‘Into the Shimmer Heat’ isn’t the first opera that features puppets and puppetry.
Puppets have been used in Opera since the first recorded instance in Venice in 1679.
More recently the film director Antony Minghella worked with the UK’s Blind Summit Theatre to include puppetry in Puccini’s ‘Madama Butterfly’ for the English National Opera
Improbable Theatre‘s Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott used puppetry with their production of Phllip Glass’s all-Sanskrit opera for the New York Met about Gandhi’s early life, Satyagraha. Crouch and McDermott, better known as the guys behind Shockheaded Peter made some extraordinary images using puppetry
The production of ‘Into the Shimmer Heat’ carries on this great tradition by bringing two of the finest puppet artists in Perth, Jo Foley and Ian Tregonning to work together to create moments of extraordinary puppetry for this chamber opera.
A camel is created and animated out of the wreckage of a hot air balloon to carry the mute girl into the shimmering heat of the outback.
There are scale changes to show distance and insignificance in the face of the enormous Australian landscape
Of course with two highly talented puppeteers and theatre makers on the creative team, this production will be a visual feast as well as an aural experience.
