Baroque Banter

Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director Erin Helyard takes is into the glittering world of Restoration England with The Fairy Queen, a rich and whimsical semi-opera by Henry Purcell. Created in 1692 for the lavish court of William and Mary, this masterpiece fuses Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the era's love of spectacle, music, and myth. In this episode, we explore how The Fairy Queen reflects the politics, tastes, and theatrical innovations of late 17th-century London—where dazzling masques met the genius of Purcell's music. Discover how this enchanting work entertained elite audiences while subtly commenting on order, chaos, love, and monarchy in a time of political restoration and artistic renewal.

What makes the harpsichord so captivating? Join Australia's finest harpsichordist and Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director, Erin Helyard, as he sits down with master harpsichord maker Carey Beebe for a deep dive into the artistry and allure of this remarkable instrument. Together, they explore the brilliance of Bach's Goldberg Variations and why it was meant to be played on a two-manual harpsichord. Ahead of his solo concert on 1 & 2 March 2025 at City Recital Hall, Sydney, Erin shares insights into bringing this iconic masterpiece to life as Bach intended. Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 Variatio 14 a 2 clav. Erin Helyard 2018 Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 Aria - Erin Helyard 2018 J. S. BACH: Goldberg Variations - Aira Wanda Landowska, harpsichord Victor 78rpm Album DM 1022 (11-8933 - 11-8938) Recorded in New York, June, 1945 Digital transfer by F. Reeder Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0Creative Commons License by ncsa Complete recording of Wanda's Goldberg Variations available at: https://archive.org/details/J.S.BACHGoldbergVariations-NEWTRANSFER

Step into the world of Pinchgut Opera's landmark production of Handel's Julius Caesar. Join host Genevieve Lang as she sits down with director Neil Armfield AO and conductor Erin Helyard to uncover the artistry, vision, and stories behind this historic Australian operatic event.

Earlier on Baroque Banter we discussed French Imports, and looked at how Italian musicians found their way into France in the seventeenth century, and what the French did with their dances and their opera. Although the flow of music was very strong from Italy to France, French developments and dances also made their way to other countries. In this episode of Baroque Banter we discuss French exports in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: we look at the French overture, French dances, French performance practice and French dancing masters!

Join Artistic Director Erin Helyard for a fascinating journey into the story of Allegri's Miserere. Be transported to the world of 17th century sacred music and discover some of the secrets behind this enigmatic piece of Baroque vocal writing. Featuring: Voiceovers by Jill Halleron Featured Musical Excerpts: Allegri's Miserere excerpt from Pinchgut Opera's concert Splendour of Venice recorded at Phoenix Central Park. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSZW9O2AvWA Falsobordone, the Miserere of Allegri, and a most bizarre musicological error - performed by tenor Jacob Lawrence and Elam Rotem on keyboard. Courtesy of www.earlymusicsources.com - Elam Rotem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9y5N13un9s Castrati Alessandro Moreschi - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qch5ZrXL_wA LINKS: Attempts at recreating the Allegri Miserere: Pro Cantione Antiqua / Mark Brown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPdXtPP0iRM A Sei Voci / Bernard Fabre-Garrus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuzgsWatoaI Le Poeme Harmonique / Vincent Dumestre -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_qkjQbdRY Existing documentaries: BBC 4 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi2n7srJ_v8 Inside the Music: How Allegri's Miserere should really sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6hD8YtO5HI The Sixteen: a new version of Allegri's Miserere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAwzChKpDi0 Falsobordone, the Miserere of Allegri, and a most bizarre musicological error https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9y5N13un9s

Tune in for a journey through one of opera's most beloved works, Dido and Aeneas. Dive into the enchanting world of Purcell's masterpiece with Host Genevieve Lang, conductor Erin Helyard and director Lucy Clements. Whether you're an opera aficionado or a newcomer, this episode lets you discover the details of this fresh new production by Pinchgut Opera.

Join award-winning writer and actress Kate Mulvany OAM and acclaimed director Lucy Clements as they discuss the new prologue for Pinchgut's new production of Dido and Aeneas. In the spirit of providing a backstory and context Kate has written us a new spoken-word prologue that helps us freshly understand Purcell's original setting. Discover what it was like to create this piece.

Host Keiren Brandt-Sawdy chats with Artistic Director and Erin Helyard about Theodora. Delve deep into Handel's oratorio and gain insight our performance at the Sydney Opera House in partnership with Opera Australia.

Host Keiren Brandt-Sawdy chats with conductor Erin Helyard and director Louisa Muller about one of the most beloved works in the Baroque repertoire. Discover fresh insight into Pinchgut's first staging of a Handel opera, with Rinaldo. Get ready to be swept away by the magic and adventure when you witness this towering masterpiece of music and drama on stage at City Recital Hall this November.

In this pre-performance podcast, host Genevieve Lang sits down with Conductor Erin Helyard to chat about the upcoming September performance of Pleasures of Versailles by Charpentier. They discuss the tiny operas that were enjoyed by Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles. Step inside the courtly chambers and learn about the entertainment that was fit for a king.

Baroque Banter 11: French Imports. In this Baroque Banter Erin Helyard talks about the influence of Italian music and musicians in France in the seventeenth century. He talks about opera, dances, chaconnes, passacaglias and the multicultural mix that makes Baroque music so special. Excerpts by Erin on harpsichord.

Host Genevieve Lang is joined by Pinchgut's Artistic Director Erin Helyard and director Dean Bryant to discuss the much anticipated Australian premiere of the opera Giustino by Legrenzi. A forgotten triumph of Venetian opera, Giustino is a fast-paced, kaleidoscopic and fanciful opera packed with arias and old-fashioned wonder that will leave you stamping your feet for more. A classic rags-to-riches story of the shepherd Giustino who, through a series of adventures and magical interventions, ultimately becomes the Emperor of Rome. Treacherous journeys on the high seas, siblings embroiled in swashbuckling battles and star-crossed lovers set the scene in Legrenzi's spectacular operatic setting. After the successes of The Loves of Apollo and Dafne by Cavalli (2021) and Orontea by Cesti (2022), Pinchgut now shines a light on the brilliant composer and grandfather of the da capo aria, Giovanni Legrenzi, who was considered the Puccini of the late 17thcentury. While Legrenzi's operatic output was small, he was praised for “exceeding the expectations of many in cultivating charm and delight”, and Giustino is one of his great successes. With over 70 short arias, Giustino is a truly dynamic and effervescent opera, showcasing Legrenzi's ability to spin an unending melodic thread, and convey the nuance, mood and shifts in his characters.

Pinchgut Opera's pre-concert podcast with Genevieve Lang and Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director, Erin Helyard. Passion, divinity, transcendence: Pinchgut Opera presents its first concert of the season, Membra Jesu Nostri by Buxtehude. A cycle of seven cantatas composed by German composer Dieterich Buxtehude in 1680. The music is loving: pure, balanced and deeply expressive, demonstrating an extraordinary attention to unity of conception. Pinchgut's presentation of this astonishing work brings together a stellar chorus of soloists, including Alexandra Oomens and Lauren Lodge- Campbell, who both return to Australia after performances throughout Europe with some of the world's eminent Baroque ensembles, along with the sublime sounds of Andrew O'Connor, Hannah Fraser and Louis Hurley. Joining them will be a specially selected group of expert players of the Orchestra of the Antipodes, led by Erin Helyard. This is sacred, meditative music of the highest order and beauty, presented with all the intimacy, emotion and power that inspired its creation over 300 years ago.

Listen to a sneak peek of the Membra Jesu Nostri pre-concert podcast, hosted by Genevieve Lang and Erin Helyard. Passion, divinity, transcendence: Pinchgut Opera presents its first concert of the season, Membra Jesu Nostri by Buxtehude. 1 - 4 April, Sydney and Melbourne.

Pinchgut Opera presents a very special episode of Baroque Banter! Host Genevieve Lang is joined by Pinchgut's Artistic Director Erin Helyard to discuss the exciting season of Baroque and Early Music concerts and operas ahead for our treasured audiences in our 2023 Season. We hope you enjoy listening! PINCHGUT OPERA'S 2023 SEASON April | Concert Membra Jesu Nostri by Dieterich Buxtehude May | Opera Giustino by Giovanni Legrenzi September | Concert Pleasures of Versailles by Marc-Antoine Charpentier Nov - Dec | Opera Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel Discover the season on our website.

To help you prepare for your attendance at Médée, we invite you to listen to Pinchgut's pre-opera podcast. Hosted by Genevieve Lang, with guests Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director Erin Helyard, and Director Justin Way. For more than 20 years, Pinchgut Opera's end of year production has remained one of the highlights of the live performance calendar, and this year will be no exception. Charpentier's towering masterpiece, Médée, brilliantly showcases our Australian cast, the chorus Cantillation and players of the Orchestra of the Antipodes in all their splendid glory. Charpentier's sensual lyricism and dramatic insight take us deep inside the mind and heart of this powerful and damaged woman who refuses to be a victim – even at the cost of her own flesh and blood. Médée is high drama and emotion: French tragédie lyrique in its most classic form. The sorceress Médée is driven by desperation and the abandonment of her lover Jason to do the unthinkable, and ultimately murder her own children. Returning to Pinchgut after her star turn in The Return of Ulysses, mezzo-soprano Catherine Carby takes on the role of the tortured Médée, with the brilliant Michael Petruccelli, who was thrilling in 2019's Farnace, as her lover Jason. Cathy-Di Zhang, Andrew Finden and Adrian Tamburini are joined by Cantillation and the inimitable Orchestra of the Antipodes to tell this passionate and unforgettable story.

Pinchgut Opera's pre-concert podcast, hosted by Genevieve Lang, with guest, Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director, Erin Helyard. For over three centuries, Venice was home to a special institution unique in music history: the ospedali. These were inaugurated as state-run shelters for poor or homeless children and the ospedali provided the very first formally organised music education for female musicians outside the convent. Between 1585 and 1855 the ospedali employed the very best professional musicians in Europe to educate the women who boarded there, and in the early eighteenth century the Pietà boasted the most famous musician of them all: Antonio Vivaldi. Join Genevieve and Erin as they explore the little-known history of the women and girls of the Ospedale della Pietà, who were amongst the leading singers and instrumentalists of their time, with the composer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau quoted as saying, "I have not an idea of anything so voluptuous and affecting as this music...." ----- A transcendent concert experience awaits you this September with the divine element of the female voice at its heart as Pinchgut Opera presents Women of the Pietà.

Pinchgut Opera's pre-opera podcast, hosted by Genevieve Lang, with very special guests Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director Erin Helyard, and Director Constantine Costi. Witty, beautiful and psychologically fascinating, Orontea is set in a heightened contemporary world somewhere between Egypt and Las Vegas. The story centres around a love octagon, where decadence, pleasure and power fuel our colourful cast of grandiose and joyful characters as they pursue their personal passions above all else. When it premiered at Innsbruck in February 1656, Orontea became one of the most successful operas of the entire century, deftly combining Cesti's melodic inventiveness with Cicognini's clever and comic libretto. With Pinchgut's imaginative staging and musical assurance, Orontea is guaranteed to amuse and delight our audiences of today, just as it did then.

Pinchgut Opera's pre-concert podcast hosted by Genevieve Lang with very special guest, Pinchgut Opera's Artistic Director, Erin Helyard. The Spiritual Forest by Monteverdi is a concert featuring some of the most sublime sacred music ever written, taken from Claudio Monteverdi's magnum opus of 1641, Selva morale e spirituale. Genevieve and Erin explore the history and musicology of the work, delving deep into early music that Monteverdi not only composed, but also helped pioneer.

In this podcast, Artistic Director Erin Helyard delves into the vibrant world of baroque ornamentation. Singers both then and now are expected to ornament their music in an exciting way that shows off their technique and expression. We look at treatises, unearth some recently discovered ornamentation in Handel's hand, and lift a lid on the ornamental art of the great baroque singers.

Platée's pre-opera podcast hosted by Genevieve Lang with very special guests Pinchgut Opera's Artistic Director Erin Helyard, and cast members Kanen Breen and Cathy-Di Zhang. Celebrated Australian director Neil Armfield makes his Pinchgut debut in a deliciously twisted comedy by one of the greatest French baroque composers. Rameau clearly enjoyed himself composing this one-of-a-kind comédie lyrique, for the marriage of the Dauphin Louis XV to the Princess Maria Teresa of Spain – reputedly a woman of very little beauty – telling the story of the irresistibly outlandish marsh nymph Platée being tricked into believing that Jupiter is in love and wants to marry her. Platée | City Recital Hall | 1 - 8 December.

We are thrilled to present a new episode of Baroque Banter, The Economics of Opera. In this fascinating episode, Erin examines how opera was run and funded in the age of Monteverdi, Cavalli and Cesti; who got paid the most and the least, who were the movers and shakers, and who were the impresarios who risked it all for a shot at fame. Take a deep dive into the intriguing history of the business of opera, and see how it compares to how we do things today.

Pre-opera podcast hosted by Genevieve Lang with very special guests, Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director Erin Helyard and Director Mitchell Butel. The Loves of Apollo & Dafne by Cavalli Directed by Mitchell Butel and featuring Alexandra Oomens, Max Riebl and Stacy Alleaume (fresh from her stand out performances with Opera Australia in La Traviata.) Pinchgut’s first opera performance in 18 months features an all-Australian cast, at the peak of their young careers, bringing Cavalli’s exceptionally beautiful work to life in all its ravishing glory. Come and experience this heart warming meditation on love, and be moved by an ancient tale made fresh when told by these wonderfully colourful characters who prove; love is never a walk in the park!

Genevieve Lang sits down with Pinchgut Opera's Artistic Director Erin Helyard to provide some great insights and information about Pinchgut Opera's performance of Monteverdi's Vespers. Perfect listening to prepare for your concert of this Baroque masterpiece.

In this episode, Erin Helyard discusses the music scene — those moments in opera where music itself is the topic, and the characters allude to singing or playing or they actually sing a song! Because everything else is sung, how do these “songs” function? Erin explains that there are three kinds of music scene: the song-within-the-opera, the gratuitous music scene, and “meta-opera” (where opera is itself referenced). Erin delves into examples of the music scene from operas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and uncovers how librettists, composers, and performers responded to this most interesting of challenges.

In the newest episode of our podcast series, Baroque Banter - The Love Duet, Erin Helyard discusses the love duet in baroque opera and the intense emotions it helps to convey - from blissful love to total despair. Erin delves deep into the subject matter and explains the function and evolution of one of opera’s most evocative and transcendent conventions. Tune in to enjoy Erin’s explanation of the love duet and revel in the musical excerpts showcasing two voices intertwining magnificently with one another.

The next episode of our podcast series, Baroque Banter - In Conversation with Miriam Allan is out now. In this episode Erin Helyard is joined by one of his true contemporaries, soprano and self-proclaimed lover of chaconnes, Miriam Allan. Miriam has performed in multiple Pinchgut productions, beginning with our very first in 2002, Handel's Semele. United in their shared origins and deep love for baroque music, Erin and Miriam's chat includes Miriam's favourite musical form, the chaconne, returning to the stage during a pandemic, and performing in front of a live audience. Tune in now and find out where the intro music for Baroque Banter is from, why we chose it, and more...

The newest episode of our podcast series, Baroque Banter, is available for you to listen to now. In episode 5, The Lament, Artistic Director Erin Helyard focuses on this very influential and important component of operatic history. Tune in now to find out the fascinating history and importance of laments not only in opera, but also in literary history and enjoy some stunning operatic excerpts.

In this episode of Baroque Banter historical bassoon specialist, Simon Rickard joins Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director Erin Helyard to discuss historical performance practice and baroque musical instruments. Tune in now and find out what the musette culture is and what it has in common with today's hipster movement.

The third episode of Baroque Banter, The Sleeping Scene discusses the depictions of sleep in music. Erin is joined by guest Laura Vaughan to talk about these somnolent, languid and calming musical scenes.

Pinchgut Opera Artistic Director Erin Helyard in conversation with director Chas Rader-Shieber.

Episode 1 "The Incantation Scene" with guest Celeste Lazarenko This episode will focus on a very famous scene from one of Erin Helyard's very favourite operas. It is the incantation scene sung by Medea from Cavalli’s Giasone, with a wonderful libretto by Cicognini. It was very famous and became a model for composers and librettists for over a century. Erin will explain some of the features of the incantation scene and he’ll also be speaking to Celeste Lazarenko, who sang Medea for Pinchgut Opera back in 2013.