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Opus Beethoven
Location
Phoenix Arts, Sydney, and the University of Technology Sydney, Gadigal and Eora lands
Date
2021
Opus Beethoven is an original performance project created in association with the Australian Piano Quartet to mark the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth. The script was written and performed by Alys Daroy and interwove biographical research and live music to explore the extraordinary creative force of one of Western music’s most radical figures.
Drawing on Beethoven’s own words, including his declaration that “it was only my art that held me back”, the work traced the tension between personal crisis and artistic ambition, revealing a composer whose turbulent relationships existed alongside profound resilience.
Daroy performed alongside Australian Piano Quartet founder and Artistic Director Thomas Rann (cello), award-winning pianist Vatche Jambazian and violinist Thibaud Pavlovic-Hobba, bringing spoken performance and chamber music into close dialogue. Together, the artists reframed Beethoven not simply as a canonical composer, but as an enfant terrible, romantic renegade and avant-garde force whose work transformed the possibilities of nineteenth-century music.
The project was performed at Phoenix Arts, Sydney, and the University of Technology Sydney in May 2021.
