Conductor Dane Lam, who last year was appointed both the Music Director of the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra and the Artistic Director of the State Opera of South Australia, has made a welcome return to Opera Australia, conducting their Orpheus & Eurydice, produced in collaboration with Sydney Festival.
"Dane Lam, who conducted the original 2019 production in Brisbane (and who was recently appointed as the Artistic Director of State Opera South Australia), leads the Opera Australia Orchestra, finding all the beauty in Gluck’s exquisite, lyrical music with a lovely, lively reading."
Jo Litson, Limelight Magazine
"Seeing Dane Lam conduct offered a visual embodiment of the rhythmic impulse coming from the pit that complemented the stage. His interpretation told. A person did not need to read the printed synopsis to know where the Acts fell; the orchestral weight said it all. There was an impressive architecture in Lam’s reading, note for example the way not overly-emphatic accents in the overture which accompanied the hanging Eurydice, grew to stabbing emphasis in Orpheus’s big Act three number, “Che farò senza Euridice,” Orpheus’s regret at finally losing Eurydice, and a musical pinnacle that Lam and Dumaux built toward."
Gordon Williams, OperaWire
"First produced by Opera Queensland in association with Circa in 2019, this re-mounting, also directed by Lifschitz, adds the not inconsiderable power of the Opera Australia Chorus and Orchestra, performed under the light, sensitive baton of Dane Lam, familiar to Canberra audiences from his work with National Opera and the CSO."
Helen Musa, City News
"The orchestra under the baton of Dane Lam did a wonderful job of realising Gluck’s composition..."
Irina Dunn, City Hub
"The orchestra ...playing dynamically or sweetly as required under Dane Lam’s baton."
Jeremy Eccles, Bachtrack
Orpheus & Eurydice plays until the 31st January 2024 in the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. More information here.
