TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:00
Speaker 1: All the State Opera and the State Theater Company have come together for the first time in over a decade for Candide. It's an award winning operetta. So let's find out what an operetta is. Mitchell Butel is the artistic director of the State Theater Company. But were's multiple hats for this piece. Mitchell, good afternoon to you, Hi, Socy, lovelydo with you, dar tell us what's an operetta?
00:00:26
Speaker 2: So, an operetta is kind of halfway between a musical and an opera. So if you think like Gilbert and Sullivan or Offenbach or some Strauss operas, so it's it's kind of all the kind of high drama of opera but with the fun of music theater kind of combined. So still some great grand arias, but some very funny, kind of more musical theater comedy songs as well. So it's a lot of fun. And I think this was Leondard Bernstein's Candide is like the classic example of one. And it's such a glorious piece. And as you say, we're thrilled to be back work. It's bad opera for the first time in a decade.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: Wonderful, So tell us about Candide. What can audiences expect from this performance?
00:01:10
Speaker 2: Yes, Well, Candid Bernstone's Candide, which he wrote with various other writers in Chris Plitting, Stephen Sondheim and Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman, is based on Voltaire's novel from seventeen fifty nine, which is about It's kind of the biggest adventure story in the history of history of adventure stories. It's about Candide and his beloved Cunegonda leaving the small German town of Westphalia and going on a wonderful kind of quest all around the planet that takes them to various parts of Europe and South American jungles through Paris and back to Constantante Constantinople at the end. It's really a kind of a journey from idealisms to pragmatism and learning what the world is. But on the way we meet a host of wonderful characters and have many fun adventures and learn a lot about what the world is.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: Okay, And now I do want to talk about some of those characters because looking at this cast, oh my goodness, Hans Mikayla Berger, Carolina O'Connor, the lineup, it sounds it sounds like it'll be dangerously fun. Dangerous and fun, is it?
00:02:17
Speaker 2: I think both of those things are very true. Yeah, it's wonderful. So many great South Australians like Mikhayla Berger in there, and Rosie Hosking, Adelaide loved Hahn. You know your house from Germany or is it Croydon? One can Never be Shot? And the great CAROLINEA O'Connor, who's performed in many musicals obviously and is known for that wonderful film The laon Rouge. And two great opera stars Alex Lewis and he Eighth Ken are playing out two heroes. And I'm the narrator and the kind of old crusty philosopher in the show, doctor Pangloss, So I get to sing a few tunes as well.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: And that is my next question, because you do wear multiple hats for this piece. As you say, you codre doing your performing in it, and it's not the first time that you've worked on this performance, Candide, that's right.
00:03:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, So myself and my co director Amy Campbell directed it in Sydney the Sydney Opera House in twenty eighteen for the Sidney fil Harmony acquires but I wasn't in the show that time, but I was selfishly thought, I can I play the role when it comes to Adelaide'. So it's great, but I indeed that I've certainly got my work cut out for me. Hopefully I remember all my lines on opening night. But it's a lot of fun and I just think I really just wanted to be on stage with these wonderful people and sharing the fun every night. So I'm very pleased they can.
00:03:45
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh well, the Sydney Opera House iconic venue too, and another iconic venue, her Majesties in Adelaide. That sounds like it'll be a great time.
00:03:53
Speaker 2: It will. We're so lucky with Her Majesty's. It's such a beautiful theater and we stay theater. We're very lucky to open it first main stage show with gas Light in after the pandemic, and so to be back there again, we've Candide It's so they've done such a magnificent job on it, and I think it's one of the best theaters in the world and Majesty so it'll be a real honor to be there. And we've got the full Adelaide Symphony Orchestra on stage as well the full State Opera Chorus, and we'll be kind of thrusting the stage out into the auditorium a little bit too, so it'll be unlike anything you've ever seen in Her majesties before.
00:04:28
Speaker 1: Oh it sounds like fun. And something I noticed it's a pretty short run as well, only on for a few nights May twenty three to twenty five. Is that because everyone in it is so busy and they've got so many other things.
00:04:40
Speaker 2: More because it's so many people. It's only because it's a concert version of the show because we're and so we've got four performances only the Thursday Friday night and two on Saturday. But basically because there's like one hundred and thirty people on stage, it's pretty big. So you can't run that for seven weeks, but more of a special special event, So get in early. And tickets are going incredibly well, but there are some remaining, so jump on in.
00:05:07
Speaker 1: Oh good. And speaking of tickets, I also noted that tickets that they start from seventy five dollars, but you've got an offer of thirty five dollar tickets for people under the age of thirty. Firstly, can you make it forty because I wouldn't mind a cheaper ticket. But is that a conscious decision to try and get younger people to come and watch State Theater and also State Operate performances.
00:05:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of We offer a lot of discount of tickets to young people and also to people on our other shows who might be having some access problems or might be incientifically, so there's lots of ways to get into our shows. But really we love all our audience as young, young, and old. That we're finding with a lot of State heavy company shows, much more of our audiences, we're getting a lot more young people coming along, particularly last year which shows like The Goat and Lady Day, and which is wonderful because I think having that broad spectrum of people in the audience is really delicious and makes for a really fun, fun auditorium.
00:06:16
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, and I'm joking, but it also kind of makes me feel a bit old that I no longer for the cheap young tickets.
00:06:23
Speaker 2: But that's okay. I'm fifty four now, so I qualify for nothing, so I'll I'll be qualifying for the pension.
00:06:31
Speaker 1: Well, not anytime soon, because as I say, you are the artistic director of the State Theater Company, co directing Candid and performing in it, and I'm excited to see it. Mitchell, all the best with the rest of rehearsals, with that crazy charismatic cast.
00:06:46
Speaker 2: Of yours, that crazy bunch. They're in there dancing now. We'll jump back on the floor. Thanks so much, Saphy.
00:06:52
Speaker 1: I'll let you get back in there. Thank you, that is, Mitch, Thank you. Tell and Candid is on at Her Majesty's Theater for four performance only from May twenty three to twenty five, so that's tomorrow night. Should be great.
00:07:05
Speaker 2: Five Double A Afternoons with Stacy Lee