OCEAN Grove soprano Sally Wilson is tuning up for an edgy German opera unseen in Melbourne for 45 years.
She will play the lead female role of Agathe in composer Carl Weber’s dark romance The Marksman.
The widely-travelled Wilson has experience with German opera after performing for several years as a soloist at the country’s Freiburg Staatsheater, returning to Australia in 2013.
Geelong’s Roger Howell and Manfred Pohlenz also have roles in the Melbourne Opera production, debuting at Melbourne’s Athanaeum Theatre on Saturday night before three other performances in February and March.
Steeped in folklore, the expressionist storyline features sinister forces at work on the lives of characters in rural Germany.
A Melbourne Opera spokesperson said The Marksman, or Der Freischutz, was considered “the first important German opera”, although its last Australian production was in 1969.
