Latest news with #NetiaJones
ABC News
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Bush Gothic on the fine line between pleasure and pain, and director Netia Jones on Purcell's wild semi-opera The Fairy Queen
Bush Gothic are 'unafraid of Australian songs'. From colonial-era folk songs to the Divinyls, their latest album What Pop People Folk This Popular is a showcase of what the band does best: dreamy, detailed, genre-bending music in conversation with Australian musical history. Jenny M Thomas and Dan Witton join Andy. Netia Jones is an English opera director and she's in Sydney to take on Henry Purcell's odd but beautiful 'Restoration Spectacular' The Fairy Queen for Pinchgut Opera. Under rain on a tin roof of the rehearsal room, she and Andy sit to talk about the peculiarities of the piece, and of English language opera. Bush Gothic are on tour: 7 – 8 June National Celtic Festival, Portarlington 13 June Ararat Town Hall, Ararat 14 June Wheatsheaf Hotel, Adelaide 21 June Fitzroy Town Hall, Naarm/Melbourne 22 June Northern Arts Hotel, Castlemaine 27 – 29 June Festival of Voices, nipaluna/Hobart Pinchgut Opera presents The Fairy Queen: 7 – 14 June at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in Sydney. Music heard in the interview with Bush Gothic: Title: Girls in Our Town Artist: Margret RoadKnight Composer: Bob Hudson Album: Margaret RoadKnight Label: Infinity Title: Girls in Our Town Artist: Bush Gothic Composer: Bob Hudson Album: What Pop People Folk This Popular Label: Fydle Records Title: Adeline Artist: Bush Gothic Composer: Gus Unger-Hamilton, Hans Zimmer, Joe Newman, Thom Green Album: What Pop People Folk This Popular Label: Fydle Records Title: Wreck of the Dandenong Artist: Bush Gothic Composer: trad. Album: What Pop People Folk This Popular Label: Fydle Records Title: Pleasure and Pain Artist: Bush Gothic Composer: Holly Knight, Mike Chapman Album: What Pop People Folk This Popular Label: Fydle Records Title: Freedom on the Wallaby Artist: Bush Gothic Composer: trad. after the poem by Henry Lawson Album: What Pop People Folk This Popular Label: Fydle Records In the interview with Netia Jones: Title: 'O Let Me Weep' (The Plaint), from The Fairy Queen Artist: Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Gabrieli Consort/Paul McCreesh Composer: Henry Purcell Album: The Fairy Queen 1692 Label: Signum Classics Title: I know a bank… from A Midsummer Night's Dream Artist: Alfred Deller (Oberon), London Symphony Orchestra/Benjamin Britten Composer: Benjamin Britten, libretto Peter Pears after Shakespeare Album: A Midsummer Night's Dream Label: Decca The Music Show was made on Gadigal, Gundungurra and Turrbal Yuggera Country Technical production by Dylan Prins
Sydney Morning Herald
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Win an exclusive opening night experience at The Fairy Queen*
To celebrate Pinchgut Opera's debut at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, you have the chance to experience Purcell's The Fairy Queen in true VIP style. Renowned for its signature fusion of Baroque music and theatrical innovation, Pinchgut brings this spellbinding masterpiece to Sydney's premier theatrical stage, led by acclaimed UK director Netia Jones in her Australian debut. Known for her cutting-edge use of technology and projection, Jones will transform The Fairy Queen into a visually dynamic and immersive experience like no other. Enter now to win 1 of 3 exclusive opening night packages, valued at over $500, including: Two premium tickets to the opening night performance on June 7 Champagne at interval An autographed souvenir program Don't miss your chance to witness this spectacular new production of Purcell's masterpiece in a sumptuous, one-night-only experience! Enter by Tuesday, May 13 at 11:59pm AEDT to be in the running. Enter for your chance to win Competition Terms and Conditions
The Guardian
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Opera director Netia Jones: ‘AI is not going away. Either you batten down the hatches or you ride the wave'
Born in London, where she still lives, to an artist mother and musician father, Netia Jones is the new associate director of the Royal Opera. Known for using immersive installations, film and VR, her operas include Alice in Wonderland, Least Like the Other with Brian Irvine, which won the Ivor Novello best opera award, and Peter Grimes, which finished its run last week at the Gothenburg Opera House. Next year she will curate the Royal Ballet and Opera's first opera and technology festival, RBO/Shift. The first opera you ever saw, when you were 10, was Peter Grimes. How has it been to revisit the tragic fisherman's tale?Relentless! It's such a brilliant story but so bleak; it gets under your skin. Doing it in Gothenburg, which was cold and very wet, was perfect, although not the best thing for your mental health. And you were obsessed with it as a child, too?I was – drawing posters for it for weeks afterwards, and, funnily enough, it was here, at the Royal Opera House. I've realised something recently, actually. Kids don't come to the opera with any preconceptions. I've overheard the school matinees here, and the kids go wild. They just erupt. They're the best events any opera house can do. Why?Because when the singers come off stage, they're so excited. Kids don't mind about the niceties of when they should applaud or cheer, and I love that, because making opera is a kind of insanity. No one makes money making operas, but hundreds of people come together to make each one anyway, and that's extraordinary, isn't it? I think you really feel that something special is happening watching one when you're young. Opera is still seen as elitist to many, though. How would you convince someone to try it?The first thing I'd say is you don't have to like it. It's not like it's really superior. Most of the people that I know are not opera-goers, and they only come along because I drag them along, but they do tend to respond well. Anyway, opera isn't one thing. It's disparate – it can be on a small scale, or very technical, or full and lavish, or avant garde and German! Any tips for nervous opera-goers?It's useful to know the story before you come. If you did that with a play or film, it wouldn't work. In opera, we don't have spoiler alerts. You directed the first VR opera, Current, Rising and engage with AI in your work. How would you win over tech-sceptics?With any technological development, some people will use it to do bad things, some will use it to do good things. That's got nothing to do with the technology – it's just how we are as humans. But as artists, we must explore technology in all its guises because we are trained to create rather than to destroy. If you're coming to technology thinking 'What is the most beautiful, poetic, or positive thing we can do with this?', you think of how it enables all kinds of openings, allows multiple voices and improves access. Aren't you scared of AI?I know AI is the topic of the moment, but it's not going away. Either you batten down your hatches and the storm rages outside, or you ride the huge wave which is coming. I think it's better to be riding the wave than being overwhelmed by it. We can't be blind to the dangers and risks, but the whole AI story isn't just about worrying if machines are going to create operas or make everybody unemployed. It's about how we, the humans in the loop, can be enabled to imagine new futures when we're using it. It must help your optimism that you work in an environment where people aren't just stuck behind laptops.I've been lucky enough to work in every single opera-house department, seeing people's hands in vats dying fabrics, or embroidering, or building sets, or welding. Those jobs will never go away. I don't believe that opera is going to go away either. It has been with us for 300 years, and it will carry on, because it's not a medium: it's an art form. It's like Janus, the two-headed god, looking back into the past as much as it looks into the future. You studied modern languages at university. Has that been helpful?It's super useful to be able to speak the local language to people in [backstage] workshops. Recently, I learned Swedish for Peter Grimes with an AI buddy, which is so sad. I now have little conversations with my AI Swedish best friend! Speaking other languages is also important post-Brexit, as you can't be isolationist in opera. Opera, by its very nature, is international, and the best way of making work is to be open to other voices. Think about Mozart. He was travelling around Europe, picking up the best things from all of the countries, including the UK. This melting pot created his amazing work. You also work outside opera, working in video art and producing performances by artists like gothic singer-songwriter Keeley Forsyth. What do those experiences give you?Keeley's phenomenal. Her compositions really draw you into this shattering world of what it is to be human. I spend lots of my time outside opera, anyway – I'm more likely to be listening to Father John Misty than I am to Verdi, to be honest. But to me music is music, and to be able to do different projects concurrently means a great deal to me. It keeps you fresh – plus I don't see boundaries in my work. We're so susceptible to putting fences between things as human beings, but you shouldn't just do one thing with blinkers on for the rest of your life. That exchange with other ideas and other people is everything.
