Obsessions and Addictions

Dunedin-based company The Little Box of Operas present two comic musical dramas with the common theme of ‘Obsessions and Addictions’:
J.S. Bach’s 'Coffee Cantata', and Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s 'Susanna’s Secret'.

Written 200 years apart, these stories merge in the tale of a single twenty-first-century family.
In the Coffee Cantata, Liesgen has reached Day 14 in an MIQ facility and is bored, frustrated and desperate for proper coffee. Her father, fed up with her incessant talk of coffee during their daily Facetime catch up (from a café), embarks on a campaign to persuade her to give it up altogether. Of course, he does not realise that she has already arranged to have coffee waiting when she arrives to join him.

Worse is waiting in Susanna’s Secret, when the pair arrive home. Susanna, Liesgen’s new stepmother (whose wedding she missed while she was trying to get home), smells of tobacco. As Liesgen's father believes she does not smoke, he immediately assumes that Susanna is having an affair. He is so obsessed by this possibility that he completely overlooks her real secret.

In this family turmoil of addictions and obsessions who will have the final word?

Liesgen: Caroline Burchell
Schlendrian (her father): Federico Freschi
Susanna (his new wife): Olivia Pike
Narrator (tenor): Max Beal
Artistic Director: Jenny Burchell
Musical Director, piano/harpsichord: David Burchell
Coffee Cantata with string and flute accompaniment.
Susanna’s Secret with piano accompaniment.

Tickets are available from Eventfinda, or in person from The Dolls House Dance Shop, King Edward Court, or by email from boxoperas@gmail.com. Door sales will be cash only; student special price $20 at the door only.