A nice appearance by Antoinette Halloran on this evening's Spicks and Specks. (People are already searching for her and landing here. Hello Googlers. You might like this link. And it's Antoinette, not Antonia. And no "O'" before the Halloran.) From this we learnt, among other things, that: she's lovely (we knew that already); she's recently engaged (congratulations!) to a fabulous tenor; and, most notably (to me) she's singing Tosca next year.
Since Tosca is already on my OA Futures list, with Cheryl Barker slated to star, I'm going to go ahead and assume that, as with Butterfly, Cheryl will open the season and Antoinette will take over later in the run, allowing the company to give this warhorse an appropriately lengthy season.
Antoinette's status as Australia's Puccini Soprano seems assured now, though I hope she won't completely abandon the non-Italian repertoire. Her Stella in Streetcar remains my favourite of her performances; a hint in the comments here that we'll see her in Floyd's Of Mice and Men is therefore welcome news.
It was a great program tonight & wonderful news that Antoinette will be in Tosca. Who is the lucky tenor? As an aside, does anyone have access to all the programs of Operatunity Oz? BTW Sarah, many thanks for your opera diary. It's very useful. I missed opera-Opera's. I have another plea - on behalf of people who must sit in the loges at the opera house. Can you please tell us which side of the stage has the action? I was forced to change my Cav/Pag seat & forgot that everything happened on the right side of the stage & was therefore invisible to me & to friends from England.
Posted by: travelling mezzo | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 11:12 PM
From bits and pieces I've read, I believe the tenor in question is the excellent James Egglestone.
As for Operatunity Oz, the now massively overdue DVD was scheduled for release last month but so far (in my shop at least) has yet to materialise. But there must be something going on. I'll look into it.
I'm glad the calendar is of use to you - please feel free to email me with anything you think should be added, I know you're always up-to-date with various happenings about town that I might miss.
And the point about which side of the stage is best is a very good one - I'll definitely try and keep it in mind in future. It's something I tend to take note of anyway, if I'm planning multiple trips: my opening night seats are taken care of, but for the rest I'm usually in the loges as well.
Posted by: Sarah | Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 11:18 PM
Thank you for that Sarah. I will keep you posted. Will you be at the Joan Sutherland Society Concert later today? Sounds like a great lineup.
Posted by: travelling mezzo | Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 12:20 AM