Book of Longing

Due to popular demand a second show has been added on Saturday 14 May.

Please note that Friday 13 May is sold out.

This multi-dimensional performance combines poetry, music, images and text in a complex and intoxicating meeting of two musical icons: Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass.

Composed by Philip Glass and adapted from Cohen’s 2006 poetry collection Book of Longing, this modern opera stars Richard Piper (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) and features four singers, eight instrumentalists, and projections of Cohen’s drawings and poems. It’s a work that explores romance, biography, balladry, the dharma, limericks and rhymes.

Glass is the long-reigning emperor of modern classical music. Cohen spent his career melding pop, folk and Euro-cabaret with his existential-meets-erotic confessional style. Here, they summon the best in each other with a work of feverish passion and wily humour, full of spiritual striving, romantic yearning and witty self parody.

Join us at The Edge – Fed Square for a new production of this audacious, magnetic and convention-busting performance.

Conducted by CARLO ANTONIOLI
MSO Cybec Assistant Conductor 2022

Richard Piper as the voice of Leonard Cohen

with
Emily Burke, soprano
Dimity Shepherd, mezzo
Martin Buckingham, tenor
Christopher Tonkin, baritone
and Young Artists of ACOCo

Directed by Linda Thompson

The bookseller for this event is Readings.

Presented in partnership with the Wheeler Centre and Australian Contemporary Opera Co.