Melba Recordings

"... a label of fragrant distinction"

There are no products in your shopping cart.

Gaye MacFarlane (Mezzo Soprano)

Gaye MacFarlane’s diverse career has spanned over 20 years and encompassed the mediums of opera, musical theatre, concert performance, television, and radio. After obtaining her Diploma in Operatic Arts from the Sydney Conservatorium, she went on to sing principal roles in The Telephone, Das Kleine Mahagony and Cosi fan tutte with South Australian Opera, The Rape of Lucretia and Ariadne auf Naxos with the Australian Opera and The Italian Girl in Algiers, Orfeo and Euridice and Diana in Orfeus in der Unterwelt with the Victoria State Opera.

Gaye has since gone on to perform the title role in Carmen for the Victoria State Opera and the Pfalztheater in Kaiserslautern, Germany, Venus in Tannhäuser, Maddelena in Rigoletto and Hanna Kennedy in Maria Stuarda for Opera Australia, Overseer in the Sydney Festival production of Elektra, Mercedes in Carmen for Alan Smythe Productions in Auckland, Christina's World by Ross Edwards for Sydney Metropolitan Opera and Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd for State Opera of South Australia.

Gaye’s credits in musical theatre include Eva Peron in Evita in Sydney, Charity Barnum in Barnum in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne, Sonia Walsk in They're Playing our Song with Queensland Theatre Company and Dame Nellie Melba in A Toast to Melba for Nimrod Theatre Company. She also played leading roles in Song and Dance in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne and in Side by Side by Sondheim for Marion Street Theatre in Sydney.

In Europe, Gaye forged a career that included performances at many of the major houses in Berlin, Munich and Paris. Her European roles include Eva Peron in Evita, Anna in The Rink, Sally Durant in Follies in Theater des Westens in Berlin, Sally Bowles in Cabaret in Theater des Westens and in Theater am GärtnerPlatz in Munich, Velma Kelly in Chicago in Theater des Westens and Deutsches Theater in Munich, The Kurt Weill Revue for both Theater des Westens and L'Odeon in Paris and also for broadcast in 1991.

As a concert artist Gaye has performed as a soloist in Verdi’s Requiem for Christchurch City Choir and Willoughby Symphony Orchestra and Choir, Rossini's Stabat Mater (also for Willoughby Symphony), Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, the 2000 Christmas concert for the Premier’s Department at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, the role of Waltraute in a Wagner Spectacular, Opera in the Highlands and The Knight's Gambit (from Boojum) for Opera Australia.

More recent engagements include ‘Simply Opera’ performances of Carmen at Parramatta Riverside Theatre followed by a regional tour, the role of Rossweisse in the final act of Die Walküre with Sydney Symphony under the baton of Edo de Waart and Siegrune and Second Norn in State Opera of South Australia’s acclaimed 2004 production of Der Ring des Nibelungen and recorded by Melba.

Gaye MacFarlane’s 2005 concert engagements included Verdi Requiem with Willoughby Symphony Orchestra and Choir and the roles of Overseer and Train-bearer in Elektra for Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2006 engagements included Electric Lenin, a new music theatre piece by Barry Conyingham for NORPA in Lismore.

Gaye is currently based in Berlin and involved in concert and festival work throughout Germany

In 2009 Gaye returned to Australia to perform the role of Mary in Die fliegender Holländer for State Opera of South Australia.

 

Gaye MacFarlane

Discography

  "Simply fantastic…I now expect the Melba Ring Cycle to take its place in the annals of recorded history as one of the...
Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) is the dramatic culmination of Wagner’s epic Ring cycle from the State Opera of South...
Die Walküre is the second in Wagner’s four opera Ring cycle and includes the well-known excerpt, the "Ride of the Valkyries"....