AustLit

'ANTARCTICA is a contemporary opera dealing with historic, mythic and scientific beliefs and narratives revolving about the southern continent. In a time when anthropogenic climate change is destabilising all centres (political, cultural, scientific), Antarctica becomes a stage for a drama of the future. There are vested interests, beliefs, systems of thought all at odds to decide what to do about what is actually happening on this distant stage, a stage without human performers, a stage without sets, a stage without texts, a stage of wind and ice, of glaring reflectivity and competing song.  In an era of profound climate variability, ecological pressures, the movement of populations across continents, and heightened awareness of the fragility of our oceans, it is a fable for the twenty-first century.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Biographica is a new opera by award winning Australian composer Mary Finsterer with libretto by celebrated writer, Tom Wright. Informed by the principles of Renaissance music, and conceived for one actor, five singers and eleven musicians, Biographica is inspired by the extraordinary life and demise of Gerolamo Cardano.

'Gerolamo Cardano was a prolific inventor, a flawed father, a solitary, aggressive and peculiar soul with a magnificent and eccentric Renaissance mind; a human who listened to guardian angels, swore by science, and dreamt of defeating time. He wrote the first texts on the mathematics of gambling and cheating, was a world-renowned surgeon, invented algebra, and was the pioneer of sign language.'

Source: https://www.maryfinsterer.com/biographica