image of person or book cover 2099709948730812512.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Jane Eyre single work   musical theatre   opera  
Adaptation of Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë , 1847 single work novel
Note: Music by Michael Berkeley and libretto by David Malouf.
Issue Details: First known date: 2000... 2000 Jane Eyre
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Notes

  • The opera has been recorded and released on CD on Chandos (CHAN9983).

Production Details

  • First produced at Britain's Cheltenham Festival in 2000.
  • Australian premiere at the Street Theatre, Canberra, 26 May - 4 June 2005. Director: Caroline Stacey.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Vintage UK ,
      2000 .
      image of person or book cover 2099709948730812512.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: xi, 27 p.p.
      ISBN: 0099286262

Works about this Work

Transforming Jane Eyre : Its Australian Stage Adaptations Sue Thomas , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 31 October vol. 30 no. 3 2015;

'The history of Australian stage adaptations of Jane Eyre illustrates the shifting fortunes and reach of melodrama and its conventions, as they become psychologised over the course of the twentieth century. The earliest adaptation of Jane Eyre written for the Australian stage was Rose Evans’s Quite Alone (1872). Working within highly melodramatic codes, Quite Alone portrayed ‘hate, sympathy, love, and finally marriage’ (‘Miss Rose Evans’s “Quite Alone”’). Two creative engagements by Australian writers have reached wide international audiences: Helen Jerome’s 1936 stage adaptation, published in 1937, was the most performed and successful adaptation of the twentieth century; the chamber opera with music by British composer Michael Berkeley and libretto by Australian writer David Malouf premiered in 2000, and has been performed in Britain, Australia and the U.S. In adapting a three-volume novel within the demands of contemporary staging, both Jerome and Malouf explore the nuances of a particular affect in the relationship between Jane and Rochester. In Jerome’s 1936 stage adaptation the affect is passion, signalled in the published play’s subtitle A Drama of Passion; in Malouf’s libretto, the predominant affect is sympathy. Jerome’s adaptation struggles to mesh melodrama, realism and more modernist elements in her rereading of the novel for the stage, whilst Malouf and Berkeley’s chamber opera is late modernist. I place the adaptations in a broader history of creative engagements with Jane Eyre, drawing out intermedial influences on the staging of Jerome’s and Malouf’s adaptations in particular.'

Source: Abstract.

Light and Dark Passions Peter J. Casey , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 6 June 2005; (p. 8)

— Review of Jane Eyre David Malouf , 2000 single work musical theatre
Eyre Supply Susan Skelly , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 31 May vol. 123 no. 6472 2005; (p. 65)

— Review of Jane Eyre David Malouf , 2000 single work musical theatre
Malouf Makes 'Jane Eyre' Sing Helen Musa , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 21 May 2005; (p. 19)
Bringing 'Jane Eyre' To Life Gillian Freeman , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: Artlook , May no. 11 2005; (p. 19)
Eyre Supply Susan Skelly , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 31 May vol. 123 no. 6472 2005; (p. 65)

— Review of Jane Eyre David Malouf , 2000 single work musical theatre
Light and Dark Passions Peter J. Casey , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 6 June 2005; (p. 8)

— Review of Jane Eyre David Malouf , 2000 single work musical theatre
David Malouf's Moments Musicaux Stephen Benson , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Journal of Commonwealth Literature , vol. 38 no. 1 2003; (p. 5-21)
The article examines what Malouf sees in music, and 'how this relates to his engagement with the conspicuously silent textual space of the opera libretto'. It is particularly concerned with 'two recent collaborations with the English composer, Michael Berkeley, both of which tendentiously retell founding expressions of English colonial discourse'. The author's aim is 'to use Malouf's aesthetic of music as the starting-point for a generically-informed identification of a quite particular postcolonial voice at work in these two texts' (p.5).
Jane Eyre Opera a Novel Twist for Multi-Talented Malouf Helen Musa , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 7 May 2005; (p. 14)
Bringing 'Jane Eyre' To Life Gillian Freeman , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: Artlook , May no. 11 2005; (p. 19)
Malouf Makes 'Jane Eyre' Sing Helen Musa , 2005 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 21 May 2005; (p. 19)
Transforming Jane Eyre : Its Australian Stage Adaptations Sue Thomas , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 31 October vol. 30 no. 3 2015;

'The history of Australian stage adaptations of Jane Eyre illustrates the shifting fortunes and reach of melodrama and its conventions, as they become psychologised over the course of the twentieth century. The earliest adaptation of Jane Eyre written for the Australian stage was Rose Evans’s Quite Alone (1872). Working within highly melodramatic codes, Quite Alone portrayed ‘hate, sympathy, love, and finally marriage’ (‘Miss Rose Evans’s “Quite Alone”’). Two creative engagements by Australian writers have reached wide international audiences: Helen Jerome’s 1936 stage adaptation, published in 1937, was the most performed and successful adaptation of the twentieth century; the chamber opera with music by British composer Michael Berkeley and libretto by Australian writer David Malouf premiered in 2000, and has been performed in Britain, Australia and the U.S. In adapting a three-volume novel within the demands of contemporary staging, both Jerome and Malouf explore the nuances of a particular affect in the relationship between Jane and Rochester. In Jerome’s 1936 stage adaptation the affect is passion, signalled in the published play’s subtitle A Drama of Passion; in Malouf’s libretto, the predominant affect is sympathy. Jerome’s adaptation struggles to mesh melodrama, realism and more modernist elements in her rereading of the novel for the stage, whilst Malouf and Berkeley’s chamber opera is late modernist. I place the adaptations in a broader history of creative engagements with Jane Eyre, drawing out intermedial influences on the staging of Jerome’s and Malouf’s adaptations in particular.'

Source: Abstract.

Last amended 11 Jun 2020 14:01:44
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X