STAGES with Peter Eyers

Emma Matthews is currently head of Classical Voice and Opera Studies at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. She is Patron of the Wesfarmers Young Artist Program at West Australian Opera and is a highly acclaimed and awarded soprano.  She has performed with all the state opera companies and the major Australian symphony orchestras; and at the Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Huntington Festivals, with conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Marko Letonja, Sir Charles Mackerras and Simone Young. Emma has sung the title roles in Partenope, Lucia di Lammermoor, Lakmé, The Cunning Little Vixen and Lulu. Other roles have included Leila (The Pearlfishers), Amina (La Sonnambula), Philomele (The Love of the Nightingale) by Richard Mills, Ilia (Idomeneo), Juliette (Roméo et Juliette), Marie (La Fille du Regiment), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Zdenka (Arabella), the four heroines (The Tales of Hoffmann), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Almirena (Rinaldo), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Giulietta (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) and Cunegonde (Candide). She is equally in demand on the concert platform, embracing a wide repertoire including the Requiems of Mozart, Brahms and Fauré, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, masses by Poulenc, Villa Lobos, Haydn and Mozart, and Handel’s Messiah. Emma has also appeared as a special guest with José Carreras at the Sydney Opera House, and the New Year’s Eve Gala concerts for Opera Australia. Career highlights include her Royal Opera House Covent Garden debut in the title role of The Cunning Little Vixen under the baton of Sir Charles Mackerras, Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo conducted by Yakov Kreizberg and with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Ismene (Mitridate) for Sydney Festival. More recent roles include Violetta (La Traviata), Fiorilla (Il turco in Italia), Gilda (Rigoletto), the Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute) and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) for Opera Australia and Rosina (The Barber of Seville) for West Australian Opera.  Her recent concert appearances include the Strauss Gala for State Opera South Australia, the national tour of From Broadway to La Scala, Les Illuminations with Ensemble Liaison, Mozart arias with Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl Concert and Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson (Copland) (released on disc for MSO Live in March 2014), and the ‘Jewel Song’ from Faust (Gounod)  and the ‘Mad Scene’ from Hamlet (Thomas), also with the Melbourne Symphony, Mozart Requiem and arias with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and recitals at Government House Sydney, with Ensemble Liaison and Sydney Omega Ensemble, featuring at Musica Viva’s Huntington Festival, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’ Christmas concerts and Voices in the Forrest, Canberra as well as Duparc Songs with Simone Young and the ANAM Orchestra. Further engagements have included The Space between the Notes, written especially for Emma by Paul Grabowsky and Steve Vizzard, at the Victorian Arts Centre; An Evening in Vienna with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Leila (The Pearlfishers) and the New Years’ Eve gala concert for Opera Australia; Violetta (La Traviata); a national tour of Voyage to the Moon – a baroque opera pasticcio for Musica Viva and Victorian Opera; Messiah with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; Stonnington Opera in the Park and recitals at Kangaroo Valley Arts Festival, Perth Town Hall, the Melbourne Recital Centre and for Recitals Australia at Ukaria. Emma also portrayed Nellie Melba, in a new play, Melba: An Operatic Drama, by Nicholas Christo, presented at the Hayes Theatre, Sydney. Emma’s album of bel canto arias, Emma Matthews in Monte Carlo, was released by Deutsche Grammophon / ABC Classics to critical acclaim. Her album of Mozart arias with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Marko Letonja conducting was released by ABC Classics in February 2014, and her most recent recording of bel canto arias with ABC Classics and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Andrea Molino conductor), “Agony and Ecstasy” was released in September 2016. Emma Matthews returns to the Opera Australia stage in the New Year - as the Fairy Godmother in Massenet’s CENDRILLON. Marking the first time OA performs Massenet’s Cinderella (Cendrillon), Laurent Pelly’s highly acclaimed production will make its Australian debut after seasons at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House, playing the Sydney Opera House from January 2nd to March 28th. The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages). www.stagespodcast.com.au

Pamela Rabe is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and awarded actors, recognised for her immense body of work on stage and screen. Canadian born, she is a graduate from the Playhouse Acting School, in Vancouver, and for the past several decades she has worked constantly in theatre across the country and around the world.  Her work has encompassed State theatre companies and commercial theatre with dynamic performances in productions of new work and established classics that extend to God Of Carnage, Blithe Spirit, Dinner, The Misanthrope, The Marriage of Figaro, The Taming of the Shrew, A Moon for the Misbegotten, The Heidi Chronicles, The Cherry Orchard, Little Murders, As You Like It, Tristram Shandy, A Servant of Two Masters, Heartbreak House, Too Young For Ghosts, Visions, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Medea, Top Girls, 84 Charring Cross Road, The Winter’s Tale, The War of the Roses, The Serpent’s Teeth, Gallipoli, Season at Sarsparilla, The Lost Echo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Holy Day, The Rover, Private Lives, Three Tall Women, Lost in Yonkers, Much Ado About Nothing, The Ham Funeral, Stronger, Miss Julie, Woman Bomb, Boston Marriage, The Apple Cart, Cho Cho San, Do Not Go Gentle, The Marriage of Bette & Boo, The Glass Menagerie, Ghosts, Footfalls, Seventeen, The Children, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Hamlet. Forays into the musical theatre include stellar turns in Name, Grey Gardens, A Little Night Music, Into the Woods, My Fair Lady and The Wizard of Oz. Pamela won the 1997 AFI Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for the film The Well and also appeared in the films Cosi, Sirens and Paradise Road. Her work in television includes The Secret Life of Us, Mercury, The Bite, Rosehaven, CrashBurn, Stingers, Deadloch, Bay of Fires and Wentworth. An equally accomplished Director, her productions have adorned the stages of the Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and Malthouse. They include Daniel Keene’s The Serpent’s Teeth: Citizens with The Actors Company, Elling, In The Next Room or The Vibrator Play and Solomon and Mary, Vanessa Bates’ Porn: Cake, and Jumpy by April de Angelis. Pamela is presently on the Sydney stage with in Tracy Lett’s gothic family saga August: Osage County, playing Matriarch Violet Weston. The production plays at the Belvoir Theatre until December 22nd. In 2025 she will direct and perform in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the STC and deliver a delicious Mrs Danvers in Rebecca for the MTC. The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages). www.stagespodcast.com.au

Guy Noble is an Australian musical composer, conductor, pianist and broadcaster. He studied piano in the early 1980s at the Sydney Conservatorium. On a scholarship from the Australia Council he travelled to London where he worked for four years, including a stint as presenter on BBC Radio 3.  In 1984, he was pianist in the Sydney Youth Orchestra and from 1984 to 1986 in the Australian Youth Orchestra. Noble was the inaugural recipient of the Brian Stacey Memorial Trust Award for emerging Australian conductors in 1998; the trust, in collaboration with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, financed the composition and recording of Noble's Flute Concerto, written for Jane Rutter. In 2022 he was appointed as the conductor and host of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Guy Noble regularly conducts the Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, West Australian, Tasmanian and Queensland Symphony orchestras and has worked with the Canberra Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia and the Malaysian Philharmonic orchestras. He has been Musical Director and Musical Supervisor for musicals including Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard, Hello Dolly!, South Pacific, Man of La Mancha, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Gypsy and the Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. He has recorded 12 CDs and ABC Classics in Australia has released his comedy sketch CD entitled The Guy Noble Radio Show. He has also conducted and presented concerts with performers including Harry Connick Jr , Dianne Reeves, The Beach Boys, Ben Folds, Clive James, David Hobson, Yvonne Kenny, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Randy Newman. He is a former host of the ABC Classic FM radio breakfast program and he writes a regular column in Limelight magazine. The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages). www.stagespodcast.com.au

It’s the time of year where folk are jetting off on holidays - a key destination for many theatre fans is to head to the West End of London or the bright lights of Broadway - theatre precincts which guarantee excitement and awe. Two gentlemen who make their own annual pilgrimage to the Great White Way or the West End -  are ‘Man in Chair’ Simon Parris, and Publicist Ian Phipps. The two theatre aficionados join the STAGES podcast regularly to offer a round-up of the shows they’d seen on recent trips to the theatre meccas.  They offer abundant tips regarding what to see and how to secure tickets … so, they’re back again - this time to appraise their recent trips to New York and the Broadway season looming - a delicious appraisal of what is on, what has been, and what we can expect to see in coming months. We also look at the abundance of musical offerings locally in 2025. Simon Parris is a theatre reviewer based in Melbourne. His review blog ‘Man in Chair’ regularly reviews musicals, plays, opera and the arts. Access to these reviews can be found at simonparrismaninchair.com Ian Phipps is one of Australia’s leading publicists, promoting theatre and its stars around Australia. If you know that a show is happening, no doubt it’s because Ian has communicated this to you via a myriad of masterful means. The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages). www.stagespodcast.com.au