MUSIC and theatre will combine in Newcastle next month when the intimate correspondence documenting the passionate and traumatic life experiences of composers Leos Janacek and Bedrich Smetana is brought to life.
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The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) and Bell Shakespeare have combined to present Intimate Letters.
"Intimate Letters is a concept from ACO and Bell Shakespeare inspired by Janacek who, in his 60s or 70s, met a woman in her 20s and fell madly in love with her and wrote her 700 letters," Bell Shakespeare theatre director Susanna Dowling said.
"Those letters really fuel the music, you can hear that passion in the music."
Gordan Nikolic, London Symphony Orchestra's concertmaster, will lead the ACO in Intimate Letters.
Australian actor Marshall Napier and Ella Scott Lynch, from Bell Shakespeare, will perform a dramatic reading of Janacek's letters, as well as letters from Smetana.
In 1874, aged 50, Smetana was diagnosed with profound, permanent deafness.
He was condemned to hearing "shriekings, whistles, and ghastly bawlings" inside his head, making life difficult, and composition slow and painful.
At Newcastle City Hall on August 20, the ACO will open with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Divertimento then Smetana's String Quartet No. 1, From My Life.
Janacek's String Quartet No.2, Intimate Letters, will end the show.
Tickets, available from aco.com.au, start at $45.
The Examiner has one double pass to the 7.30pm Newcastle production of Intimate Letters. To win, send your name and contact details in an email titled "Letters" to ewatts@fairfaxmedia.com.au.
The winner will be notified by 5pm on Friday, August 15.
