Pirata Bellini

A fully staged production of Bellini's famous bel canto opera, Il Pirata. The opera will be accompanied by orchestra and staged on the terraces of a Days Bay garden. The event has a picnic supper interval when members of the audience can spread out and picnic in the garden between the first and second half of the opera, Glyndebourne style! Seats are provided to watch the opera.

Fabulous soloists Rebecca Ryan, Kieran Rayner and Zachary McCulloch bring this high romantic opera to life. The opera opens with a pirate ship wrecked in the bay and the men are rescued and brought to shore. The pirate is the ex lover of Imogene and finds himself amongst his enemies and coming face to face with the fact that Imogene is now married to his arch enemy Ernesto and has a son with him!

Bellini's music inspired the nocturnes of Chopin and has beautiful long melancholic lines for the singers and orchestra. The opera's most famous scene is the mad scene, sung in the 1950s by Maria Callas and in the 1960s by Montserrat Caballé, making this an opera for divas and prima donnas.