In August 2007 at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, two of Matthew Dewey’s chamber operas will be featured in concert, jointly produced by the IHOS Music Theatre Laboratory and the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music. The operas, ‘The Buzz of the Sea’and ‘The Death of Chatterton’ will be performed by some of Tasmania’s leading talents: Baritones Christopher Richardson and Michael Lampard and the fantastic pianist Karen Smithies. More details will be released closer to the release of the IHOS and Conservatorium 2008 programs.
PROGRAM
‘The Buzz of the Sea’
with libretto by Alexander Dick
Duration: 25’00
Performed by Michael Lampard and Karen Smithies
A young man is about to launch his dingy into the water. He loads the boat with fishing equipment and an esky and heads out to sea to escape the world for a while. While he fishes, he philosophies, and the unblinking eyes of the fish force him into a terrible admission.
‘The Death of Chatterton’ – A Mythography in One Act for One Man
with libretto by Matthew Dewey and Robert Jarman
Duration: 55’00
Performed by Christopher Richardson and Karen Smithies
George Meredith, in an attic room in the nineteenth century, prepares himself to model for painting ‘The Death of Chatterton’, and wonders at how the death occurred. Chatterton himself tells the tale from the seventeen hundreds – and Rowley (a fifteenth century monk of Chatterton’s creation) convinces us of Chatterton’s genius back two hundred years before. The key however, lies not with Meredith, Rowley nor Chatterton but with Chatterton’s first biographer, John Dix – who delights in revealing a final convolution. Who is Thomas Chatterton? – and when did he die?
