By Roy Weavers

Despite all the doom and gloom that surrounded the Karnak Playhouse after earlier in the year when Cyclone Yasi had paid an unexpected and torturous visit, Diane Cilento and her band of merry men and women succeeded in getting the theatre back into shape to host the Co Opera company and their production of The Marriage of Fiagro. 

And what a triumph it proved to be.  A hardy audience of about 150 braved the chilly evening to experience a superb performance of one of the most beloved of Mozarts Opera's. 

The Co-Opera was formed in 1990 with the express purpose of presenting opera in new and imaginative ways.  When not on tour they are resident at the Royal Adelaide Opera Showgrounds. This was the 37th peformance of their tour and  the whole company agreed that this was the most unique venue scheduled on the nationwide programme.

The Opera was performed over four acts with a wonderfully complicated and humorous plot unravelling over the 3 hour performance.  This travelling band of players create a much larger ambience with their charismatic and technically superb performances than it would seem possible.  In fact everything about this compact travelling production is larger than life and draws the audience in to the situations created with an ease of imagination that is impossible to resist.

It cannot be often that these singers have to contend with dropping temperatures that produce vapour from their warm breath as they deliver their arias.  But you wouldn't have known if there was any discomfort from either singers or orchestra, under the direction of Brian Chatterton, because their concentration and dedication to the performance was total.

The high spot for me was the duet between Susanna played by Karen Fitz-Gibbon and Countess Almaviva played by Sara Lambert.  It generated such an effortless yet beguiling atmosphere.  Maybe it reminded me of the wonderful moment in the movie 'Shawshank Redemption' when the lead character uses this duet to defy his captors or maybe it was simply because it was so brilliantly performed on this night.  Either way it is a wonderful memory.

I suspect the slap to Figaros face by his sweetheart Susanna will probably be remembered by leading man Nicholas Cannon who in future will probably stand a little further away as she swings her formidable right hook!

All in all it was a wonderful evening which Diane Cilento, the cast, orcahestra and her team of willing supporters will justifiably remember fondly as the night the Karnak came back from it's near death experience. 

Let's hope that our determined Diane will manage to complete the renovations and get the theatre back to a full programme of events as soon as possible. 

In the meantime those of us lucky enough to attend last Saturday will have to savour that glorious collective of culture until her next surprise!