Ghost Sonata
Our crimes bind us, our secrets, our guilt. We have tried to break away… But we always come back.
At the Ghost’s Supper, no one can conceal their ugliness. Inside or outside, it dwells in us all.Come into the unsettling world of August Strindberg’s Ghost Sonata, where nothing is as it seems. Bewitched by a woman’s beauty and drawn into a stranger’s sinister plans, a student enters a handsome house. In that wretched place, food is poison. The dead are alive. Paradise proves rotten inside.
Aribert Reimann’s 1984 opera is a haunting and evocative chamber work, exploring Strindberg’s moody text with complex rhythms and other-worldly tones.
"Alexandra Graham is deceptively winsome as The Milkmaid."
Simon Parris - Man in Chair
Based on the play by
August Strindberg
Music by
Aribert Reimann
Creative Team
Director
Greg Eldridge
Assistant Director + Movement
Matthew Barclay
Designer
Emma Kingsbury
Lighting Designer
John Rayment
Premiere
The Opera Australia Scenery Workshop, The Opera Centre, Dawson St, Surry Hills
Sept 11-14, 2019
The Coopers Malthouse, Merlyn Theatre, Melbourne
Sept 25-28, 2019
Cast
THE OLD MAN THE FIANCEE
Richard Anderson Anna-Louise Cole
THE MUMMY DARK LADY / COOK
Dominica Matthews Ruth Strutt
THE COLONEL THE MILKMAID
John Longmuir Allie Graham
THE STUDENT THE YOUNG WOMAN
Shanul Sharma Danita Weatherstone
JOHANSSON BENGTSSON
Virgilio Marino Alexander Hargreaves
THE CONSUL.
Adam Dear
Press.
"Alexandra Graham, who ramps up the opera’s nightmarish qualities with some Exorcist-style moves as The Milkmaid."
Limelight Magazine, Angus McPherson
"In the mute role of the ghostly Milkmaid Alexandra Graham writhed with epileptic abandon during the link between Acts 1 and 2."
Bachtrack, David Larkin
"His nemesis, Alexandra Graham as the silent milkmaid stalks him with demonic convulsiveness."
Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Macallum