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Music Theatre

Isabella

By Vivien Arnold

Regular price $90.00 Sale


Ideal Music Theatre work for primary and secondary school students and adults.

Isabella [or The trials of a convicts maid] is a cross-genre piece - a combination of melodrama, pantomime and G&S.  The humour, using caricature, pun and slap-stick, is designed to cater for all ages.  Over the past three decades it has been regularly performed in schools and adult drama and operatic societies throughout Australia.
Composed 1977 rev 1979

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ISMN 9790720171838
$45.00 for instant PDF download (105 pages) Buy Now

Job Pilgrim

By Vivien Arnold

Regular price $150.00 Sale

Ideal Music Theatre work.

This work was informed and inspired by many contemporary theologians, psychologists, scientists and poets including Cynthia  Bourgeault, Richard Dawkins, Richard Rohr, John Saxbee, Eckhart Tolle, and Keith Ward, and those now dead including Meister Ekhart, TS Eliot, John Greenleaf Whittier, Hafiz, G M Hopkins, Rainer Rilke, Rumi,  and  in particular Carl Jung.  Their words have been used both as quotes and libretti throughout.   Biblical texts have also been used.  The work is based on the Book of Job. Inspiration also came from doctors, nursing staff and patients.

The script is loosely modelled on a miracle play. The music is enigmatic in the use of keys: Bb (be flat); C (see); C# (see sharply), B (Be); although, for the sake of variety, this idea isn’t used exclusively.

The choir of pilgrims, the quartet and many of the solos and duets by Christof and Sophia, act like a Greek chorus, commenting on the play.

Although this is conceived as a dramatised oratorio, the music could stand alone as a whole or as separate items.  A second script - Faith Re-Found - (included as an addendum) is provided to hold much of the music together for performance as an oratorio with no dramatics. 

Written and music composed 2014

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ISMN 9790720171999
$70.00 for instant PDF download (185 pages) Buy Now

Man Called Thunderbolt, The

By Vivien Arnold

Regular price $175.00 Sale

Ideal Music Theatre work for higher school students and adults.

Fred Ward - alias Captain Thunderbolt - was Australia's longest lasting and most successful bushranger.  Over seven years he held people up in the New England area and was rumoured to have taken twenty thousand pounds.  Naturally this peeved a great many people.  However there were others who truly held him in esteem - even some of his victims.

This arose from admiration of his superb horsemanship, his unfailing politeness, his eschewed non-violence, his good humour and sense of fun, his soft-heartedness, his kindness to the orphaned, his championship of the underdog, and his sense of fair play.  In short, he was Australia's real life Robin Hood.

In sharp contrast, the authorities showed him no leniency at any stage.  Moreover, after his death, some believe accounts of his life were deliberately suppressed and expunged because he was a natural inspiration for the sort of republican rebellion they dreaded.  

His strong and passionate relationship with Maryanne Bugg - Queen Yellow Long - pointed to reconciliation with the first Australians.  Sadly their children were farmed out and the lineage lost.

This opera traces the story of their lives as a reality, albeit somewhat romanticised.  At the same time it examines attitudes and interests of the day in the young colony of New South Wales through using both anecdotes and written records.

Its large cast features people documented in the stories told about Ward.  All chorus members are required to have speaking or solo/ensemble singing roles so this is not a production that asks people to sit around back-stage for slabs of time.  The original staging comprised large blocks that could be quickly rearranged for set changes.  This too was the job of the entire cast, who sometimes turned their backs to the audience forming human walls as part of the set.  Costuming is inexpensive.  

The work was written for an amateur society with a cast of around 50 (good for ticket sales!).  It received critical acclaim when it was staged in 1988 for the bicentennial.  Being an historic piece it has not dated.

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ISMN 9790720171173
$70.00 for instant PDF download (304 pages) see: Buy Now

Muffin Fiend, The

By Diana Blom

Regular price $70.00 Sale

Children's Opera  (2015)
 
The children's opera, The Muffin Fiend, was written in 1990 and received its first performance in 1991 by Wenona Junior School in Sydney, Australia.  Drawing on a number of musical influences, (including Mozart), the music takes cues from Pinkwater's classic children book of the same name, first published by Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Books, New York in 1986.  

The libretto is based on The Muffin Fiend by Daniel Pinkwater, by arrangement with the Andrew Brown Literary Agency, Inc.; the cover illustration, by Daniel Pinkwater, is used with permission.

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ISMN9790720166872
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Old Mother Hubbard

By Frank Millward

Regular price $120.00 Sale

For SATB and Orchestra, Duration 15’ 00.   Technical difficulty - level 7.
Words by David Gale


As part of the complete production of Hilary Westlake's  "Dining with Alice",  other pieces from the Suite are available online.

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ISMN 9790720167619
$100.00 for instant PDF download score and parts Buy Now

Sand Fairy, The

By Vivien Arnold

Regular price $120.00 Sale

Voice, flute and piano.  Ideal Music Theatre work for primary and secondary school students and adults.

An Australian musical derived from "Five Children and It" and "The Phoenix and the Carpet" by E. Nesbit.  Additional lyrics, libretto and music by Vivien Arnold and Liam Smith.  Music composed 1991

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ISMN 9790720172187

$50.00 for instant PDF download (160 pages) score and parts  Buy Now

Second Chance, The

By Houston Dunleavy

Regular price $50.00 Sale

Short Opera about redemption, c.10'30

Young lovers Keith and Erica are in the last days of their doomed relationship.  Angry and distant, they have no chance of finding or giving forgiveness for whatever drove them apart.  By some odd quirk of time, space, and fate, their 20-years-older selves are flung back to this moment, forced to watch what they have both replayed in their minds a thousand times and more:  the moment when Erica walked away, and Keith ... just ... lets her go.

Current-day Keith and Erica plead with their younger selves, trying to make them see that they're throwing away the best person they will ever love, that the rest of their lives will be dull and full of regret and pain.  The younger selves can neither see nor hear them, and the older selves realise that if this love is to be redeemed, it can only happen to who they are right now.

Composed 2010.  Libretto by Laura E Goodin.

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ISMN 9790720126524

$45.00 for instant PDF download libretto and score Buy Now

Slice of Alice, A

By Frank Millward

Regular price $40.00 Sale

For Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, ‘Cello, Double Bass, Trumpet Bb, Horn in F, Bass Trombone, Keys, Percussion - Duration 2’10”.  
Technical difficulty - level six standard

As part of the complete production of Hilary Westlake's  "Dining with Alice",
this instrumental piece is played as the opening piece of the concert – originally as the audience gathers. It functions as an opening statement for the Suite.  
"Dining with Alice" and other pieces from the Suite are available online.

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ISMN 9790720167336 

$35.00 for instant digital download score and partsBuy Now

Spider and the Fly, The

By Frank Millward

Regular price $60.00 Sale

For Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Tenor, Baritone and Chamber Orchestra  
(Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, ‘Cello, Double Bass, Trumpet Bb, Horn in F, Bass Trombone, Keys, Percussion). Duration 6’ 10
Technical difficulty - level six standard - Choir – level four.

From the original poem by Mary Howitt (1799-1888)
The Spider and the Fly features a quartet of soloists – the Red Queen (Soprano), White Queen (Alto), King of Hearts (Tenor), the White Knight (Baritone) and Choir. This is a character piece and should be considered in the context of its stylistic Victorian roots. Each of the characters should be mindful of the accent used in delivery. 

As part of the complete production of Hilary Westlake's  "Dining with Alice",
other pieces from the Suite are available online.

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 ISMN 9790720167572

$55.00 for instant digital download score and parts Buy Now

Vulture Culture

By Frank Millward

Regular price $100.00 Sale

A choreographed music theatre.

In Vulture Culture, contemporary society is characterised as an orchestra with each section striding carelessly and at times, brutally, over any vulnerable little thing that get in its way. Words by David Gale.

For parts contact keats@wirripang.com.au

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