BRISBANE, CHERYOMUSHKI
BRISBANE, CHERYOMUSHKI A COMIC OPERETTA BASED ON MOSCOW, CHERYOMUSHKI BY
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Librettists: Vladimir Mass & Mikhail Chervinsky English translation by David Pountney
Performed by Queensland Conservatorium classical voice students & orchestra Conducted by Richard Mills, AO, Directed by Constantine Costi Designed by Peter Keavy Lighting Design by Keith Clark Sung in English, with English surtitles Conservatorium Theatre 22, 24, 26 September 2026
Griffith University acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we work, and pays respect to the Elders, past and present, and extends that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
PROFESSOR VANESSA TOMLINSON DIRECTOR – QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY Welcome to the Queensland Conservatorium’s 2026 opera production, Brisbane, Cheryomushki. Opera is perhaps the most collaborative art form we teach here, drawing together expertise from across the Queensland Conservatorium. Our Classical Voice Department, led by Associate Professor Margaret Schindler alongside Shelli Hulcombe, Dr Ron Morris, Jill Stoll and an outstanding team of sessional staff, works hand-in-hand with our orchestral students under the guidance of Professor Peter Morris, their Heads of Department and individual teachers. Our History and Theory departments deepen students’ understanding of the musical, historical and cultural worlds that shape each production. Behind the scenes, our dedicated professional staff, led by Manager Stuart Jones and supported by Front of House and Back of House teams, provide the expertise that enable every performance to come to life.
Together, they create a learning environment that is rich in musical exploration, artistic excellence, and genuine care for our students, staff, and audiences. For opera, there is another vital layer: the guest creatives who bring industry expertise, professional working practices, and exacting artistic standards. This year, we are delighted to welcome Richard Mills AO to conduct the production. Richard is not only one of Australia’s most respected opera and symphonic conductors, but also a Queensland Conservatorium alumnus who is deeply committed to nurturing the next generation of artists. We are delighted to welcome back director Constantine Costi, alongside Brisbane’s own set and costume designer Peter Keavy. Their artistry, experience, and commitment to excellence provide our students with an invaluable bridge between conservatoire training and professional practice. Productions of this scale are made possible through the generous support of the Opera Futures Fund and the many individual donors who contribute to it. To all our supporters, thank you. Your generosity helps create transformative opportunities for our students and plays a vital role in launching the next generation of performers onto national and international stages. Thank you for joining us, and we hope you enjoy this remarkable production.
BRISBANE, CHERYOMUSHKI SYNOPSIS Shostakovich wrote Cheryomushki, his only operetta, in 1958. Cheryomushki was a real place: a district of prefabricated apartment blocks going up on the southern edge of Moscow as part of a vast programme intended to end a housing shortage that had left families sharing single rooms and communal kitchens for decades. A flat of one’s own was the most ordinary thing a person could want and the hardest to get. This production relocates the action to a heightened present-day Brisbane.
ACT I A Museum of the city’s history and reconstruction. Sasha, a guide, leads visitors past the city as it once was and as it is promised to become. His girlfriend Masha arrives as the museum closes. Each rents a tiny room far from each other and they dream that maybe one day they will be able to afford a place of their own. A Pub. Boris has come home after five years working in the mines. He tells his friend Sergei, an Uber driver, that he intends to marry. He does not know the woman’s name or what she looks like. He knows only that she is somewhere in this city and has been waiting for him all her life, and that until he finds her nothing in his own life will make sense. Sergei, who has pined for a construction worker named Lucy for years is unhelpful on the subject of love. Boris sees the interesting young Lidochka from across the room but fumbles an attempt to charm her. Lidochka’s father, Baburov, brings news of a calamity: the ceiling of the old house has fallen in and the building (which Masha also lives in) is condemned. In compensation, they are allotted flats in Cheryomushki, a new estate at the far edge of the city. Sergei drives them there.
McDonalds Carpark. We meet the corrupt real estate agent Drebednyov and his girlfriend Vava who scheme to dubiously acquire a flat of their own. Outside the apartment block. The estate is unfinished. Tenants queue for keys the manager, Barabashkin, is in no hurry to release. Boris asks Lidochka to date him and is refused. Sergei fumbles an attempt to woo the exasperated Lucy. Drebednyov, the official responsible for the development, declares the block unfit for occupation. Nobody is given keys.
INTERVAL ACT II Cheryomushki Apartments. Boris and Lidochka enter the empty flat by way of the balcony. They find Barabashkin and Drebednyov measuring it out. Drebednyov intends to knock two apartments into one for he and Vava. When Lidochka produces her authorisation for flat 48, she is told that no such flat exists and never has. Lucy, who helped build the estate, refuses to accept this and goes to alert the other workers. Elsewhere, Masha and Sasha hold a housewarming in an unfurnished room, surrounded by overbearing neighbours and relatives.
ACT III The Garden. The tenants lay out a magical garden in the square, and the garden proves to have unusual properties: a fountain that silences corrupt landlords mid-sentence, a clock that gives people the time they need, and a bench on which nobody can tell a lie. Our villains are foisted and our lovers embrace facing a bright future. The operetta is satirical, highlighting stark inequalities and corruption while also celebrating the power of human connection and community.
CONDUCTOR’S NOTE
Cheryomushki has probably become the most famous title in this genre - and part of Shostakovitch’s catalogue of light music which includes the suites for Jazz Orchestra and comic ballets such as The Age of Gold (about a Soviet soccer team’s excursion
Photo credit: Rachel Hirsch
This piece is in the tradition of Soviet Operetta that enjoyed wide popularity and support through the 1930’s through to the 1950’s, particularly as films and also at the specifically created Moscow Operetta Theatre, which not only created a new literature, but also adapted Viennese works like Kalman’s The Gypsy Princess. The works were popular and based on a mix of music, spoken dialogue and dance. From the heritage of composers like Suppe and Offenbach, composers like Dunayevsky, Strelnikov, Aleksandrov and Milyutin produced work that adopted the utopian ideals of Soviet realism - randomly selected. Example titles include Alexandrov’s Wedding in Malinovka and The One Hundred and First Wife and Dunayevsky’s The Wind of Liberty, as well as titles like Be Careful Grandma by Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi (who also wrote the song Moscow Nights) and The Girls Riot by Evgeny Ptichkin (dealing with a humorous uprising of women in a Cossack village.)
to “U Town” and their triumphant victory over the decadent bourgeoisie.) However, as in any work by a great genius, there are deeper forces at play than a simple utopian Soviet realist parable. The entire concept of the work is deeply and subversively ironic - only through magic can the inequities and corruption of the housing market be overcome. And the tunes themselves, often pertly comic, sometimes have a deep melancholy and tender humanity that reveal the soul of a great storyteller - the same intelligence that gave us the symphonies and the string quartets. The melodies are irritatingly memorable - real “ear worms” - and the characters and subject matter have an immediate resonance for our young and talented cast - as well as for the wider community for whom real estate and its fluctuations and peculiarities are often front of mind personally and ever present in the daily media. The comedy of this work is tinged with a bitter and compassionate pathos - which makes it a fascinating and entertaining theatrical text. Welcome and enjoy! Richard Mills
DIRECTOR’S NOTE Our Brisbane, Cheryomushki is a heightened Ren and Stimpy meets the Sex Pistols universe of rascals and ratbags making do and trying to have a good time in the midst of impending financial ruin. The housing crisis across Australia continues on, and Brisbane is at the sharp end of it. Struggling to find a roof over one’s head, coughing up rising rent, and dealing with the greed and bad faith of agents and landlords is pushing young renters to a breaking point. But this operetta is a comedy, or maybe a manic dance atop a volcano on the verge of financial eruption. Departures into magic realism are the only respites. The immediacy of a young cast (our artists from the Queensland Conservatorium) portraying these characters makes profound sense to us. We were floored by how contemporary the young lovers of this piece feel. Their relationships are far from slick; these couples are awkward, confused, and full of romantic misfires. The whimsical references of the original operetta to Moscow’s charming lanes and the overwhelming benevolence of Russian governance did not sit well with us, to say the least. Of course, the
piece was written long before the Putin regime, but we felt the glowing Soviet nostalgia would ultimately take away and distract from the core of the work: the corruption of those in power in the housing market. So, the publishers kindly permitted us to update those references to contemporary Brisbane. And in updating them we were shocked to see how easily ‘corrupt Soviet bureaucrat’ was replaced by ‘immoral Brisbane real estate agent’. Richard Mills’ command of this score has been a masterclass in musical precision and finding beauty amidst the story’s rollicking hijinks. Watching him work with these singers has been one of the great pleasures of the process. It has been a genuine thrill to see young artists take hold of a seventy-year-old operetta and find their own lives inside it. They are not performing something historical. They are singing about their rent, their share houses, their futures, and their conviction has answered the question people keep asking about whether opera still speaks to now. It does, loudly, and these are the young people proving it. Constantine Costi
BRISBANE, CHERYOMUSHKI CAST ROLE
Alexander Bubentsov (Sasha)
STUDENT
Harrison Hammett
Masha
Jemma West
Semyon Baburov
Gabriel Shaw
Lidochka Boris Koretsky Sergey Glushkov Lyusya (Lucy) Fyodor Drebednyov
Rebecca Goobanko Jenson White Anthony Van Stam Victoria Evans Nicholas Massouras
Vava
Matilda Smith
Afanassy Barabashkin
Silas Gregory
Wife
Honor Nicholson
Husband
Sam Borgert
Kurochkin
Nicholas Russell
Kurochkina
Jasmine Kaye
Neighbours
Chloe Arentz, Georgia Butland
Mylkin
Ziggy Dutfield
BRISBANE, CHERYOMUSHKI CHORUS SOPRANOS
MEZZO SOPRANOS
Chloe Arentz
Chelsea Bernard
Elahe Atefi
Zoe Harris
Chelsea Baer
Lucinda Hopper
Olivia Brabham
Jasmine Kaye
Georgia Butland
Gabriella Nial
Esther Junker
Georgia Ogge
Jade Kelly
Scarlett Smith
Youngah Lee
Sarah Winn
Keely McKenzie
Amellie Zaitzev
Shae Marshall Gabrielle Mizzi Honor Nicholson Sarah Patino
TENORS
Sam Borgert Ziggy Dutfield Nicholas Russell
Amalia Safonova Helena Shearer
BASS
Joseph Pestorius
CONSERVATORIUM OPERA ORCHESTRA CONCERTMASTER
FLUTE
PERCUSSION
Sophia Di Lucchio*
Laura Skorzewski*
Selina Tingyue Zheng* Thomas Quelhurst
VIOLIN 1
PICCOLO
Emily Thompson
Sho Yamada*
SOPRANO/ALTO SAXAPHONE
CLARINET
Ella Bowmer*
Layla Mertz Theodore Aitcheson VIOLIN 2
Miles Le Goullon* Edison Richard Madison Sim Jade Leong CELLO
Gyorgy Deri* Emma Seedell-Greene Liam Gane CONTRABASS
Jessica Clarke*
Jack Goves* E-FLAT CLARINET
Gabrielle Thompson* TRUMPET
Lorenzo McPherson* Sophie Donohue TROMBONE
Sam MacDonald* TUBA
Sebastian Young-Florence*
Hilary Davis
* Principal
TENOR/BARITONE SAXAPHONE
Isaac Bell* PIANO
Oscar Matthews* UKELELE/GUITAR
Angus Smith* BANJO/GUITAR
Jeremy Stafford*
RICHARD MILLS AO CONDUCTOR
This year Richard has been engaged to return to Opera Queensland as artistic director of the Bel Canto Festival to conduct performances of La Cenerentola and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, as well as the Festival of Outback Opera. He will also conduct Griffith University’s production of Cheryomushki (Shostakovich) and has been commissioned to compose a new Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra for the Sydney Symphony Fellows. Most recently Richard conducted performances of his new Double Bass concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Lucia di Lammermoor (with Jessica Pratt), Rossini’s Stabat Mater and a Gala evening of operatic arias and ensembles for Opera Queensland’s Festival of Bel Canto, as well as Tosca for Opera at Jimbour; the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as part of their Fifty Fanfares Project; and Darwin Symphony in their “Shakespeare and Symphony” program. Richard also collaborated with Jonathan Mills on that composer’s new opera, Eucalyptus.
Photo credit: Rachel Hirsch
Richard Mills, AO, deservedly one of Australia’s most sought-after composers and music directors is now in the forefront of senior Australian composers. He has pursued a diverse career as a composer, conductor and artistic director which has seen him working with almost all the nation’s music organisations. He has previously held the posts of Artistic Director of both Victorian Opera (20132023), and the West Australian Opera (1997 – 2012), Musica Viva’s Composer of the Year (2008), and from 2002 – 2008 was Director of the Australian Music Project for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Richard is now the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra.
Further recent conducting engagements include State Opera South Australia’s presentation of Richard Meale’s Voss and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (Mills), and the premiere of his new Christmas oratorio, Nativity, with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. For Victorian Opera, La Cenerentola, In Concert with Jessica Pratt, Elektra, Salome, Parsifal, Heroic Bel Canto, The Barber of Seville, William Tell, I Capuleti e i Monteccchi and Pelléas et Mélisande. Some of Richard Mills’ most significant compositions include his 5 operas: Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Batavia, The Love of the Nightingale, Butterfly Lovers and Galileo; Passion According to St. Mark; his song cycle Songlines of the Heart’s Desire, (Edinburgh Festival), Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (Australian Ballet), and numerous concertos including those for Organ, Flute, Violin and Viola, Percussion, and Clarinet and Violin. His CD recording Richard Mills Orchestral Works with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra became a best seller on the ABC Classics label. His three-volume CD of the film music of Franz Waxman with the same orchestra was awarded a Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik in 1992. He also has an extensive discography of over twenty releases with the Australian symphony orchestras, including a CD of his major orchestral works with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Richard has been Lecturer in Composition and Conducting at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and in 2009/2010 was the director of the Symphony Australia Composer Development Program, run in collaboration with Orchestra Victoria. He is currently a Senior Fellow, Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne.
CONSTANTINE COSTI DIRECTOR Constantine Costi is an award-winning Greek Cypriot - Australian director and writer. He was Co-Artistic Director of Red Line Productions at the Old Fitz Theatre 2020 – 2023. In 2026 he will direct a new production of Puccini’s La bohème for Opera Australia, and a double bill of Hänsel und Gretel + Into the Woods for State Opera of South Australia. 2025 saw Constantine direct an updated version of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail titled Abduction (Victorian Opera), and he was the co-librettist and director for Sydney Festival’s Siegfried & Roy: The Unauthorised Opera. His documentary feature following the World Porridge Making Championship The Golden Spurtle premiered at Copenhagen’s CPH:DOX, with official selections at Telluride Film Festival, Zurich Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival and Sydney Film Festival, amongst others. 2024 highlights included a staging of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (Berliner Philharmoniker), Puccini’s Il Tabarro (Opera Australia), William Bolcom’s LongLost Loves (Musica Viva), Il Tabarro set outdoors aboard a historic lightship (Sydney Festival/Victorian Opera). Constantine’s work explores the possibilities of the operatic form from outdoor spectacles La Traviata on Sydney Harbour (Opera Australia), an immersive baroque opera experience for young audiences Inferno (The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra), and a “physics-defying spectacle” of Weill’s Mahagonny Songspiel and The Seven Deadly Sins which included a 15-piece orchestra in a pub-theatre for 60 audience members.
PETER KEAVY DESIGNER Peter Keavy (Brisbane, QLD) is an emerging theatre creative with a BA in Fine Arts (Technical Production, QUT) and a BA in Acting and Performance South Bank TAFE (Canberra University). He has an astute knowledge of stage design and the aesthetics of many of the leading theatre makers from across the globe. Peter has been working as a set and costume designer for both mainstage and independent theatre. Superheroes (Queensland Theatre, Door 3, 2025), Importance of Being Earnest (Queensland Theatre, Youth Ensemble, 2024), Capricorn (La Boite Theatre Company, 2023), Higher Faster Louder (JUTE Theatre Company. 2023) I Love You Bro (THAT Production Company, 2023), Tight in the Bud/ The Wolves, Angels in America / Algorithm (Queensland University of Technology. 2021-2022)
KEITH CLARK LIGHTING DESIGNER Keith Clark’s lighting design work includes Single Asian Female (La Boite Theatre Company), Boy Girl Wall and Packed (The Escapists), Handle with Care (Joymas Creative), De-Generator, Opposite of Prompt, AngelMonster, and The Machine that Carries the Soul (Phluxus Dance Collective), Moon Spirit Feasting (Elision Music Ensemble), Juice (The Crash Collective), Kazka and Legend (Lehenda Dance Company), The Laramie Project (Forward Movement), The Wind in the Willows (La Boite Theatre Company) Die Opernprobe & Der Häusliche Krieg (Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program) and Tarnished (La La Palour). At the Queensland Conservatorium his lighting designs include Grease, Street Scene, Béatrice et Bénédict, Iolanthe, Dido and Aeneas, 42nd Street and Legally Blonde. Improvised designs have been for such artists as The Necks, Jeff Lang, The Ordinary Fear of God, Aaron Goldberg, Kate MillerHeidke, and Nakhane. Keith’s designs for various productions have toured nationally and internationally to Europe and America. He is also a member of the awardwinning independent theatre group The Escapists.
LOIS REDMAN CHOREOGRAPHER Lois Redman has been teaching Movement and Stagecraft to the classical voice students at the Queensland Conservatorium since 2018, upon the retirement of Anna Sweeny HonRAM. Anna has trained Lois in Movement for Singers and they have enjoyed a long association for over twenty-five years. Lois choreographed Dido and Aeneas for the Queensland Conservatorium in 2020, and was responsible for movement and choreography in the Val Machin Opera Scenes in 2019 and 2021. Lois was Assistant Director and Choreographer for QCGU’s production of Iolanthe in 2022. From 2023-2026 Lois has mentored and directed the Melba Opera Trust Artists. She directed the QCGU’s Val Machin Opera Scenes from 2022-2025. In 2024, Lois directed Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel for Voxalis, and in 2023 Voxalis’s Two Queens production. In 2026, Lois will direct Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphee for Springboard Opera, and Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande for Voxalis Opera.
MUSIC CREDITS Vocal Coach, Repetiteur & Chorus Master
Jillianne Stoll
Assistant Conductor
James Dobinson
Student Repetiteur
Oscar Matthews
Dialogue Assistance
Jacqui Somerville
Orchestra Manager
Daniel Fossi
Assistant Orchestra Manager
Val Yip
Composed by Dmitri Shostakovich, orchestra version by Gerard McBurney, with additional arrangements by Jim Holmes by arrangement with Origin Theatrical on behalf of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.
PRODUCTION CREDITS Production Manager Stage Manager
Len McPherson (QCGU Technical Team) Izzy Markham
Assistant Stage Manager
Katherine Crocker
Assistant Stage Manager (Rehearsals)
Jon Whitehead
Lighting Operator
Stu Cochrane
Sound Designer & Operator Costuming Assistants Scenic Artist Surtitles Surtitle Technicians/Operators
Ben Gibson Naire McDonald Olivia Van Gool (QCGU Acting Students) Leo Herreygers Buck Outdoor Pty Ltd Tammy Weller Stephanie West
SPECIAL THANKS Liam Jackson (Crossfade Photography)
SUPPORTING QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM INVEST IN ARTISTS NOW. SHAPE THE ARTS FOR DECADES. Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University is ranked equal first in Australia for music and among the top 50 globally. The artists you see on stage today will shape Queensland’s cultural life for decades to come. Your philanthropic support removes barriers and creates opportunities for emerging musicians, performers, educators, composers and creative leaders to develop their talent and build our future cultural life. To support the future of music and performance at Queensland Conservatorium, contact +61 (0)7 5552 7218 or giving@griffith.edu.au.
WITH OUR THANKS Queensland Conservatorium gratefully acknowledges the significant number of donors, advocates and supporters whose collective generosity has sustained and strengthened opera and classical voice at the Conservatorium.
Director Constantine Costi is supported by Mr Paul Morton. WE ARE DELIGHTED TO ACKNOWLEDGE WITH SPECIAL GRATITUDE THE FOLLOWING DONORS: Mrs Kay Bryan OAM Mr Ian Hanger AM KC DUniv and Dr Maria Hanger Mr Eddie Street AM Dr. Nancy Underhill Mr Philip Bacon AO DUniv Bugden Allen Group Legal Mr John Davis and Ms Wendy Ting Mr Robert Tsenin and Mrs Estelle Tsenin Mr John and Mrs Gwenyth Chappell Anonymous x 4 Ms Janine Gabrielli; Dr Rhett Morton; Gomango Architects; Dr Bridget Cullen; Ms Jade Bebbington; Ms Lisa Sugg; Mr Patrick Hanlon; Tim and Carla Caro; Anonymous x 2
OPERA FUTURES Our sincere thanks to Jennifer Nielsen, Opera Futures, and the many new supporters who have joined our Queensland Conservatorium opera community. We are delighted to welcome you and grateful for your support in strengthening opera at the Conservatorium. We also gratefully acknowledge The Hon. David Janetzki MP, Treasurer, Minister for Energy and Minister for Home Ownership and Mrs Melinda Janetzski for supporting the Opera Futures fundraising event.
VALE DR MARLOES DEKKER NITERT We remember with great respect, Dr Marloes Dekker Nitert and extend our sincere condolences to Sidney, their children and family. At the family’s invitation, more than ninety individuals and organisations made gifts in Marloes’ memory to support opera at Queensland Conservatorium. We are deeply grateful to all those who honoured Marloes through this generous gesture.
QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM Director Deputy Director (Learning and Teaching) Deputy Director (Research)
Professor Vanessa Tomlinson Associate Professor Donna Weston Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet
Deputy Director (Performance and Partnerships)
Professor Peter Morris
Head of Classical Voice
Associate Professor Margaret Schindler
Conservatorium Manager Executive Officer Engagement Marketing Officer Administration Officer Front of House Operations Manager Ensembles Administrator
Stuart Jones Dr Natalie Lewandowski-Cox Hannah Morrison Ms Liz Tyson-Doneley Michael Hibbard Dan Fossi
Administration Officer, Timetabling
Joshua White
Administrative Officer, Operations
Timothy Tate
Administration Support Officer
Brendan Cardiff
Venues Officer Technical Officers
Chloe Forbes Keith Clark Ben Gibson Amy Hauser Len McPherson
Photo by Brit Mobbs
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