Leo Schofield knows when he is onto a winner.
With 26 festivals under his belt, he has a pretty good track record of ushering audiences into theatres.
So when the Tasmanian government elected to reduce funding for his Baroque Festival, he was shocked.
“Like someone down there said, I handed them a festival on a plate and they sent it back to the kitchen,” he said.
Schofield was swift in his reaction, hitting the media to express his dismay and threatening to leave the state – which he did.
“I left immediately,” he said. “I didn’t see any point in being there any more.”
Fearing his beloved Baroque Festival would go the way of the dodo, Schofield was bereft.
He needn’t have worried.
It wasn’t long before QPAC and the Queensland government were seeking him out to bring Baroque to Brisbane.
The trio had a long and successful relationship.
Schofield was the producer-at-large of QPAC’s enormously successful International Series bringing the likes of the Paris Opera Ballet, The Hamburg Ballet and Philharmonic and The Bolshoi Ballet for exclusive performances in Brisbane.
But none of them could have anticipated quite the hit Brisbane Baroque would be.
Commercially it was a success. Many performances sold out, audiences were flooding through theatre doors around the city.
Critically it was a success with reviewers raving about the quality and diversity of the program.
But when the event won five of the six Helpmann Awards it was nominated for everyone was blown away.
…
And expectation has built as Brisbane Baroque enters its second year from April 6.
Already a number of events are at close to capacity and a huge number of audience members are coming from interstate – up to 70 per cent – an important factor in ensuring the festival continues to enjoy the support of Tourism and Events Queensland.
This year the festival includes one major core event, a theory that Schofield subscribes to as ensuring a festival is successful.
For 2016 it is Handel’s Agrippina, one of the earliest operas ever composed and a rarely performed but much-loved piece from the Baroque opera cannon.
• And the Oz used Vivica Genaux as cover for its Review insert (pic above).
Vivica will be performing as part of Brisbane Baroque on Sunday April 10 at QPAC concert Hall South Brisbane.
Vivica spent her first 17 years in Alaska.
Read all about one of the world’s best mezzosopranos – who could have been performing in Hobart Baroque (if only she drove a V8 Supercar as well) in the OZ HERE
Nathaniel Cooper, Brisbane Times
