Opera’s bad girl: Anna Bishop returns to Ballarat!

WRITTEN by Sarahlouise Owens, directed by Tony Turner and Cate Clelland, with pianist Kathleen Loh, Opera’s Bad Girl: Anna Bishop, the World’s First Daringly Defiant Diva tells of the extraordinary life of Victorian era opera diva, Anna Bishop, presenting songs and arias of the time, that became parlour favourites whose charms still endure.

Long before women could vote, let alone take centre stage, one woman rewrote the rules.

Before Melba… there was the scandalous Anna Bishop, the darling of the Goldfields Opera’s Bad Girl is a thrilling, one-of-a-kind theatrical experience that tells the untamed true story of Anna Bishop, opera’s original rebel. A Victorian-era trailblazer who defied her time, she lived fast, sang farther, and dared to do what no woman had done before.

From scandal to spotlight, Anna Bishop was unstoppable. She left her famous composer husband and defied polite society by running off with her genius virtuoso harpist lover, embarking on a globe-trotting adventure so wild it reads like fiction: shipwrecks, tiger attacks, hostage-takings, war zones and epidemics.

Through it all, she sang. To royalty. To rebels. To packed houses on every continent – including three history-making tours of Australia, where she performed in the goldfields and helped shape our musical identity.

Now, her extraordinary life returns to Ballarat where she performed to adoring audiences in a dazzling performance by acclaimed soprano Sarahlouise Owens.

Through beloved arias like Lucia’s Mad Scene, The Last Rose of Summer, and Home Sweet Home, Owens channels Anna’s bold spirit, fierce independence, and infectious charisma – breathing life into a woman who dared to live on her own terms.

Sarahlouise has a long career with international experience and is a celebrated concert soloist and recital singer in Canberra.

Canberra-based Kathleen Loh, a graduate of ANU, is a well-known and loved accompanist of art song and plays for various choral groups and national opera.Since learning of Anna Bishop, Sarahlouise has found learning about Anna’s life a thrilling adventure. Learning and researching about Anna has been a labour of love, yet condensing all the interesting facets of her life and distilling the essence of how incredible and daring she was, into one hour, proved the biggest challenge.

Bill Stephens reviewed Opera’s Bad Girl as “a thoroughly entertaining, brilliantly presented tour de force…”

Friday 24 October, 7pm, Ballarat Mechanics Institute, Sturt Street.

Tickets: $35, $30 concession/pensioner, $20 student.

Visit events.humanitix.com/st-a-opera-s-bad-girl.

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