ABOUT THE BOOK

Maestro Carlo Felice Cillario was one of the leading Italian opera conductors of the second half of the twentieth century. He gave performances in the major opera houses of the world with stellar casts that included Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi, Montserrat Caballé and Luciano Pavarotti. Cillario was also the founding Music Director of the Australian Opera, leading over one thousand performances with the company over a period of thirty years. His readings of Puccini and Verdi were celebrated, but no less so was his engagement with Wagner and Mozart.

Retiring in 2003, at the age of 88, he left an extraordinary legacy to the arts in Australia. This book chronicles Cillario’s Australian career, in the context of his extraordinary life and career in Europe and the Americas.

ABOUT STEPHEN MOULD

Stephen Mould studied music in Sydney and London, subsequently pursuing a career in opera houses, where he has been employed as a coach, musical assistant, conductor and senior administrator in Germany, Belgium, Australia and the USA.

For thirteen years he was a member of the staff of Opera Australia, as a musical assistant, conductor and Head of Music. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Conducting, Operatic Studies and Repetiteurship at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney and Artistic Director of the Conservatorium Opera.

Stephen has had a long association with the Wagner Society in NSW: he was a special guest at an early Wagner birthday celebration; he gave recitals with Warwick Fyfe and with Lisa-Harper Brown; he spoke via zoom in 2021 about his book Curating Opera; and he was a speaker at the Symposium on Die Walküre last year, where he spoke on rehearsing and performing, on stage or in concert (Reflections on Die Walküre in advance of a concert performance).

The Talk will commence at 2pm.

Preceding the Talk will be a screening of Parsifal, Act 2 from Baden Baden in 2004.