2020 was the year we all discovered Zoom. In this final podcast from the Seesaw Lounge, West Australian Opera’s Music Director Chris van Tuinen discusses how the company staged a COVID comedy about the way we attempt to connect over technology.
Features/Music
A COVID opera: WA Opera’s ‘The Telephone’
17 December 2020
- Reading time • 3 minutesMusic
More like this
- Makoto Ozone: Jazz with pizazz
- Preserving the “sweaty beer barns” in the quiet of the library
- Festivals return to Fairbridge
The winter season of the Seesaw Lounge is being released as a podcast series. In this conversation Music Director of the West Australian Opera Chris van Tuinen discusses the company’s COVID reinterpretation of Menotti’s The Telephone, released in July on YouTube.
Unusual times call for unusual opera. West Australian Opera’s new production of Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone is opera as you’ve never seen it before, unfolding over Zoom.
This is the third episode of the Seesaw Lounge, recorded with Rosalind Appleby, Chris van Tuinen, and Seesaw Friends on Friday 17 July 2020.
Chris van Tuinen discusses the heart of what makes an opera. Check out WAO’s COVID interpretation of The Telephone on YouTube before you listen or wait until the podcast is over and then dive in.
“At its heart [‘The Telephone’] says to us a message which I think is particularly relevant to us now, which is: no matter how technology attempts to connect us, there’s always a cost in terms of real human connection with other people. And there are opportunities for great comedy in the way technology connects us.”
Chris van Tuinen discusses Menotti’s ‘The Telephone‘
WA Opera’s The Telephone was released online on 9 July 2020.
Listen to the previous conversations in the Seesaw Lounge Series, Behind the Scenes at the Ballet and Curator Lee Kinsella reveals a visual arts treasure trove.
Not a Friend of Seesaw?
Join now OR find out more.
Pictured top: Chris van Tuinen sits at the piano in his lounge, which was the set for ‘The Telephone‘.
Like what you're reading? Support Seesaw.
Past Articles
Celebrating five years of independent journalism
Seesaw Magazine has reached a new milestone in our quest to ignite conversation about the arts in WA. Find out how you can support us and keep courageous, professional and independent journalism alive.
Perth’s international organist
Enticed from England 14 years ago by the Dean of St George’s Cathedral, Joseph Nolan’s impact on the local music scene has been significant. He chats with Rosalind Appleby about his latest overseas tour and why Perth audiences need to hear Handel’s Samson.
