Opera and country music may seem like an unlikely combination, but this  four-person, multi-musical performance proves there’s a surprising amount of overlap between the two musical camps.

This hour-long musical mash-up has been produced and toured extensively by Opera Queensland, no doubt with the aim of enticing music lovers into expanding their musical palate.

And it was certainly a tasty smorgasbord; a selection of operatic aria favourites alongside a selection of country bangers by the greats of the genre, including Dolly Parton, Slim Dusty and even Taylor Swift.

Gabrielle Diaz provided the soprano voice, and brought the ‘opera diva’ vibe with a flamboyant stage presence and glamorous costume. She conveyed the emotion of opera with her gorgeous voice, as well as physically, strutting the stage and belting out Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ in one moment, and then performing delicate Mimi’s famous death scene from La Boheme in the next.

Jonathan Hickey sang the operatic tenor parts, and proved equally skilled at the spine-tingling opera duets as he was in leading the audience in a singalong of John Denver’s Country Roads.

The third singer/musician was Lincoln Elliott (rather than Marcus Corowa who is listed in the Darwin Festival program), and he stepped into the breach with gusto, leaning into the show’s many comedic and light-hearted moments, while Trevor Jones completed the quartet, playing piano. This is an inventive and snappy show, making use of a small musical outfit to create the big sound of opera.

The group sang a number of opera’s most famous and familiar pieces from Puccini’s La Boheme, Verdi’s La Traviata and Bizet’s Carmen, but they also gave the audience a taste of an Australian opera, The Rabbits, by Kate Miller-Heidke and Lally Katz. Mixed with Take a Walk In My Country by Australian country musical royalty Troy Cassar-Daley, this was a real highlight of the evening.

Opera may be considered more inaccessible than country music, but Are You Lonesome Tonight? showed that you don’t need an opera house with a full orchestra to feel the power of opera’s music. Hopefully this show will lead more music lovers to be ‘opera curious’, while also sparking an appreciation for country music among die-hard opera fans.

Are You Lonesome Tonight? is at Inpex Sunset Stage, Darwin Festival – on August 12, 13 and 14 at 7pm.

BY SALLY BOTHROYD