Promising macabre comedy, names like ‘Murgatroyd’, and a cast with equal numbers of ghosts and mortals, OperaQ’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s gothic melodrama Ruddigore is just one day away from opening and we’re pretty sure it will knock your socks off.
The opera’s story begins in the modest Cornish town of Rederring. Everything seems super peachy for about a minute but, if the collected works of Agatha Christie are anything to go by, a quaint English village where nothing ever happens is exactly where the hardcore isht goes down and this isht is pretty bonkers. Here is a town where bridesmaid is a profession, a nasty curse plagues local gentry, and the eerie spectres of dead baronets run rampant.
In bringing this oddball gothic to life, Artistic Director Lindy Hume drew inspiration from surrealist black comedies as well as Tim Burton’s patented kooky aesthetic, “it’s totally quirky, eccentric and anarchic... a night of pure silliness, with plenty of Victorian eccentricity” says Hume of her latest work.
With costumes and scenery designed by Richard Roberts, the audience is plunged into Ruddigore’s unsettling world upon first glance of the supernatural diorama.
Make sure you get in quick with the tickets and secure your chance to see Bryan Probets in the role of our hero, Robin Oakapple, and Christine Johnson tackle the Act I aria as the deranged Mad Margaret.
The details
What: Ruddigore
Where: Playhouse, QPAC
When: 14 – 29 July
Tickets: $25 - $130, available here.
Image credit: Ruddigore at QPAC