Adelaide Festival

Adelaide Festival 2017 Announces Its Centrepiece: Barrie Kosky’s ‘Saul’ 

Barrie Kosky’s ‘Saul’ has been announced as the centrepiece for the 2017 Adelaide Festival.

The Adelaide Festival announces the return of the brilliant and provocative Barrie Kosky in March 2017 with his newest masterpiece, George Frideric Handel’s Saul. Produced by the great Glyndebourne Opera Festival, it will form the centrepiece of the 2017 Adelaide Festival.

The legendary Kosky, who directed a triumphant Adelaide Festival in 1996, has created an operatic work that is blazingly alive, pulsing with ferocious energy, deep melancholy, thrilling imagination and high drama.

Speaking from Berlin, Barrie Kosky said: “I am thrilled after 21 years to be coming back to the Adelaide Festival with an opera production that means so much to me. I am also thrilled to be part of Neil and Rachel’s first festival and I am looking forward to a few warm, balmy nights on the Torrens at my favourite Arts Festival in the world.”

Minister for the Arts, the Hon Jack Snelling welcomed the news saying, “It’s extremely exciting to have Barrie Kosky’s Saul coming to the 2017 Adelaide Festival. It will not only bring in a huge number of interstate and overseas travellers, but it will also provide an incredible opportunity for the local artists who get to perform alongside some of the world’s best opera singers and baroque musicians. Co-Directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield have worked really hard to bring this incredible opera to our state, and I can’t wait to see what else they have in store for next year.”

After gaining euphoric reviews upon its premiere at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2015, Kosky’s Saul will play to Adelaide Festival audiences in March 2017 in an Australian exclusive season. Supported by ravishing designs from Katrin Lea Tag, Kosky delves into Handel’s score to create an associative dreamscape and a baroque nightmare world in which unfolds this mythic tale of a Lear-like mad king and his crumbling family dynasty.

Saul explores the first King of Israel’s relationship with his eventual successor, David, as it swings between extremes of admiration, jealousy, love and rage, and finally leads to Saul’s tragic death. Handel’s characterisations of Saul and David, and his portrayal of the battle of David and Goliath, are among the German composer’s most powerful and vivid. The first of Handel’s great English oratorios, Saul melds psychologically probing arias with exquisite, mighty choruses in a work epic in theatrical scale and emotion, described by Kosky as “one of the great pieces of 18th-century music.”

Conducting the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra will be rising star of Australian baroque performance, Erin Helyard, newly appointed Artistic Director of Sydney’s renowned Pinchgut Opera, and celebrated Musical Director of Brisbane Baroque.

Reprising the title role of Saul from the original Glyndebourne Festival season is charismatic bass-baritone Christopher Purves, one of the finest performers on the international stage. American counter-tenor Christopher Lowrey will sing David, and Australian tenor Adrian Strooper, a member of Barrie’s company at Komische Oper Berlin, will play Saul’s son (and David’s lover) Jonathan.

Renowned young British soprano Mary Bevan will be joined by Australia’s Taryn Fiebig as Saul’s daughters Merab and Michal, the inimitable Kanen Breen will play the Witch of Endor, and Stuart Jackson will reprise his brilliant turn as the High Priest – Kosky’s fabulous Master of these amazing ceremonies.

Adelaide Festival Artistic Directors Neil Armfield AO and Rachel Healy said: “Kosky’s virtuosic stagecraft, rich imaginative world and subversive humour is perfectly matched with Handel’s magnificent oratorio. Sitting in the Glyndebourne Festival audience in August 2015 it could not have been clearer that we were witnessing an artist at the peak of his powers. Barrie has created a work that is deservedly being regarded as a masterpiece.

“There are many significant and acclaimed Australian artists who have built stellar careers overseas and it is unfortunate that Australian audiences don’t always have an opportunity to see their work at its full maturity. Consequently, we are immensely pleased that the 2017 Adelaide Festival will provide the platform for audiences to see international performing arts of this standard of achievement. That Barrie has a special connection to the Adelaide Festival is a delightful bonus.”

Saul will be performed 3, 5, 7 & 9 March 2017 at the Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre. Tickets on sale to Friends of the Adelaide Festival only: Thursday 4 August 2016 General public tickets on sale: Friday 19 August 2016 Tickets: BASS 131 246 or adelaidefestival.com.au 

 

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