A Streetcar Named Desire

Four of us attended the opening night of Opera Australia’s A Streetcar Named Desire by Andre Previn. Gorgeous music, truly American in sound with bits of jazz, echoes of Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber maybe but also genuinely symphonic in a mid-twentieth Century modernist way. That’s how it seemed to me, although I’m not well-versed in music. I was less enthused by the singing, which might have been technically good but struggled with the near conversational style of the text.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes filled the Marlon Brando role well enough but Yvonne Kenny was less than persuasive as Blanche Dubois. Maybe the problem lies with the character rather than Ms Kenny who sang well (if in a slighty dated style). Blanche is fragile, whistful or bird like. I'm not sure Opera does whistful particularly well, which is a bit of a restriction when your bird like central character is almost never absent from the stage during the near three hour performance. That was a problem but so too were the songs: Opera needs big songs. Streetcar has too few and they’re too short.