Mitchell Riley, Jane Sheldon

Some review samples:

“A strong, striking production with wonderful performances… Jane Sheldon is magnificent as Miriam Chadwick, with a bell like tone of voice.” - Sydney Arts Guide

“Soprano Jane Sheldon displays the tonal purity and unstinting power for which she is renowned.” - The Australian

“Sheldon… is brilliantly unsettling as Miriam Chadwick. Sydney Chamber Opera has proven itself to be an essential company in Sydney’s arts landscape… Exciting and assured… hugely impressive… ” - Timeout

“…this adaptation of Peter Carey's beloved novel is full of daring and brilliance… Sheldon is a standout.” - Limelight

“…musicality of the higest order… a triumph for Sydney Chamber Opera.” - Australian Book Review

“4 stars. Jane Sheldon… sings with full-bodied strength and glowing tonal finish.” - Sydney Morning Herald

Artwork by Samuel Hodge, commissioned by Carriageworks

Acclaim for The Howling Girls

The Howling Girls by Damien Ricketson and Adena Jacobs, created for Jane and commissioned by Sydney Chamber Opera in 2018, was recently awarded the prestigious Music Theatre NOW prize, presented by the Music Theatre NOW Network and ITI - International Theatre Institute. In 2019 The Howling Girls will attend the MTN meeting as part of Operadagen Rotterdam.

The opera has also been nominated in FBi Radio’s Sydney Music Arts & Culture Awards. You can vote for Howling Girls here.

Reviews are out for La Passion de Simone

Sydney Chamber Opera, in association with The Song Company, gave the Australian premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone at the 2019 Sydney Festival.

Conductor: Jack Symonds / Director: Imara Savage / Set & Costume Design: Elizabeth Gadsby / Lighting Design: Alexander Berlage / Assistant Director: Clemence Williams / Video Artist: Mike Daly

Solo Soprano: Jane Sheldon

Some review samples:

“Bold, uncompromising, and musically spectacular… even though we can’t see her face as she sings (although we get a decent sense of the character’s trauma from her onscreen expressions) [Jane Sheldon’s] body and voice convey the necessary depth of emotion and suffering, particularly as Weil reaches the end of her life. It's an extraordinary vocal performance, in terms of both storytelling and technique – she has a bright and full-bodied upper register that she uses generously over the course of the piece.” – Timeout

“Singing with crystalline accuracy, impressive agility and full-voiced power, Sheldon essayed the challenging solo part while watching a video of herself under a shower of rice grains. Her increasingly jerky onstage gestures mimicked her intensifying onscreen pain as she bowed under the weight of her burden… The impact was compelling and disturbing.” – The Australian

“Soprano Jane Sheldon delivered the solo vocal line with a fluid sound of glowing pristine beauty and transcendent iridescence.” – Sydney Morning Herald

“Her singing… radiates memorably throughout the evening. Her understanding of this extensive monodrama is exemplary, both in the technical and musical sense.” – The Conversation

Resonant Bodies Festival

Co-directed by Jane Sheldon and Jessica Aszodi, Resonant Bodies Australia has its Sydney premiere in partnership with Carriageworks and Sydney Chamber Opera.

Vocal artists: Ariadne Greif (USA), Sonya Holowell (Australia) 2018 Emerging Artist, Sofia Jernberg (Sweden), Deborah Kayser (Australia), Mitchell Riley (Australia), and Rully Shabara (Indonesia). 

Read more about the Resonant Bodies Festival here. To learn about the Sydney shows, click here. 

Britten at Dark Mofo

Sydney Chamber Opera/Victorian Opera/Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

Directed by Kip Williams

Sex and power, fractured through time: a taut and seething contemporary take on Benjamin Britten’s operatic retelling of an unforgivable crime in ancient Rome. Eight singers and a chamber ensemble enter a ritual circle carved out for a thorny tale of virtue and depravity. Jane performs the role of Lucia.

New Album Out: Coming Down for Air

Coming Down for Air is a collaboration with Alon Ilsar (Australia) and Tim Motzer (USA). 

Alon Ilsar: drums, cymbals
Tim Motzer: guitar & electronics
Jane Sheldon: voice

recorded at 1k recordings, philadelphia dec 2016
vocals recorded in sydney, australia, 2017
engineering & mix: tim motzer and alon ilsar
mastering: eric bogacz at spice house, philadelphia
cover painting: tim motzer
design: tilomo & waggs
music: ilsar/motzer/sheldon
produced by tim motzer for 1k
publishing: one k music co (bmi) 

Carriageworks 2018 Program Launched

On Nov 27, Sydney's Carriageworks launched their 2018 program, which includes two projects Jane is involved in: Sydney Chamber Opera's The Howling Girls, created for Jane by composer Damien Ricketson and director Adena Jacobs; and NYC's Resonant Bodies Festival, coming to Australia for a second year. Australian programming for Resonant Bodies is curated by Jane and fellow Australian soprano Jessica Aszodi.