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At Moe Plaza shopping centre, locals can get their mobile phone fixed, their nails done or buy some sushi.
On Sunday, it had something else on offer – a sophisticated live opera.
Forget Milan’s La Scala or New York’s Met, this humble mall at Moe, in the Latrobe Valley 130 kilometres east of Melbourne, played grand opera house for a day.
Performers and musicians performed a piece, based on a Greek myth, that packed an emotional wallop — Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice.
This opera was a favourite of royalty, not Harry and Meghan but with Queen Marie Antoinette of France, in the 1770s.
On Sunday, the piece was staged by Lyster Opera, whose chief sponsor is Moe Plaza’s owner, property investor Hans Henkell.
Henkell, a former Yarra Valley vineyard owner, said: “I just love opera and music and bringing it to the regions, but at the same time I’m promoting the shopping centre.”
Lyster’s founder and director, Jamie Moffat, said that Moe Plaza, where they’ve performed twice before, is “the most out-there venue we’ve had” among small halls and theatres they perform in across the state.
“But people in Moe are entitled to good music… They’re as enthusiastic as anywhere I’ve ever seen. And the acoustics in the plaza are magnificent.”
On Sunday, Hew Wagner played Orpheus who, after the death of his wife, Eurydice (Phoebe Paine), is permitted by the gods to retrieve her from the underworld.
Orpheus is told he must not look back at her until they’re back in the surface world, but he can’t resist.
In the myth, Orpheus loses Eurydice forever, but Gluck’s ending sees the goddess of love ruling that Orpheus has proved his love, bringing Eurydice back to life.
Moffat said everyone can relate to themes of grief, loss, and “what we will do for the people we love”.
“It’s such a moving story and the score is so beautiful.”
Moffat started Lyster Opera 10 years ago. It’s named after William Saurin Lyster who, during the 19th Century, toured opera troupes around Victoria.
The suburb Lysterfield is named after Lyster.
Moffat’s company gets no government funding and relies on donations and ticket sales – $50 a head on Sunday – but its performers and crew are paid.
Henkell, who supports many other opera companies including Opera Australia, came across Lyster Opera by coincidence.
In 2022, on a car club trip to Oxley near Wangaratta, Henkell stumbled on them performing Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Don Pasquale in a hall.
“I couldn’t believe what I saw,” Henkell said. “They played high-ranking, very difficult repertoire absolutely masterfully.”
Henkell now offers Lyster Opera the use of a Melbourne CBD office he owns to rehearse in.
The businessman is renovating the previously ailing Moe Plaza and bringing in new tenants after buying it in 2021. He said Moe had been unfairly branded “moccasin town”, but had a lot going for it, such as good road and rail links to Melbourne and proximity to parks and mountains.
“It’s beautiful,” Henkell said.
Among the crowd on Sunday was Lisa Gerrard, composer and singer for the Hollywood film Gladiator, who lives in nearby Drouin West, in Gippsland. She said it was great to see the arts blooming in small regional areas where people can be starved of it.
Another spectator, Moe resident and Italian immigrant Angela Battista, said her father, a farmer in Moe South, loved to sing and had a lovely operatic voice. She said coming to the opera reminded her of him and the music made her feel happy.
Sue Abbott, a Moe building designer and committee member of Latrobe City Business Chamber said it was “phenomenal” what Henkell, who also owns local Kmart, Reject Shop and Super Cheap Auto stores, was doing for Moe and the region.
“I don’t think anyone else would have thought of doing an opera, let alone putting that much money into the growth and infrastructure of the town, so he’s an asset to the town,” Abbott said.
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