Take another bow Leo Schofield!
The nominations for the Helpmann Awards – Australia’s equivalent of the Olivier Awards – were announced last night and Hobart Baroque scored two nominations.
L’isola disabitata ( TT: Take a bow, Leo ) was nominated for Best Opera and Rodula Gaitanou for Best Direction of an Opera, for the same production.
That is pretty sensational for a first year!
As The Hag noted recently in a broadside at Ten Days on the Island:
Hag’s culture-vulture mates told me last night Hobart Baroque put on its L’isola disabitata ( TT here ) for a measly $350,000 — and got phenomenal international and interstate publicity.
And, the vultures told me, the ABC is broadcasting three performances and offering it internationally …
It just goes to prove … the best of anything is organic … it grows from the ground up. Remember Future Perfect ( http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/jurassic/adams.html ), the 50-odd artist protest at Forestry Tasmania sponsorship of Ten Days on the Island?; a brilliant alternative festival done on a shoestring and with Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass as patron.
It wasn’t imposed by a bunch of top-down remote bureaucrats with agendas and Masters to Please …
Earlier on TT: The Long-Cherished Dream
Larry’s Ghost
