The Old Maid and the Thief

Name: The Old Maid and the Thief
Start: 2025-09-18T09:30:00+10:00
End: 2025-09-18T11:00:00+10:00
Location: Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne

Schedule

Thu Sep 18 2025 at 09:30 am to 11:00 am

UTC+10:00

Location

Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne | Melbourne, VI

Gian Carlo Menotti’s wittily satirical and sharp comedy of suburban manners and forbidden desire.
Originally written for radio, this masterful one-act work has since gone on to be one of the most performed of twentieth century operas, full of the kinds of dramatic and musical bravura that made Menotti arguably the most successful composer of opera in English of the past century.
A fast-paced opera buffa, it cleverly exposes the secret desires of two residents of a small town whose world is unexpectedly turned upside down by the arrival of a handsome stranger. Their once rock-solid concern for social propriety quickly falls away in the presence of this object of desire. But who exactly is he?
Delivered by a cast of rising operatic talent, including Saskia Mascitti, Teresa Ingrilli, Nick Beecher and Lisette Bolton.
Directed by Lisette Bolton.
Conducted by Christopher Hillier and Peter Tregear.
Tickets now on sale.
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This is part of a double bill – paired with another opera in English – The Turn of the Screw (a gothic drama with music by Benjamin Britten and a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, after the novella by Henry James) on 17 September at 7.30pm and 20 September a 4.30pm.
Each is a small operatic gem. Performed together the two works also reveal several shared dramatic interests, such as how love can drive us to do foolish things, and how our sense of reality is, well, not always what it seems….
For the complete experience, make sure you book into both operas.