Year 9 &10 Drama
Review Booklet
2013
Ode To Nonsense
Location: Her Majesty’s Theatre Adelaide
Date: Tuesday 30th April 2013
Company: Slingsby
Key People:











Composer: Quincy Grant
Librettist: Jane Goldney
Director/ Scenario: Andy Packer
Musical Director: Timothy Sexton
Set and Lighting Designer: Geoff Cobham
Costume Designer: Ailsa Paterson
Projection Design: Cindi Drennan (Illuminart)
Choreographer: Larissa McGowan
Image: Andy Ellis
Executive Producer: Jodi Glass
Cast:
o Lear: Nicholas Lester
o Gussie: Johanna Allen
o Giorgio: Adam Goodburn o Plus children's chorus, acrobats and a seven piece chamber orchestra.
Name:________________________________
Intention:
Andy Packer, Director, Adelaide Review, April 2013
“On the one hand the opera is about how we survive through life by disappearing into
creativity. At the same time though, it ends with a beautiful trio that also tells us that as
we travel through life we cannot have what we necessarily want. Happiness is fleeting.
We cannot hang onto it, and can only enjoy it as a momentary experience.”
Storyline:
Little Edward is captivated for a sublime moment by the magic of a travelling
carnival. The real world forever after seems to disappoint him. As an adult,
he escapes into his enchanting imaginary ‘Gromboolian Plain’, populated by
beings with luminous noses, hysterical ears and impossible adventures
Ode to Nonsense sails cheeriously along with runcible spoons, fizzgigious
fish and gosky patties, and delves into Lear’s inner conflicts. On his return
from exotic travels with manservant Giorgio, Lear is reunited with his
lifelong, unconfessed love Gussie.
Key Themes:
“How seriously do we take it all anyway? Maybe there is no grand answer to anything.”
Creativity and imagination
Inspiration:
This world premiere family opera celebrates the life and work of Edward
Lear (1812 – 1888). Best remembered for his lyrical, romantic whimsy ‘The
Owl and the Pussycat’, Lear actually hoped the world might love him better
for his serious landscape paintings.
A sense of melancholy is perhaps not all that surprising for a struggling artist
who spent most of his life in the company of gentry and very wealthy friends
and commissioners. This understandably meant that Lear often saw himself
as an outsider. A strange creature amongst the beautiful and successful.
This ‘otherness’ led him to create some of his most unique and moving
characters. Including the celestial, searching Dong with a Luminous Nose.
This sad, yet hopeful creature with it’s starlike projecting proboscis features
as a recurring searching muse in our Opera Ode To Nonsense
Edward Lear, like his contemporary Lewis Carroll, was a master of creating
beautiful worlds where he could set his imagination flying. In this mode his
Nonsense was not intended to be funny or flippant but more an escape to a
place where the seemingly impossible was natural.
Style
Summary: What is opera and how is it different to musical theatre?
Opera can be viewed as a performance art and a musical genre which communicates stories
on a grand scale using lyrics, song, acting, props, set, costume, and orchestral music.
The three main differences between opera and musical theatre:
1. Amplification: In opera it is rare to have the voices and instrumentation amplified over a
speaker system, whereas in musical theatre microphones and amplification are
almost always used.
2. Vocal style: opera uses rich voices with sound focussed in the throat, while musical
theatre voices focus sound toward the front of the mouth or nose.
Music vs dialogue as the driver of the story: Opera tends to communicate the story
entirely through the music and songs, whereas musical theatre tends to communicate the
story through drama with songs acting as a supplement to the storyline
http://blog.opera-australia.org.au/2011/05/opera-basics-1-what-is-opera-how-is-it.html
W H AT ’ S I N A N A M E ?
Opera – don’t be alarmed, it is just another word for Musical.
All music theatre lives on a continuum, from a solo cabaret artist on a bare stage to Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s Cats through to Richard Wagner’s 16 hour epic Der Ring des Nibelungen.
So what is the difference between Opera and Musical? It is perhaps more helpful to ask what are the
similarities. The uniting feature is that at their core both are stories told through a combination of music
and words. When this sublime combination works best it seems as if one could not exist with out the
other. The powerful combination results in something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Imagine Les Misérabes without the words to support the beautiful music in Javert’s song Stars or Mozart
and Da Ponte’s Cosi Fan Tutte without the music to support the drama in the divine trio Soave sia il
vento.
It can be tempting to think that the definition is that Musical’s include spoken text as well as songs whilst
Opera is sung throughout. But this is not correct. Many Musicals including Cats, Les Misérables and
Keating! are sung-through without sections of dialogue, while many operas including Mozart’s The
Magic Flute include both dialogue and songs. An Opera that includes both dialogue and songs is known
as a Singspiel and this is the best definition of our soon to premiere production Ode To Nonsense.
As we have worked away over the past four years writing, designing and refining Ode To Nonsense we
occasionally discussed whether it was an Opera or a Musical – or rather what should we call it? So why
did we decide to call it an Opera?
When I was growing up and studying dance and theatre at Campbelltown High School I had the
opportunity to see several Musicals (Cats, Starlight Express and Les Misérables) but I was not given the
opportunity to see an Opera. I grew up somehow developing this opinion that Opera was elitist and
expensive. But really I had no idea because I had never been to see one.
I was very fortunate that when I graduated from Theatre Studies at Adelaide University I was given the
opportunity to bump-in some lights for Adelaide based touring company Co Opera and through this
manual labour I saw my first Opera – I Pagliacci. I was amazed by how moved I was by this
performance. It was neither elitist nor expensive (in fact many Musical ticket prices are now on a par with
Opera tickets). I then went on to seek out more Opera experiences and fell in love with the world, the
music and the stories. I also realised that to call something elitist just because it was based on a tradition
that was new to me was crazy – I would never think a cheese was elitist just because it had been lovingly
handcrafted through a process that had been handed down over 400 years.
All of this led to Slingsby commissioning Ode To Nonsense, a Family Opera based on the life and work of
Edward Lear, author of the Owl and the Pussycat and father of Nonsense literature. So because of my
love of Opera and the reality that around the world there are Opera companies reaching out for new
audiences we decided to call our new work an Opera. It has been created to share the nonsensical genius
of Edward Lear and also to invite a new audience into the world of Opera – so that more people can
discover that in fact Opera is not scary at all. It is a story told through words and music.
And where on that continuum between Cabaret and Wagner does the music of Ode To Nonsense sit?
Somewhere in the middle; with instantly loveable music by Quincy Grant and beautiful words by Jane
Goldney and Edward Lear. We’re pretty certain audiences will leave Her Majesty’s Theatre singing along
to Quincy Grant’s version of The Owl and the Pussycat and wanting to return to the world we have
created through words and music.
We could have taken the easier path perhaps and called this production a Musical, but then Slingsby never
takes the easiest path. Our work is made to delight everyone aged 10 and up…not exactly your simplest
audience!
So if, as you buy your ticket to see our world premiere, you like to think that you are buying tickets to see
Ode To Nonsense – The Musical. Go right ahead. Technically you’d be correct!
See you in the theatre.
Andy Packer
Artistic Director
Slingsby
NB: I am ecstatic that well over a thousand school students will have their first Opera experience
thanks to Ode To Nonsense. Full circle (and a bit).
http://www.slingsby.net.au/whats-in-a-name/
Clips for a deeper insight
The link does not work but cut and paste it into your browser.
Part 1: http://vimeo.com/63560420
Part 2 http://vimeo.com/64068716
Part 3 http://vimeo.com/64712263
Before the Show
Read the previous information, watch the listed clips and fill in the table below in your own words
to prepare you for the show.
What is the company trying to
achieve with this production?
What is the basic storyline?
(what is the show about)
Summarise the key elements
of the style and what you
expect to see in the show.
Evaluate why the company
chose to create a show on this
subject.
Describe what you expect to
see visually in the
performance.
State what you are looking
forward to about the
performance, and a question
about it.
After doing the initial
exploration, what is your first
impression of the show.
During the Show or promptly after
During or directly after the show complete the following sheet
Element
Colour
What did you notice about the
types of colours used. Was it
all the same, set, costume,
lighting or different
Technical elements
Lighting/multimedia
Set
Music
Acting - Performance
Observation
Meaning
Characters
Direction
After the show
List 5 key moments from the production. Give it a name, describe it and then state why it was
important to the show.
Moment
Description
Why Important
The Review:
Using the information you have collated in the previous pages, write in dot points the key elements
to be included in each of the 4 paragraphs of the review. *Remember to keep it in 3rd person. *
Introduction – Key features of the show, style, mood, intention, overview of storyline
Key idea 1 – Name the paragraph (what is the key idea explored) ___________________________
Key idea 2 – Name the paragraph (what is the key idea explored) ___________________________
Conclusion – Summarise the key ideas in the show and whether the company achieved
its objective. How does it relate to you today?