Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%
Print this page
Opera

'Tis Pity (Victorian Opera) ★★★★

by •
ABR Arts • 13 February 2017
Opera

'Tis Pity (Victorian Opera) ★★★★

by •
ABR Arts • 13 February 2017

Contemporary opera doesn’t come much more innovative, vibrant or entertaining than Victorian Opera’s ‘Tis Pity: An operatic fantasia on selling the skin and the teeth, which played at the Melbourne Recital Centre from 4–8 February. Indefatigable VO Artistic Director Richard Mills has composed and arranged the music as well as writing the reliably witty and irreverent score. He also conducts. The subject – borrowing from John Ford’s play – is the subjugation of women and the commodification of sex. Inimitable is a debased word, but Meow Meow personifies it, and Kanen Breen is superb. Vaudeville lives at the MRC.

Tis Pity Press Photography Pia Johnson 5 550Kanen Breen and Meow Meow in Victorian Opera's 'Tis Pity (photograph by Pia Johnson)

 

‘Tis Pity (Victorian Opera) was performed at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Composed by Richard Mills, starring Meow Meow and Kanen Breen. Performance attended: Saturday 4 February, 2017.

ABR Arts is generously supported by The Ian Potter Foundation.

Leave a comment
Peter Rose

In 2001 Peter Rose became the Editor of Australian Book Review. Previously he was a publisher at Oxford University Press throughout the 1990s. He has published several books of poetry, a family memoir, Rose Boys, and two novels, the most recent being Roddy Parr (Fourth Estate, 2010). He edited the 2007 and 2008 editions of The Best Australian Poems (Black Inc.). His newest book of poems is Rag (Gazebo Books, 2023). Peter Rose’s long experience in publishing and the literary world complements the magazine’s history of central involvement in Australian letters.

Leave a comment
Peter Rose

In 2001 Peter Rose became the Editor of Australian Book Review. Previously he was a publisher at Oxford University Press throughout the 1990s. He has published several books of poetry, a family memoir, Rose Boys, and two novels, the most recent being Roddy Parr (Fourth Estate, 2010). He edited the 2007 and 2008 editions of The Best Australian Poems (Black Inc.). His newest book of poems is Rag (Gazebo Books, 2023). Peter Rose’s long experience in publishing and the literary world complements the magazine’s history of central involvement in Australian letters.

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Comment (1)

  • Ten meagre lines is hardly a 'review' - and of a production from a Company that thrives off millions of dollars from the public purse!
    Posted by Chris Ryan
    14 February 2017