Get off the phone! There’s a show to do

The star sopranos spend their time on stage on the phone in Opera Queensland’s Brisbane Festival double bill but that is just fine, writes Phil Brown

Opera Queensland’s Brisbane Festival double bill features The Human Voice and The Call.

I mean come on … they ask us to switch our phones off and then the stars of Opera Queensland’s Brisbane Festival double bill spend their time on stage on the phone themselves. I mean how rude is that?

But wait a minute, that’s part of the show, isn’t it?

How funny. Two shortish contemporary operas, both involving long phone calls. The Human Voice starring soprano Alexandra Flood is about Elle, a woman having a last conversation with her lover. On a mobile phone. On stage. The music is by Francis Poulenc and the libretto by Jean Cocteau. Wow.

The Human Voice and The Call.

When it was first done they wouldn‘t have had mobiles of course but seeing Flood on stage on hers contemporises it. We only hear her side of the conversation as she paces the floor around her dining table which is set up on stage like the dinner party that never was.

It’s like one long song really about breaking up with attendant tears that make her eye makeup run. When I interviewed Flood before the show she told me, rather delightfully, that it was a bit like Seinfeld, a show about nothing.

Which of course turns out to be about everything. So it is with this piece and there were elements of George Costanza’s break-up routine. Remember the old “it’s not you it’s me”?

Flood’s voice is nothing short of magnificent, so pure and emotive and her French is impeccable and I know she has spent a lot of time in France. Eventually, like all phone calls this one ends, rather abruptly.

The next piece The Call, is another telephonic piece featuring soprano and cabaret Ali McGregor who had the concept for this work which is based on an original story told, on a podcast, by Auburn Sheaffer. Composer Connor D’Netto offers a compelling and very modern score with an absolutely brilliant and at times funny, as well as sad, libretto by our own Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall who have done such a brilliant job. They really tease out the existential dilemma at the heart of the story. What an amazingly talented duo they are and it was lovely to see them take a bow with everyone at the end of the show.

Ali McGregor in The Call by Opera Queensland

This is an exciting new Australian work about a woman falling apart who makes a phone call that turns her life around when she seems to be heading for doom.

McGregor is extraordinary and a talented actor as well as singer with a flair for bittersweet comedy.

It takes a while to get into the rhythm of this piece but it’s rewarding once you do. Dynamic conductor Zoe Zeniodi, a rising star in the international music scene, leads a full strength Queensland Symphony Orchestra and the creative team behind Opera Queensland’s The Marriage of Figaro is back – with set and costumes by Marg Horwell and lighting by Bernie Tan-Hayes. It’s a very different Concert Hall for these shows and there’s a lot of projection in The Call which gives us close-ups of McGregor. Fiddling with technology on stage can be tricky but thankfully nothing goes awry.

This is a quite amazing opera experience and director Patrick Nolan of Opera Queensland has a flair for programming a little outside the box. It’s a perfect production for Brisbane Festival and you should really do yourself a favour and catch it. It’s on in the Concert Hall, QPAC until Saturday. And remember to turn your phone off!

qpac.com.au