Cirque de la Symphonie
Subscribe
X

Get the latest from Beat

Cirque de la Symphonie

cirquedelasymphonie.jpg

Led by Associate Conductor Benjamin Northey, the world-class troupe of circus performers, including acrobats, aerial flyers, contortionists, dancers, jugglers, balancers and strongmen, will have you on the edge of your seat as the orchestra builds to a crescendo, making it a night music lovers, young and old, will not soon forget.

“I’ve never been a part of anything like this, so I didn’t really know what to expect,” says Northey. “But as more details came in, the more intrigued I became with this production. Internationally and around Australia people have just loved the show, and they all came saying how magical, beautiful and artfully done it was – so it’s been really exciting to prepare for.”

Northey says he was first approached to be involved 12 months ago, but he admits that the preparation for a show of this magnitude has been anything but conventional.

“The performers have already choreographed their routines to the orchestral music, and so that in itself presented some challenges for me because I have to make sure that the speed of the music is appropriate and that we’re working together – we’re really collaborating. It’s not just two things existing independently of each other. That was important for everyone to understand.

“Just from a logistics point of view, knowing where performers are going to be at certain times is vital,” laughs Northey. “Because at some points they’re right over the top the orchestra doing acrobatics and aerial works, and that can be quite distracting for me and the musicians as well.

“However, I know that the stage in Hamer Hall is really well suited to this, especially since they’ve done the renovations,” he adds. “There’s a lot of space at the front of the stage and above the orchestra. The production team have made some serious modifications to the building; rigging a lot of stuff. Apparently they had to drill into the foundations of Hamer Hall. And they’ve had to devise some pretty extreme anchoring of the aerial structure that the performers use.”

When asked to pick a favourite moment during the show, Northey hesitates before choosing an old-school side show alley circus act. “There’s a whole bunch of really interesting parts of the production, but I suppose there’s one which I find quite fascinating – the strongmen. It’s just such a great old-fashioned circus performance. They perform along to a piece called Finlandia by Sibelius, which is filled with all these big brass chords and very bold music. What they’re doing brings out the feeling and intention of the music. It’s really special.

“It’s amazing the way they’ve been able to choreograph the routines along to the drama of the music, and bring out all of the emotions of the music through the stories that they’re telling through their performance.

“It’s really hard to pick just one favourite part though,” he continues. “The acrobatics are extraordinary and there’s some incredible music that people will know, like Tchaikovsky’s waltz from Swan Lake, the Thunder and Lightning Polka by Strauss, and  we’ve got music from the opera Carmen by Bizet. If people don’t know the names, they will know the melodies.”

As Northey undergoes final rehearsals for the exciting production, he hints that he may be asked to perform a leap of faith and feature in one of the death-defying acts himself. “I don’t exactly know what it entails as yet. That hasn’t been revealed to me. But I’ve been assured I’m not going to be hanging upside down on the trapeze.”

Northey has long been an advocate for the arts in Australia, choosing to settle in Melbourne a decade ago after studying under some of the famous names in the industry and working with some of the world’s most renowned orchestras. 

“I made a decision to come back after studying in Europe in 2006, and it was the best decision I ever made,” he says. “A: because we’ve got world-class orchestras here in Australia, and b:  because Melbourne has one of the world’s great orchestras. It’s very difficult for us to always have perspective on that, being an island continent where we don’t always get the chance to compare orchestras to each other as you can in Europe, because they’re all so close together.

“I feel that the arts have a crucial role to play in enriching society and bringing out the best in people, and giving people a chance to engage and not just to come along to a concert but actually to participate. I want young people to learn an instrument and have that aspect in their life because I think music teaches people a lot. It has the capacity to open people’s minds up to imagination, and so it has a very important role to play, and it’s great to be a part of that here in Australia.

“If there’s one young person out there who is so inspired by this concert that they go away wanting to take up an instrument or wanting to be a professional musician, then we’ve done our job.”

BY NATALIE ROGERS