Exhibitions

A collaborative project between Georgia Laughton and Issie Hart.

Words by Issie Hart.

Death By Soprano satirically catalogues death scenes from opera. It is a project created with a great love of opera, but also embraces a loving irreverence for her occasionally over-inflated ego.

Utilising slapstick, absurdism and dark-clowning Death By Soprano portrays final moments in the lives of operatic heroines. Some scenes remain true to the finer details of their operatic origins. Others wander somewhere left of context. We have snuck up on some of opera’s sacred cows and tipped them as they sleep. Other pieces have been treated with the reverence and delicacy we feel they deserve.

Death By Soprano is an operatic theatrical work and a photographic exhibition. The theatrical work traces the journey of one operatic soprano as she runs an alphabetical gauntlet of operatic occupational hazards*. Death By Soprano explores the glorification of the feeble, helpless, diseased and fallen female as a continuing element of mainstream entertainment.

Removed from their exalted contexts and gilded cages our operatic heroines appear farcical. The resulting tension between dispatched divas, magnificent theatricality and sublime musical compositions creates a lithe playing-field for the theatrical journey. Here comedy and tragedy merge to create an immersive experience of arresting music, captivating tragedy, the struggles of endurance and the joy of being alive.

The photographic series employs similar measures of irreverence and delicacy. We have endeavoured to capture the same sense of fun through our choices of location, situation and the portrayal of each character. Not all our divas have been blatantly satirised. Madame Butterfly in particular was treated with the utmost respect and sincerity. By applying an individual approach to the interpretation of each heroine we hope to give depth to the exhibition and take the viewer with us on a journey though the stories of opera.

These images of European heroines were created in an unavoidably Australian Landscape. A rusted gallon drum and wattle landscape represent the Black Forrest of Königskinder, La Wally succumbs to an avalanche on Mt Buller, Ophelia drowns in the Fitzroy pool and Brunhilde rides her Luna Park carousel pony onto Siegfried’s funeral pyre. These images have not been deliberately ‘Australianised’ but our identity at Australian artists is personified and embraced throughout the work.