By Michael Doran
Yarra Ranges Regional Museum is breaking new ground with its first outdoor performance, Wilde Readings in the Park, on 21 November.
The performance compliments the ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ exhibition currently running at the museum until 3 February.
The readings, presented by John Wood, Michael Veitch and Simon Oats, will be interspersed with guest performances by opera singer Beth Williams, singer Rose Hampton and cellist Thomas Veitch.
The night starts with a drink and a tour of the exhibition and then a meander out the back to Melba Park and a picnic, accompanied by some Wilde Readings.
The Nightingale and the Rose is one of ten works of Oscar Wilde set to music and the show will be opened by Beth Williams singing the Song of the Nightingale. When not singing opera, Beth is the brewer at Hargreaves Hill Brewery in Lilydale.
Rose Hampton, a former student at Little Yarra Steiner School, has written a song of the nightingale exclusively for closing the show. She, along with Beth, will team with Thomas Veitch for the performance.
Lead actors, John Wood, Michael Veitch and Simon Oats have been mentoring an aspiring young drama student, Abi Pettigrew who is having her first NIDA audition following this show. Abi, who completed Year 12 at Mt Lilydale Mercy College, will perform a reading of The Happy Prince, another classic Wilde work.
Tanya Burne is performing an excerpt from the Ballad of Reading Goal, which is usually performed by a male-only cast so this is a rare and exciting prospect for the night.
This work was written by Wilde in 1897 after spending two years of hard labour in Reading Goal for homesexual offences. A passage from this poem was chosen as the epitaph for Wilde’s tomb in Paris.
The night starts at 6.30pm at the Yarra Ranges Museum with tickets at $25, including the first drink at the Museum. Tickets and antipasto picnic packs can be ordered online at boxoffice@yarraranges.vic.gov.au Drinks will be available however BYO alcohol is not permitted.
