Music / The Dons, National Opera. At The Street Theatre, June 27. Reviewed by MICHAEL WILSON.

One of today’s great challenges in Australian cultural practice is to make opera more accessible to new audiences.

After all, opera is traditionally expensive to mount, often sung in languages other than English, with plots that are at best implausible.  On the other hand, those operas that have survived to still be performed today contain sublime music, tell time-honoured stories and exhibit extraordinary capabilities in the human voice.

With all these realities in mind, Canberra’s National Opera staged an entertaining and innovative journey exploring the role of the ‘Don’ – as a dominant male character – in operas across the canon.

So was this simply a parade of familiar operatic arias sung by men? Not a bit of it. Connected by very clever and informative narration by Jim Black, and translations projected on screen at the rear of the stage, the program was instead an exposé of how the Don carries operatic plots and how other characters react to his machinations, arrogance, cruelty, violence and bluster.

Three Mozarts (Don Giovanni, Cosi Fan Tutte and The Marriage of Figaro), a Donizetti (Don Pasquale), Ponchielli (La Gioconda), and two Verdis (Attila and Don Carlos) were included in the menu, with the National Opera chorus and soloists mixing up the playlist in a way that kept the action going and provided variety and contrast.

Singers capably acted out the various scenes, and the chosen arias together built tension and interest through to the final encounter scene from Don Giovanni where the ghost of the murdered Commendatore condemns Don Giovanni to hell.

Particular highlights were Erica Simmons, who carried of Susanna’s ambitious aria from Figaro very competently indeed, Sitiveni Talei’s rich and powerful baritone as both Attila and Don Giovanni, and soprano ( and the National Opera’s artistic director) Sonia Anfiloff as Elisabetta in her wrenching emotional scene from Don Carlos.

The twenty-voice National Opera Chorus was perfectly capable in carrying off a full operatic texture in chorus and ensemble numbers, conducted subtly by Dan Phillips.  Rebecca Simon and Michael Anthrak alternated very ably on grand piano with lid removed, positioned centre-stage.

For those wanting a recounting of the other side of opera’s gender divide, the National Opera will present a similarly-rendered story of The Heroines in September.  After the fun of The Dons, seeing the pair is a must.

News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.