SHAKESPEARE & SYMPHONY
Shakespeare’s greatest stories collide with a full symphony orchestra, powerhouse local performers, and live theatre.
WORDS BROOKE GIBBS
IMAGE CHARLIE BLISS
THE PLAYHOUSE STAGE transforms into a world of star-crossed lovers, enchanted forests, royal fanfares and timeless poetry, in a breathtaking collaboration between the Darwin Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Darwin Festival, and Brown’s Mart.
Blending orchestral masterworks with spoken performance, movement, and choral music, the production invites audiences to experience Shakespeare through a new lens.
Marking the first collaboration between DSO and Brown’s Mart in more than 30 years, this showcase brings together the worlds of theatre and classical music in a unique and powerful artistic partnership.
Leading the orchestra is DSO Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Richard Mills, guiding audiences through music that spans centuries while remaining deeply connected by Shakespeare’s themes of love, ambition, loss, and redemption. He says it’s important that the DSO is open to collaboration with all the professional arts companies in the Territory.
“Brown’s Mart has a proud history of new work and First Nations work. And it’s interesting, the approach to Shakespeare is then quite original, and interesting, and somewhat out of the ordinary, which will shed fresh light on Shakespeare as well,” Mills says.
“So there are lots of good reasons to work with a really innovative company with a First Nations focus on a very traditional text.”
The evening opens with the regal splendour of William Walton, whose music for Richard III and Henry V captures both the pageantry and political intrigue of Shakespeare’s history plays.
From there, the mood shifts into the spellbinding world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then come two of classical music’s most passionate interpretations of literature’s greatest love story.
Hector Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet Symphony offers a deeply lyrical portrait of the young lovers, with the famous balcony scene unfolding in waves of tenderness and longing. It’s followed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s iconic Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, one of the most recognisable works in the orchestral repertoire.
The evening concludes on a luminous note with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, performed with Darwin vocal ensemble Vocalective under the direction of Michael Loughlin. Drawing its text from The Merchant of Venice, the work is a celebration of harmony, beauty, and the transcendent power of music itself.
Threaded throughout the performance are Shakespeare’s own words, brought vividly to life by two of the Northern Territory’s most acclaimed performers, Rob Collins and Ursula Yovich. Under the direction of Gail Evans, with movement director Balla Neba adding another layer of visual storytelling, their spoken performances weave seamlessly through the orchestral works, creating a dialogue between music and theatre.
Shakespeare’s stories have endured through centuries, and continues to connect with new audiences through mixed performance mediums.
“I think audiences will discover the music of the words that have inspired so much music,” Mills says.
Shakespeare & Symphony
WHEN SAT 22 AUG | 7.30PM
AT AANT CENTRE
COST $20-$65
INFO dso.org.au
