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LAKMÉ
IN CINEMAS FROM DECEMBER 2ND

CinemaLive, Opera Australia and Sydney Opera House are excited to announce that two of Opera Australia’s most distinctive voices will be singing in Delibes’s luscious and Hindu-inspired opera, Lakmé in cinemas from December 2nd.

Lakmé may not be a household name, but the Flower Duet from Act I is one of the most well-known opera moments in the world. Used as backing music for a British Airways TV commercial, it has come to symbolise the epitome of pleasure and luxury, and has found its way onto countless ‘best of’ recordings and film soundtracks.

Roger Hodgman directs this restudied production originally conceived by Adam Cook, which features some of Australia’s leading bel canto singers. It will be the first time Australian audiences have heard the spectacular combination of Emma Matthews' crystalline coloratura as Lakmé and Dominica Matthews' darker voiced Mallika who will sing the famous duet. It will also be the first time to hear Emma Matthews singing Lakmé’s spectacular showpiece, the Bell Song, which soars up to a high E.

The opera follows Gerald, who is a lieutenant in the British Army stationed in India during the Raj. While out walking with friends he hears Lakmé, the Hindu Princess, and her hand-maiden Mallika, singing, as they drift down a river under dense canopies of white jasmine. The music, the heavy scent and Lakme’s exotic looks prove to be quite intoxicating. A cross-cultural romance is unthinkable for both, but nevertheless the two fall in love. Can Lakmé and Gerald be together, or will their families and duty tear them apart?

This much-travelled production was first seen in Sydney in 2006. Originally a co-production with Opéra de Montréal, Lakmé has since been charming audiences in Canada and the US. The Australian version of the opera, restudied by the well-versed Roger Hodgman, whose many credits include Holly’s Heroes, The Secret Life of Us, Blue Heelers and creating Rigoletto for Oz Opera in 2000. As Artistic Director of MTC, he directed well over 50 productions ranging from Shakespeare to twentieth-century classics, to new Australian works, to several Sondheim musicals. And to conduct Delibes’s luscious score, French conductor Emmanuel Joel-Hornak

CAST:

With the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, and the Opera Australia Chorus

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