Kate Stuart: Interview With Opera Australia Touring Chorus Master

The Barber of Seville is currently embarking on a National Tour with Opera Australia. This effervescent production will be visiting 22 theatres across Victoria, NSW, Tasmania, and the ACT over three months, showcasing some of Opera Australia’s finest voices and a live orchestra. In each city, a local children’s choir will perform in the show alongside the Opera Australia cast in this colourful, exciting production.

This interpretation is directed under the vision of the esteemed Priscilla Jackman, and runs from 21 July – 17 September. We caught up with multitalented vocal expert Kate Stuart, who is the Children’s Chorus Master for Opera Australia’s national touring production of The Barber of Seville, to find out what a production like this entails, and glean some insights behind the scenes on tour.

Hi Kate, thanks for talking with us at TheatreArtLife! How are you doing, and how is the run going since it started in July?

Hello there, I am a little exhausted but keeping in high spirits! I believe the show is touring well, however, I have only been able to attend one performance in Bathurst so far. To which, I thoroughly enjoyed. Like any show, it comes with some unexpected challenges and adventures, however, the cast, orchestra and crew are having fun.

You include a new children’s choir in the production in each city you tour – I’m interested in what the process is like for rehearsing and incorporating the young singers?

My job, as the Children’s Chorus Master, is to rehearse the children musically and run them through their blocking in a 4-hour rehearsal with 30 minutes break. The Children’s Chorus are involved in 3 scenes of our production: Act 1, scene 1 Introduction, Act 1 Finale and Act 2 Finale.

They are performing the roles of town workers and police officers. In this rehearsal we discuss the storyline, the two characters they’ll be playing, the set design, the costumes they’ll be wearing, what to expect on the day of their performance and of course, the music.

What have been your highlights and memorable experiences so far working with the children’s choirs in such a fun production?

A highlight for me would have to be meeting each Children’s Choir for the first time and hearing their beautiful, hard work. Another highlight is watching their initial reactions to the storyline, the character roles and their costumes.

In our production, the Children’s Chorus wear these gorgeous wooden moustaches and dark aviator sunglasses for their police officer costumes. They just about wet themselves with laughter when they find out about these accessories.

I also really love learning the backgrounds of all the Choir Leaders in each regional area. The choir leaders are the unsung heroes that work on the music with each Children’s Chorus for up to 2 months prior to their rehearsal with me.

Some choir leaders have been working with the National Tour Children’s Chorus for a number of years now, and others are taking the Children’s Chorus for the first time. Each choir leader is from all various walks of life, and it is an education to work with each of them.

And what can you tell us about working under Priscilla Jackman’s directorial vision, and what are you enjoying about it?

I had the pleasure of observing the rehearsal process for our show and it was encouraging and admirable to see Priscilla engage with each performer and listen to their offers and ideas for character development across the opera.

Priscilla actually got Covid-19 during our production’s Tech Week and continued to direct and assist the rehearsal period via Microsoft Teams, on a large tv screen sitting in the Drum Theatre’s (Dandenong, Victoria) audience.

I absolutely admired her resilience in the face of adversity.

Following The Barber of Seville, will you be working with children on your next gig, or does the future hold a change in project direction, and what can we look forward to next from you?

Outside of Opera Australia, I am a Vocal Pedagogue and Voice Teacher and work with an array of various voice students, all ages and stages. I am very much looking forward to working with my high schoolers in our auditioned choir and contemporary band. These students sing repertoire from contemporary commercial music, and it keeps my life fun and interesting being a cross-over styles voice teacher.

More about the touring production of The Barber of Seville

Opera Australia will embark on its 26th annual National Tour with a new production by director Priscilla Jackman of Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, opening in July.

The opening marks the beginning of a three-month tour that will visit 22 metropolitan and regional theatres throughout Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and in Canberra.

In a contemporary Australian reimagining of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, award-winning director Jackman brings a hipster aesthetic to the famous barber Figaro and presents leading lady Rosina as more than just a pretty face. The story has been set in the real-life Victorian town of Seville, nestled amongst the renowned Yarra Valley wine region.

Opera Australia began its National Tour in 1996 and over the years it has presented many of the country’s finest singers and musicians to more than 30,000 people across 117 metropolitan and regional locations.

Opera Australia’s Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini has impressed the ongoing value the National Tour has in increasing audience access to world-class performances:

“The National Tour remains a key opportunity and a great pleasure for Opera Australia to bring exceptional talent to a broad range of audiences, particularly those living in regional areas. Many of this cast are coming directly from acclaimed seasons at the Sydney Opera House and Arts Centre Melbourne to perform in a premiere production for audiences right in their hometowns.”

We are particularly thrilled to be working with a director of Priscilla Jackman’s calibre, who has created this wonderful production that brings forth the fun and frivolity of Rossini’s music.”

In a role debut for both, sopranos Esther Song and Cathy-Di Zhang will share the role of Rosina. Two of Australia’s finest young tenors, Nicholas Jones and John Longmuir, will share the role of Count Almaviva and baritones Haotian Qi and Andrew Williams will share the role of Figaro.

The Regional Children’s Chorus program continues as a mainstay of the National Tour where, under the direction of Children’s Chorus Master Kate Stuart, children are selected by their local choir leaders to join the professional cast in rehearsal and performance. This year over 400 children will experience the excitement of performing onstage alongside the outstanding cast, to an audience of family, friends and their broader communities.

Creatives

Conductor – Luke Spicer

Director – Priscilla Jackman

Set Designer – Michael Scott-Mitchell

Costume Designer – Sabina Myers

Lighting Designer – Morgan Moroney

Orchestration – Simon Bruckard

Cast

Rosina – Esther Song & Cathy-Di Zhang

Count Almaviva – Nicholas Jones & John Longmuir

Figaro – Haotian Qi & Andrew Williams

Dr Bartolo – Andrew Moran & Michael Lampard

Don Basilio/ Fiorello – Shane Lowrencev & David King

Berta – Jennifer Black & Dominica Matthews

Performance Locations and Times

Warrnambool, VIC 21 July, Lighthouse Theatre

Bendigo, VIC 23 July, Ulumbarra Theatre

Mildura, VIC 26 July, Mildura Arts Centre

Mooroopna, VIC 30 August, Westside Performing Arts Centre

Narre Warren, VIC 1 September, Bunjil Place

Frankston, VIC 3 September, Frankston Arts Centre

Sale, VIC 13 September, The Wedge

Wagga Wagga, NSW 28 July, Wagga Wagga Civic Theatre

Griffith, NSW 30 July, Griffith Regional Theatre

Bathurst, NSW 2 August, Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre

Orange, NSW 3 August, Orange Civic Theatre

Dubbo, NSW 5 August, Dubbo Regional Theatre

Tamworth, NSW 8 August, Tamworth Capitol Theatre

Port Macquarie, NSW 13 August, Glasshouse

Murwillumbah, NSW 16 August, Murwillumbah Civic and Cultural Centre

Wollongong, NSW 19 & 20 August, Illawarra Performing Arts Centre

Newcastle, NSW 25 August, Newcastle Civic Theatre

Wyong, NSW 27 August, The Art House

Hobart, TAS 7 & 8 September, Theatre Royal

Launceston, TAS 10 September, Princess Theatre

Canberra, ACT 15–17 September, Canberra Theatre Centre

The Barber of Seville

Also by Michelle Sciarrotta: