Alan John
THE EIGHTH WONDER
Concept and Scenario by Dennis Watkins
Libretto by Dennis Watkins and Alan John
The story behind the world's most iconic building inspired Australia's most enduring full scale opera. It was first performed a quarter of a century ago. 2023 marks half a century since the building opened.
1995
Sydney Opera House
2000
Sydney Opera House
2016
Sydney Opera House
2023
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“held me enthralled for the entire course of a three-hour evening…This is one of the most thrilling things I have seen in an opera house all year, finer than anything seen at either of the London lyric theatres”
— Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times (1995)
“music drama of a high order of effectiveness, in which the pulse of the action never falters…Opera is alive and well and being reinvented at the Opera House.”
— Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald (1995)
“exhilarating…Not since John Adams’s Nixon in China have I seen a modern opera that connected so directly with its audience.”
— Michael Billington, The Guardian (1995)
"In its mix of the mythic with the ordinary (and the occasionally comedic), The Eighth Wonder ranks alongside Jonathan Dove’s Flight as a modern opera that can be both sophisticatedly constructed yet reach out to ears less familiar with mid-20th-century compositional trends."
-Clive Paget, Limelight (2016)
“the score is complex, profound, and at the same time has a mercurial quality that very few composers besides Mozart and Britten have ever achieved. John can weave seamlessly between aria and ensemble, between chorus and dialogue, with an adroitness few can match.”
— Nicholas Routley, Australian Stage (2016)