'Innocence' is a beautiful, thought-provoking, relevant and timely new Australian Opera. With music by composer Anne Cawrse and a libretto by Adam Goodburn (Singular Productions), Innocence is based upon the award winning novel Time's Long Ruin by Stephen Orr.
Innocence is a story about grief and ambiguous loss. It talks to concepts of family, connection, community, growing up and what helps or hinders people when moving through tragedy. It is an intensely moving exploration of both the pain and the hope that follows the unimaginable.
Innocence has been developed with the support of Arts SA and the State Opera Company of South Australia. A semi-staged production was held at the Opera Studios, Adelaide in 2016. Some images taken from the showing can be seen below. A highlights video is available upon request.
Due to the unfathomable weirdness that has been 2020, the premiere of Anne's orchestral arrangement of Suite fromInnocence, which wasintended to be presented bythe Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the She Speaks festival of women composers has been postponed. We are hopeful that this may be able to occur in 2021.
For further inquiries regarding any aspect of this opera, please contact Anne here.
"Times Long Ruin' for Piano (2013) was composed as a brainstorming exercise in the early stages of writing the opera. Many of the themes present in this piece play pivotal roles in the musical journey of 'Innocence'. A perusal copy of the first two pages of the score can be found here.