CLIMBING TOWARD MIDNIGHT

By Benjamen Judd

One of the finer things in life that we enjoy, but fail to mention as much as we do things like clothes and ceramic-y things, is music. And not any music. But the music created by the masters. Such as Wagner.

The year 2013 celebrates bicentenary of Richard Wagner’s birth, and opera companies around the world are performing his towering music dramas to mark the occasion. The Sydney Chamber Opera has developed a more searching tribute: a living composer’s response to his controversial final work Parsifal.

For those who may not be incredibly familiar with the work of Wagner – his was the opera that was appropriated by Looney Tunes with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. Yes, that’s right. Wagner wrote and composed ‘Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit’.

Jack Symonds’ Climbing Toward Midnight is based on Act II of Wagner’s tale of Parsifal, and it explores the aborted romance between the two ill-matched main characters, Parsifal and Kundry. It uses Wagner’s text, however, Symonds’ intimate chamber score is a totally new composition. The origins of Parsifal, or Percival, come in part from the legends of King Arthur and the search for the Holy Grail. We shan’t give anything away but let’s just say Dan Brown could learn a thing or two from the originals.

Climbing Towards Midnight will run on selected dates from April 15^th to April 20^th. Tickets are available from here.

For more information on the Sydney Chamber Opera, visit their website here.