A standing ovation for the first OPERATIF! concert of opera highlights was testament to the need for performances of popular opera and song in intimate mode. this first performance quickly grew to an annual subscription series and a second mid-week series for Seniors who appreciated quality music performances.
Each themed-performance was keenly anticipated with many needing to be repeated to cater for demand.
OPERATIF!’s commitment to presenting talented local performers and to ensuring our rich vocal heritage received the audiences it deserved, meant the company enjoyed over 20 years of full-time performances. Jennifer, Stewart and colleagues still perform of course and always enjoy the Opera in Paradise musical holiday weeks.
Aside from these concert series, OPERATIF! was sought after for many corporate and special event performances for high profile clients including Rotary, QPAC, Brisbane Festival, Council on the Aging, Arts Queensland, Tourism Queensland and the Premier’s Department.
Opera in the Amphitheatre at Lake Macdonald, Noosa was a much-anticipated public event presented twice yearly.
Perhaps the pinnacle of OPERATIF!’s production successes were their highly acclaimed fully-staged opera productions, presented in the name of their then sister company, Brisbane City Opera #. Offering an original offering ‘Opera, A Passionate Affair’ featured a large cast of local performers and many excerpts from opera wound into an original story….a theatre/opera collaboration! Madam Butterfly followed with two seasons in successive years and finally, Menotti’s The Consul which was the only opera offering in the inaugural Brisbane Festival. All of these productions met with tremendous audience enthusiasm, critical acclaim and calls for this enterprising organisation to become Qld’s second-string Opera company.
OPERATIF! had vision and many projects we hoped to bring to fruition. Opposition from the State company and elusive Government support very sadly put an end to a very popular and very promising enterprise. In so doing however, this made way for a new adventure, one initially shared with many of their loyal performance clients but now reaching all over Australia and beyond in attracting travellers. This new chapter was Music Lovers Tours and Stewart and Jennifer hope you will join them soon.
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# In recent years there has been another company performing using our name of Brisbane City Opera. There is no connection.
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