Since launching its 2014 program on 12 November, the Hobart Baroque festival has enjoyed strong sales across all performances. And it seems that music lovers from around Australia are busy booking trips to Hobart in late March 2014.
“The response to the second Hobart Baroque festival has been extremely encouraging and we are particularly excited to see that half of our bookings are coming from outside of Tasmania,” says Jarrod Carland, the festival’s Executive Director.
“Many of the events will be sold out by early in the new year, and sales are indicating only a handful of seats will be available before the festival starts at the end of March. It’s a great result for a festival only in its second year, and we have already commenced talks with many world class companies and artists for 2015 and beyond.”
“All signs indicate that we have created a festival that that will attract significant numbers of people to Tasmania. Whilst they are in Hobart enjoying world-class classical music performances, our audience members will have the opportunity to enjoy all that this wonderful city and its surrounds have to offer.”
“The second Hobart Baroque is already well on track to smash the attendance records of the first festival, in a time when many popular music festivals around Australia are struggling to maintain a solid audience base,” says Carland.
“We are striving to create an event that will grow in size and international stature in coming years, which is unique to Tasmania and this side of the world.”
hobartbaroque.com.au
• Hobart performance follows Hot on tHe Heels of soprano’s debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera
“The Hobart Baroque festival in 2014 has a strong focus on young artists, many of who are being heralded as the stars of the new generation,” says Leo Schofield, the festival’s Artistic Director.
“One of those leading lights is the young American soprano Kathryn Kewek, who on 28 December makes her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York’s iconic opera house. And in no lightweight role either – Kathryn will sing the famous Queen of the Night role in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.”
After The Met and performances in Berlin and New Orleans, Kathryn will make her way to Tasmania along with her fellow cast members to rehearse for Hobart Baroque’s centrepiece, the opera Orlando by Handel.
“Kathryn will sing the role of Angelica in our production of Orlando, which comes from the Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York and has also been staged at the prestigious Lincoln Centre in New York.”
“We’ve assembled a remarkable group of young American singers, to present what I hope will be a special highlight of the Hobart Baroque festival,” says the opera’s director Chas Rader-Shieber.
“The opera Orlando really speaks to a world of youthful folly and emotional struggle, so having an age-appropriate cast is a fantastic benefit to the storytelling of Handel’s amazing opera.”
Orlando will opens at Hobart’s historic Theatre Royal on 28 March 2014, with tickets already selling extremely well after the festival launch in November.
kathrynlewek.com
hobartbaroque.com.au
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