Blood

The year is 1827 and Austrian composer Schubert is alone in a room. He coughs up blood; he hallucinates; he struggles with the act of creation.

In this exciting collaboration between MALTHOUSE THEATRE and CHAMBER MADE OPERA, the nineteenth and the twenty-first century come into dynamic relationship. Schubert meets three contemporary composers (Alex Garsden, Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, Jesse McVeity) who could well be his peers in another lifetime.

The songs from Die Winterreise receive a strange and wondrous reply from vocalist and musician Ida Duelund Hansen and sound designer Jethro Woodward. And the remarkable Caroline Lee (Alias Grace, Black, Care Instructions) strides through the stage interrogating just what it means to make music that sits within a tradition, but lives in the here and now.

Things on Sunday is a series that speaks to and about a range of cultural concerns in Australian society today. Its style is intima­te, with a touch of the theatrical. Its philosophy is art matters. The series comprises regular events that bring together commentary and conversation in an always-entertaining combination.

BLOOD complemented Malthouse Theatre and ThinIce’s production of DIE WINTERREISE (20 – 31 July 2011), directed by Matthew Lutton and starring Paul Capsis.