THE LIGHTHOUSE

Sydney Chamber Opera presents Peter Maxwell Davies’ 1979 opera The Lighthouse, a modern classic of the genre. Based on a true story, this haunting tale of three youthful lighthouse keepers’ isolated descent into madness and mysterious disappearance has all the psychological intensity and suspense to rival Britten’s The Turn of the Screw or Kubrick’s film The Shining.

With a charismatic all-male cast and virtuosic 12-piece chamber orchestra featuring honky-tonk and banjo, SCO tackles chilling music of “abundant atmosphere and menacing momentum” (The Guardian). In 75 electrifying minutes, the composer pushes the instruments and voices to their extremes, ratcheting up the tension in a terrifying climax.

Directed by young theatre sensation Kip Williams (Sydney Theatre Company’s Under Milk Wood  and the 2013 Romeo & Juliet), SCO’s atmospheric production focuses on psychological drama and the uneasy relationship between the three men, with a choreographed movement ensemble of interlocked bodies evoking the turmoil of the sea.

Photography by Louis Dillon-Savage