Neil Armfield’s critically acclaimed Watershed to premiere at the Sydney Opera House
The recipient of five-star reviews and emotional standing ovations at its sold-out premiere season at the 2022 Adelaide Festival, Neil Armfield’s acclaimed opera Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan will make its Sydney debut with Opera Australia in June.
An operatic oratorio, Watershed is based on the tragic true story of the 1972 drowning of Dr George Duncan, a University of Adelaide law lecturer, the alleged police cover-up and subsequent public outrage that followed.
With NSW marking the 40th Anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality this year, the Sydney season is a timely reminder of the appalling series of circumstances, the horror and heartbreak that ultimately led to South Australia becoming the first Australian state to implement homosexual law reform.
Director Neil Armfield explains, “We commissioned Watershed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr Duncan in Adelaide, allegedly at the hands of off-duty members of the SA Police vice squad engaging in their habitual practice of ‘teaching the poofters to swim’.
“(Adelaide) Festival audiences found it a shattering experience: at the end of each performance many remained in their seats, not able yet to go out and look down through their tears to Karrawirri parri – the River Torrens – where this act of casual murder took place. It’s a vocal work of stirring and glorious beauty.
“In the wake of the recent NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into gay and transgender hate crimes, and the consequent shadow that fell on our police, this couldn’t be more relevant to us in Sydney today.”
Armfield leads a team of acclaimed artistic talents in this thrillingly physical oratorio featuring powerful choral music, solo voices and dance.
Starring Australian tenor Mark Oates and bass Pelham Andrews both reprising their roles from the 2022 season, along with multidisciplinary performer Tomáš Kantor and WAAPA-trained Macon Escobal Riley and the Opera Australia Chorus.
Multi-award-winning author Christos Tsiolkas and playwright Alana Valentine fuse press clippings, inquest transcripts, private correspondence and monologues spanning five decades of anti-gay violence to craft a searing libretto.
Designers Alisa Paterson, Nigel Levings, Jane Rossetto and Sean Bacon recreate the simple but effecting scene by Adelaide’s River Torrens, with Joseph Twist’s luscious, transcendent score played by the Opera Australia Orchestra under the baton of one of Australia’s foremost choral conductors, Brett Weymark.
Creatives
Composer & Orchestrator Joseph Twist
Libretto Alana Valentine & Christos
Tsiolkas
Conductor Brett Weymark
Director Neil Armfield
Associate Director Cheryl Pickering
Set & Costume Designer Alisa Paterson
Lighting Designer Nigel Levings
Sound Designer Jane Rossetto
Video Designer Sean Bacon
Choreographer Lewis Major
Historical Consultant Tim Reeves
Cast
Duncan/Dunstan Mark Oates
Mick O’Shea/Cop/Lawyer Pelham Andrews
Lost Boy Tomáš Kantor
Dancer Macon Escobal Riley
Opera Australia Chorus
Opera Australia Orchestra
Bookings
Adult tickets from $69 (fees may apply)
Opera Australia Box Office
(02) 9318 8200
www.opera.org.au
Joan Sutherland Theatre,
Sydney Opera House
Performance information
Evenings at 7.30pm
June 14, 15
Saturday Matinee at 12.30pm
June 15
Sunday Matinee at 2.00pm
June 16
Running time
Approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes
Performed in English
Please note this production contains strong
sexual references and explicit language.
Production Partners
Opera Australia and Sydney Opera House by
arrangement with Adelaide Festival present
Watershed.
Enabled by Sydney Opera House donor
Professor Ross Steele AM and New Work Now
donors.
Co-commissioned by Feast Festival, Adelaide
Festival and State Opera South Australia,
supported by Arts South Australia and by the
Adelaide Festival’s Commissioning Circle, Sidney
Myer Fund and Nunn Dimos Foundation.
| Opera Australia recognises and acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the Traditional Custodians of the unceded land of Australia. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. |
