Soprano Rachelle Durkin to perform at Government House, Freeze Frame Opera and Australian Baroque

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Soprano Rachelle Durkin to perform at Government House, Freeze Frame Opera and *********** Baroque

Soprano Rachelle Durkin has an awesome August in store with two concerts and an opera to sing, commuting to Perth and Fremantle from her Busselton home.

She fled COVID and New York City in 2020 with her husband and young son, settling in the South West where she recently gave a recital at Dunsborough Family Centre with St George’s College Music.

The program featured selections from nine songs by Gabriel Faure, with text by Paul Verlaine, that Durkin will sing in full at Government House Ballroom on August 4 for Music on the Terrace.

She’ll be accompanied by Cygnus Arioso String Quartet and pianist Mark Coughlan – chair of the St George’s College music program – in the Faure, and also Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate.

Camera IconSoprano Rachelle Durkin. Credit: Nina Korbe

“Faure composed this with Emma Bardac in mind, who sang them back to him every day,” Durkin says.

“He said it was his most spontaneous composition. It’s called La Bonne Chanson, there are nine songs talking about love and nature and the future and being in love, and of course he was in love with Emma, but she ended up leaving him for Debussy!”

The style of composition is challenging.

“The shifting tonal centres, tempo, mode and metre are very different because we’re used to hearing Faure’s simple, beautiful tunes, like Clair de Lune and Apres un Reve,” Durkin says.

By contrast the Mozart will be “very easy listening”, and after that she will join Freeze Frame Opera for Mozart’s Don Giovanni – the tale of a serial philanderer who meets a sticky end.

“Directed by Penny Shaw, that’s going to be a rather different take on Don Giovanni whilst keeping all the obvious,” Durkin says. “It’s going to be based in our time, based loosely around Harvey Weinstein and his effect on women in casting, so I think it’s a great idea.”

Freeze Frame presents Don Giovanni at Fremantle Prison East Workshops, August 15-17, at 7pm.

“After that it’s *********** Baroque with WA Opera at Hackett Hall, I’m very much looking forward to that as well,” Durkin says.

The program, Un Bellissimo Fuoco (A very beautiful *****), is heavy on Handel, with operatic arias from Rinaldo, Rodelinda, Orlando and Ariodante, and elements of Vivaldi (In Furore) and Purcell (Music for a While), at WA Museum on August 29, from 6pm.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Camera IconRachelle Durkin sings at Dunsborough Family Centre with accompanist Mark Coughlan for St George’s College Music. Credit: Supplied/St George’s College Music

Durkin’s sojourn in the South West has been driven by family connections and the stress of life in a big city under COVID, interrupting a storied career in the US.

“It’s a beautiful part of the world, and now we have the Busselton Saltwater Performing Arts Centre that’s going to open, and many restaurants, and breweries and wineries, it’s really a place to be and of course wonderful to bring up children,” she says

“It’s always great to sing in your home town. There’s certainly an audience down here.

“They also want to come to concerts up in Perth which they can easily do, they just get in the car and go, so it’s the best of both worlds, really.”

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