It's sweet potato cinnamon scroll pancakes and spicy prawn rolls at a sleek cafe by the Terror Twilight team
By the cafe group Yolk (Terror Twilight, Ophelia Westgarth), Convoy is located on a spacious corner site opposite Queens Park in Moonee Ponds. It's fronted by an L-shaped deck that catches the morning sun, with a takeaway window ready to fuel park- and pool-goers with coffee, sandwiches and snacks.
Serious cafe fanatics can order everything from sweet potato pancakes inspired by cinnamon scrolls to Turkish eggs with lemon yoghurt and sujuk, or a spicy chilli scramble folded with shakshuka sauce and sumac onions served with labne. Later in the day, a prawn roll with crisp iceberg and tabasco beckons.
Inside, the 100-year-old building with bullnose verandahs has been kitted out with houndstooth banquettes, spotted gum joinery and orange leather upholstery by Studio Esteta, whose other work includes Lune Croissanterie and Via Porta.
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Sydney Morning Herald
21 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Sexy and delicious, this Mozart opera is made for our times
In 1781, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – one of the most profound geniuses the human race has produced – sat as a servant at the table of the Archbishop of Salzburg, above the cooks but below the valets. Already a much-travelled and admired child prodigy, he felt the humiliation acutely. He could hardly have imagined that within a year he would have left the Archbishop's service, propelled literally by a boot up the backside from the Archbishop's secretary, and be revelling in the massive success of his first really great opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio. He had taken his first trailblazing steps from musician as servant to musician as entrepreneur. Now, 244 years later, Victorian Opera is launching a new production of the opera, very much designed for 2025 Melbourne, with a shortened title, a brand new libretto and some musical cuts and additions. Abduction is what director Con Costi calls a 'delicious dark rom-com'. The original story tells of two women, Konstanze and Blonde, abducted and taken to a Turkish harem. When their boyfriends, Belmonte and Pedrillo, try to steal them away, they are caught, but released, along with the women, by the merciful pasha. In Costi's retelling, the pasha becomes a Great Gatsby figure who holds elaborate and debauched parties, which the two women enter voluntarily due to possible dissatisfaction with their metrosexual boyfriends, who venture in to 'save' them. Costi has Belmonte ask his sidekick: 'Do you think they are having doubts?' Pedrillo replies: 'Surely not. I mean look at us – we're young, we meditate, we moisturise.' Delightful gentle mockery that is definitely not in the original text, but highlights Costi's trajectory. 'At its heart, it is a sex comedy,' says Costi, 35. 'It's some of the most exciting, dynamic and beautiful music Mozart has in his canon. Then the characters are incredibly rich and witty and funny, and dealing with an extremely contemporary conundrum: how best to live.' Victorian Opera has gone with a vibrant young cast to keep the energy high. Pasha Selim, a non-singing role, is played by Lyndon Watts, 30, who made his name as Aaron Burr in Hamilton, then as Candide in last year's VO production. He is equally noted in the realms of theatre and musical theatre. Have others traversed such a wide path? 'Melbourne is full of them, actually,' he says. 'In the art spaces in Australia, you have to diversify or there's not enough work. I am surrounded by a lot of artists who straddle various worlds.' This is Watts' first mainstream opera, and he is excited. 'I'm sort of pinching myself to be part of this incredible music. It's a dream – it's like doing Shakespeare, it's like the mastery of Hamilton or Sondheim,' he says. Mercy and empathy are the keys to opening the Pasha's character, he says. 'As long as you're honouring the human being, if it's larger than life or different from the original, I enjoy it for what it is.' Emerging soprano Cleo Lee-McGowan, also 30, has the most difficult role, Konstanze, with its formidable technical and emotional demands. 'It's a beast of a role,' she says. 'It's very long and it's very high, but it's also very low. Mozart wrote it for a friend [the diva Caterina Cavalieri] to showcase her virtuosity and the extremes of the human voice, so the challenge is how do I achieve these extreme technical demands while also keeping the beauty.' Her answer is not to think about it too much but to dive into the character and trust her musical preparation. 'I prepare brick by brick, focusing on the coloratura [virtuoso] passages and working out where I can take a breath, where I can reset, and just figuring out a strategy to get through this marathon. I must say it's the most challenging role I've ever sung, and possibly will sing.' Lee-McGowan says the original setting may be strange, but it's highly relatable. Konstanze and Blonde are asking questions every young person is asking and probably through every stage of life: 'Who am I, and what do I really want?' The pair are the first of Mozart's canny, complicated women, prominent in his later operas, Costi says. 'You can't help but notice the music and the time that he gives to the female characters across his operas. He gives so many women … musical dignity, and that's why he is the great enlightenment humanist composer.' Costi says the big question he took a long time to grapple with, is what is the genre? The opera is not just a comedy but at times deeply serious, reflective and moving. 'It's not just a raucous comedic opera buffa, but it's not an opera seria where we are dealing with the plight of emperors and kings and queens.' Both forms had strict conventions which Mozart defied to produce something new. 'The game I really want to play with the audience is this oscillation between things that are comedic and witty, and you're hopefully laughing, but at the same time grappling with quite serious things. 'It's an exciting challenge of really gear-shifting between comedy and human beings at the end of their tether. It has the tropes for romantic comedy, but there's so much threat and menace hanging over the world that they're in – I can't really think of a parallel.' There is a joy, he says, in embracing what is wild and dark about being human and also unravelling the complications of control in a relationship. 'Where does love and commitment transform into something controlling? These things are very interesting to me, particularly in the contemporary climate of a modern Victorian age of ethics and etiquette.' Costi says the contemporary, cult-like, world he has chosen lets him reflect the sexual allure, danger and strangeness of a harem. Loading He is categorical that his revision is not about having the audience going away talking about the director – a charge levelled at some directors in Europe. 'I'm an opera fan. I'm a Mozart obsessive,' he says. 'Wunderkind directors throwing arbitrary grenades at things for shock value is actually kind of passé. That was interesting in the 1980s. There's now something much more interesting in how do I actually tap into what I think is the intention of the composer and the essential qualities of what makes this a fantastic opera, but treating opera as a living, dynamic medium.' This production, he believes, is an ideal introduction for people who are not regular opera goers. 'I like to think there's something in it for connoisseurs and for first-time opera goers. I want both to leave having had an exciting and fun and moving experience.'
The Age
21 hours ago
- The Age
Victorian Opera updates Mozart's Abduction for the modern era
, register or subscribe to save articles for later. Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. In 1781, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – one of the most profound geniuses the human race has produced – sat as a servant at the table of the Archbishop of Salzburg, above the cooks but below the valets. Already a much-travelled and admired child prodigy, he felt the humiliation acutely. He could hardly have imagined that within a year he would have left the Archbishop's service, propelled literally by a boot up the backside from the Archbishop's secretary, and be revelling in the massive success of his first really great opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio . He had taken his first trailblazing steps from musician as servant to musician as entrepreneur. Now, 244 years later, Victorian Opera is launching a new production of the opera, very much designed for 2025 Melbourne, with a shortened title, a brand new libretto and some musical cuts and additions. Abduction is what director Con Costi calls a 'delicious dark rom-com'. The original story tells of two women, Konstanze and Blonde, abducted and taken to a Turkish harem. When their boyfriends, Belmonte and Pedrillo, try to steal them away, they are caught, but released, along with the women, by the merciful pasha. Lyndon Watts and Cleo Lee-McGowan during rehearsals for Victorian Opera's Abduction. Credit: Casey Horsfield In Costi's retelling, the pasha becomes a Great Gatsby figure who holds elaborate and debauched parties, which the two women enter voluntarily due to possible dissatisfaction with their metrosexual boyfriends, who venture in to 'save' them. Costi has Belmonte ask his sidekick: 'Do you think they are having doubts?' Pedrillo replies: 'Surely not. I mean look at us – we're young, we meditate, we moisturise.' Delightful gentle mockery that is definitely not in the original text, but highlights Costi's trajectory. 'At its heart, it is a sex comedy,' says Costi, 35. 'It's some of the most exciting, dynamic and beautiful music Mozart has in his canon. Then the characters are incredibly rich and witty and funny, and dealing with an extremely contemporary conundrum: how best to live.' Victorian Opera has gone with a vibrant young cast to keep the energy high. Pasha Selim, a non-singing role, is played by Lyndon Watts, 30, who made his name as Aaron Burr in Hamilton , then as Candide in last year's VO production. He is equally noted in the realms of theatre and musical theatre. Have others traversed such a wide path? 'Melbourne is full of them, actually,' he says. 'In the art spaces in Australia, you have to diversify or there's not enough work. I am surrounded by a lot of artists who straddle various worlds.' This is Watts' first mainstream opera, and he is excited. 'I'm sort of pinching myself to be part of this incredible music. It's a dream – it's like doing Shakespeare, it's like the mastery of Hamilton or Sondheim,' he says. Mercy and empathy are the keys to opening the Pasha's character, he says. 'As long as you're honouring the human being, if it's larger than life or different from the original, I enjoy it for what it is.' Emerging soprano Cleo Lee-McGowan, also 30, has the most difficult role, Konstanze, with its formidable technical and emotional demands. 'It's a beast of a role,' she says. 'It's very long and it's very high, but it's also very low. Mozart wrote it for a friend [the diva Caterina Cavalieri] to showcase her virtuosity and the extremes of the human voice, so the challenge is how do I achieve these extreme technical demands while also keeping the beauty.' Her answer is not to think about it too much but to dive into the character and trust her musical preparation. 'I prepare brick by brick, focusing on the coloratura [virtuoso] passages and working out where I can take a breath, where I can reset, and just figuring out a strategy to get through this marathon. I must say it's the most challenging role I've ever sung, and possibly will sing.' Lyndon Watts with costumier David Anderson during rehearsals for Victorian Opera's Abduction. Credit: Casey Horsfield Lee-McGowan says the original setting may be strange, but it's highly relatable. Konstanze and Blonde are asking questions every young person is asking and probably through every stage of life: 'Who am I, and what do I really want?' The pair are the first of Mozart's canny, complicated women, prominent in his later operas, Costi says. 'You can't help but notice the music and the time that he gives to the female characters across his operas. He gives so many women … musical dignity, and that's why he is the great enlightenment humanist composer.' Costi says the big question he took a long time to grapple with, is what is the genre? The opera is not just a comedy but at times deeply serious, reflective and moving. 'It's not just a raucous comedic opera buffa, but it's not an opera seria where we are dealing with the plight of emperors and kings and queens.' Both forms had strict conventions which Mozart defied to produce something new. 'The game I really want to play with the audience is this oscillation between things that are comedic and witty, and you're hopefully laughing, but at the same time grappling with quite serious things. 'It's an exciting challenge of really gear-shifting between comedy and human beings at the end of their tether. It has the tropes for romantic comedy, but there's so much threat and menace hanging over the world that they're in – I can't really think of a parallel.' The set model for Victorian Opera's 'exciting and fun' Abduction. Credit: Casey Horsfield There is a joy, he says, in embracing what is wild and dark about being human and also unravelling the complications of control in a relationship. 'Where does love and commitment transform into something controlling? These things are very interesting to me, particularly in the contemporary climate of a modern Victorian age of ethics and etiquette.' Costi says the contemporary, cult-like, world he has chosen lets him reflect the sexual allure, danger and strangeness of a harem. Loading He is categorical that his revision is not about having the audience going away talking about the director – a charge levelled at some directors in Europe. 'I'm an opera fan. I'm a Mozart obsessive,' he says. 'Wunderkind directors throwing arbitrary grenades at things for shock value is actually kind of passé. That was interesting in the 1980s. There's now something much more interesting in how do I actually tap into what I think is the intention of the composer and the essential qualities of what makes this a fantastic opera, but treating opera as a living, dynamic medium.' This production, he believes, is an ideal introduction for people who are not regular opera goers. 'I like to think there's something in it for connoisseurs and for first-time opera goers. I want both to leave having had an exciting and fun and moving experience.'
AU Financial Review
a day ago
- AU Financial Review
‘It broke me to my core': the making of Camilla Franks
What to wear to lunch with Camilla Franks, Australia's – and perhaps the world's – kaftan queen? Franks's motto, and her clothing business's tagline, is 'Colour the world in Camilla'. As someone who occasionally adds navy into her wardrobe for fun, I'm never going to be able to match Franks's colourful energy. And in truth, not many can. Franks, who calls everyone 'darling' and 'babe' and immediately envelops me in an embrace, is actually wearing black herself, but hers is somehow riotously beautiful and a little wild. It's her own design, naturally, and new season: a black kimono-style wrap dress embroidered and embellished with Turkish inspired designs. Nearly every finger holds a ring, and she's wearing multiple earrings and necklaces.
