On behalf of The Street Theatre, OutInCanberra has two double passes to give away to FROM THE BLACK SKY – a new opera composed in recognition of the 10th anniversary of the Canberra Bushfires.
In 2008 Sandra France received an ACT Creative Fellowship Award to compose a chamber opera thematically responding to the Canberra bushfires and she invited Helen Nourse to collaborate with her. Together they developed the opera under Street Theatre’s “The Hive” program, inspired by one of the personal survivor stories broadcast on ABC radio in the days immediately following the 2003 Canberra fires. The story stayed stubbornly in the writer’s mind and a fraction of it remains in this libretto. From A Black Sky does not set out to document the events of 2003 but rather dramatise personal and public catastrophe.
Scored for a chamber orchestra of twelve and featuring an ACT-based cast and chorus, France’s lyrical and haunting music combines effortlessly with the blunt, forceful and idiomatic language of the suburban characters. In the tenth anniversary year the opera takes us back into the ordeal as it intensifies each character’s passions, fears, jealousies and strengths creating the crucible in which the true mettle of all is tested.
In January 2003 when the fires raged and the seemingly impossible happened in Canberra, our city and the people in it changed. From a Black Sky is a gripping new chamber opera set in the maelstrom of that day by Canberra-based composer Sandra France and scriptwriter/researcher Helen Nourse. Together they have created an unnerving operatic portrait of a man reduced, a devouring passion, and a community catastrophe which opens Friday 20th September for a season of three performances at The Street Theatre.
To win one of the double-passes use the form on this page to tell us which Chief Minister famously swam across a dam in his undies during the crisis. Entries close Wednesday 17 September at 12.00pm.
