The Hive

CHAMBERMADE’S
THE HIVE
ARTS HOUSE, MEAT MARKET
23 AUGUST – 10 SEPTEMBER

Opera composed by NICHOLAS VINES
Text by SAM SEJAVKA
Directed by DOUGLAS HORTON
Music Director BRETT KELLY
Set Design ANNA TREGLOAN
Lighting Design PAUL JACKSON
Performers: Anna Margolis, Sally Wilson, Michael Gillies Smith and Matthew Champion with SIMON MEADOWS as Rupert Brooke
Keyboards: Mark Kruger and Daniel Yim

The Hive explores the creation and exploitation of the ‘myth of the artist’ through the life and afterlife of English poet Rupert Brooke.

With great wit and irony, The Hive chronicles the terrible post-mortem “swarming” of the self-interested after Brooke’s death, with Brooke wandering through the opera as a hapless ghost commentating on the obscene manipulations of his work and estate.

Written in 1990 by Sam Sejavka, a man whose own life was immortalised in the 1987 film, “Dogs in Space”, The Hive won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama in 1990 and adapted into opera by brilliant young composer, Nicholas Vines.

Winner 2006 Green Room Award for Best Opera Production

Winner 2006 Helpmann Award for Best Opera Direction (Douglas Horton)