Meet the cast of Idomeneo

Director Lindy Hume brings you a brilliant cast featuring mezzo-soprano Catherine Carby, internationally renowned tenor Steve Davislim alongside Victorian Opera favourites Olivia Cranwell, James Egglestone and Kathryn Radcliffe.

This production features large-scale digital mapping that creates an immersive world from video designer David Bergman (The Picture of Dorian Gray and Jeckyll and Hyde), cinematography from Catherine Pettman, set design by Michael Yeargan and stunning modern-inspired mythic costumes from Anna Cordingley.

Steve Davislim as Idomeneo

Steve Davislim, among the leading tenors of his generation, is acclaimed throughout the world on both concert and operatic stages for his beautiful lyric voice, strong stage presence and remarkable agility.

His repertoire embraces works from the baroque, classical, romantic and contemporary periods and he has worked with conductors including Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Bernard Haitink, Philippe Herreweghe, Lorin Maazel, Christian Thielemann and Sir Georg Solti. His recordings range from Szymanovsky’s Symphony No.3 to Handel’s Rodelinda to a DVD of Berg’s Lulu..

This year, Steve also returns to Australia to perform recitals and appear with the Sydney Symphony under Simone Young in Das Rheingold.

Catherine Carby as Idamante

Catherine Carby has performed with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, Teatro São Carlos, Lisbon, National Opera Canberra, Opera Australia, Victoria State Opera, State Opera South Australia and Opera Queensland.

This season Catherine returns to the Royal Opera House, Longborough Festival Opera and Buxton International Festival.

She has appeared with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gardner Chamber Orchestra Boston, Sydney and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras and her recordings include The Love for Three Oranges, Les contes d’Hoffmann and Der Rosenkavalier for Opera Australia, and The Royal Opera’s Die Walküre (Siegrune).

Kathryn Radcliffe as Illia

In 2021, Kathryn Radcliffe sang Leila in Victorian opera’s production of The Pearl Fishers.

For VO, she also performed The Blue Fairy in Respighi’s Sleeping Beauty and Echo in Kevin March’s new opera Echo and Narcissus. In 2022, she appears in Elektra for VO and is soprano soloist in Melbourne Symphony’s Messiah and Melbourne Bach Choir’s Creation.

She recently made her OA mainstage début – as Delia in Il viaggio a Reims.  For Victorian Opera, she has sung Berta in The Barber of Seville and The Queen in The Princess and the Pea; for Tasmanian Symphony – Frasquita in Carmen.

Winner of the 2014 Herald-Sun Aria, she starred the following year as Pamina in Opera Australia’s touring production of The Magic Flute and won the Opera Foundation Vienna Award.

In 2016, Kathryn worked for several months at the Vienna State Opera – covering a range of roles such as Pamina, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, Ortlinde in Die Walküre, Pousette in Manon, Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos and The High Priestess in Aida.  She made her Vienna debut in The Cunning Little Vixen.  Kathryn returned home to win one of Australia’s most lucrative competitions – the Opera & Arts Support Group Scholarship.

After earlier obtaining her AMusA in flute, she graduated Bachelor of Music with first class honours from the Victorian College of the Arts.

Other roles Kathryn has performed include: The Governess in The Turn of the Screw (Hawaii Performing Arts Festival); Ernesta in LOL Opera by Nina Sofo (Australian premiere 2010) and Daisy in Contact by Angus Grant (World Premiere 2011).  For OzOpera, she has sung Mother/Witch/Sandman in Hansel and Gretel and Queen of Night/Pamina in The Magic Flute.

Her many awards include: 3MBS-FM Victorian Young Performer of the Year (2014); Bel Canto Award and Opera and Arts Vocal Scholarship (Finalist 2013); Bel Canto Award (Finalist 2014); the Armstead Singing Award (2014).

Olivia Cranwell as Elettra

Olivia Cranwell holds a Master of Music (Opera Performance) University of Melbourne and was winner of the Vienna State Opera Award 2020.

Whilst in Vienna her performances included Ortlinde (Die Walküre), which she has since sung for Opera Australia. This year Olivia will also be heard as Helmwige (Die Walküre) and 3rd Norn (Gőtterdämmerung) for Melbourne Opera, Mrs Naidoo (Satyagraha), 3rd Norn and Sieglinde (Die Walküre) for Opera Australia.

Appearing regularly with Victorian Opera, Olivia has also been heard with Canberra Symphony Orchestra, City of Stonnington, the Murray River International Music Festival, Mildura, In Good Company, More Than Opera and the VCA Symphony Orchestra.

Michael Dimovski as Arbace

Michael is a Melbourne-based artist who graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2017. He is the recipient of the 2022 Victorian Opera Michael Stubbs and Malcolm Roberts Opera Prize seeing him perform a number of roles with Victorian Opera in their 2022 season. Michael was also the recipient of Melbourne Opera’s 2022 Rotary NGSE scholarship to travel and perform in Germany.

Michael’s most recent engagements include Vendor in the premiere of A Christmas Carol (Koehne), Don Ramiro (Cover) in La Cenerentola, Ma Wencai in the premiere of The Butterfly Lovers (Mills), Aegisth (Cover) Elektra, Lo Spaventapasseri in Il Mago di Oz, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Opernakademie Henfenfeld, Germany, Malcolm in Macbeth, Froh (Cover) in Das Rheingold, and Jaquino in Beethoven’s Fidelio.

In addition to his recent solo operatic performances, Michael has toured nationally throughout Australia as a member of the Australian singing group The Ten Tenors as well as participated as chorus in Opera Australia’s Melbourne Autumn seasons of Lohengrin, Mefistofele, Aida and Ernani.

James Egglestone as High Priest of Neptune

James Egglestone’s roles for State Opera of South Australia have included Laurie in Little Women and Nadir in The Pearl Fishers; for West Australian Opera – Nadir, Almaviva, Ismaele in Nabucco; for Victorian Opera – Don Ottavio, Ferrando and Peter Quint.

Most recently, James has sung Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Lensky in Eugene Onegin, Cassio in Otello and Lysander for Opera Australia and Rodolfo (La bohème) for State Opera of South Australia.

He returned to Victorian Opera in 2020 as Narraboth in Salome; James is a dual Helpmann Award and dual Green Room Award winner – most recently for his 2021 Loge in Das Rheingold for Melbourne Opera.

Simon Meadows as Voice of Oracle (Neptune)

Award-winning Australian baritone Simon Meadows enjoys a busy opera and concert career throughout Europe, Asia and Australasia.

For Opera Australia, he recently sang Telramund (Lohengrin) and The Count (Le nozze di Figaro); for Victorian Opera, Priam in Simon Bruckhard’s Cassandra and Jimmy in Stuart Greenbaum’s The Parrot Factory. Simon was the baritone soloist in the world premiere of Richard Mills’ song cycle In Tempore Bello.

For Melbourne Opera, Simon has performed the title roles in Macbeth and The Barber of Seville, Alberich in Das Rheingold and many others. In 2021, he sang Alfio/Tonio in Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci and will shortly return to Perth as Germont (La traviata)

By Evan Lawson.