Early opera

Opera Records exist of plays with music being performed in South Australia from as early as 1839, an indication that however harsh life might have been in the new colony, the urge to entertain and be entertained was irrepressible.

The first 'entertainments' connected to European operatic traditions were staged in Adelaide in 1842. Pieces entitled The Barber of Seville as Figaro and Der Freischiitz are thought to have been adaptations of Rossini and Weber by the English composer Henry Bishop. Such performances took place in the Queen's Theatre in Grote Street, built in 1840 and now again in occasional use for opera and other diversions.

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries South Australia was largely dependent for operatic fare on touring companies. In October 1856 the first of these, George Coppin's English Opera Company, played five operas in Adelaide including Lucia di Lammermoor, The Bohemian Girl by Balfe, and Wallace's Maritana, which was aired many times by later companies such as W.S. Lyster's Royal Italian and English Opera Company (1865, 1866 and 1867). Each of these seasons comprised up to 30 performances of 20 different operas.

The opening of the 1300-seat Theatre Royal in Adelaide's Hindley Street in 1868 provided more sophisticated surroundings for the likes of Cagli and Pompeii's Royal Italian Opera Company, although the company had to cancel two of its planned 37 performances in March of that year because of the heat. In 1881 J.C. Williamson's English Opera Company brought a season of light opera in the first of many visits that continued under 'the firm's' name until 1969.

Local enthusiasts also presented Italian grand opera and took up the challenge of creating their own shows. Bellini's Norma, accompanied by a piano and diverse instruments, was locally produced in 1871, and examples of local choral societies extending their range to staged works - for example Adelaide Liedertafel's locally composed and mounted Mordgrundbruck (1870) -were common.

From The Wakefield Companion of South Australian History