Dracula opera a world first from David Stanhope and his digital orchestra

Australian composer David Stanhope has devised a neat way to get around the prohibitive costs of staging a new opera and hiring an orchestra to play it — he’s gone digital.

Composer David Stanhope has recorded his own opera using a digital orchestra in a world first.

• When Baroque meets jazz
• Poetry of the bow
• Two slices of history
• Return of our Emma

He developed his “digital orchestra” by using sound samples from the Vienna Symphonic Library and East West Quantum Leap virtual instruments, along with some powerful software. The process draws on his skills as a horn player and concert pianist, conductor of conventional orchestras and composer, and the results are very impressive.

This is not the organic, textured experience you get from listening to a live orchestra — there are no fluffs or bum notes, of course, and everything is digitally smooth — but the difference is hard to pick even for the most experienced ear.

Stanhope now has three CDs out on the Tall Poppies label using this approach including one, Australian Premieres, which features symphonies by three lesser known Australian composers — George Marshall-Hall (1892), David Sydney Morgan and Peter Tahourdin (1994) — which have never been performed.

At the same time Stanhope released Australian Fantasia, a collection of his own orchestral works, some dating back to the 1990s, all unperformed with the exception of Olympic Fireworks, which was part of the 2000 Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony.

SEX

Now he has come up with an opera in three acts, Dracula, based on the Bram Stoker novel and starring an impressive cast of eight singers including Opera Australia regulars soprano Lorina Gore and bass baritone Jud Arthur, alongside stalwart baritone Peter Coleman-Wright. The double CD also includes Gore singing Stanhope’s settings of Three Poems by Gwen Harwood, and String Songs, a suite of four folk-based works dedicated to Percy Grainger showing hints of Aaron Copland, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Frederick Delius.

It’s not the first time Stoker’s irresistible mix of sex, violence and religion has inspired composers — there have been at least four since the Millennium — and Stanhope makes the most of his material employing a large orchestral palette with plenty of Gothic and romantic effects, and some fine vocal writing. The recording (TP262) is a world premiere and it is also the first time an opera has been presented with a digital orchestra.

Originally composed in 1991 titled The Un-Dead, Stanhope extensively revised and retitled it in 2009. Stanhope’s libretto is his own, although he uses dialogue and key episodes from the original novel. As Stanhope says his digital orchestra is not intended to replace the real thing or the musicians — “it records music that cannot presently be heard because existing orchestras do not play it”.

The other works on the double-disc set are a welcome change of pace after the operatic drama. The three poems were originally composed for noted Australian soprano Jennifer McGregor and feature a transparent and charming score, while the folk songs round off the program with a light and lively spring in the step.

You can buy it from Australian Music Centre for $50.60. https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/product/dracula