HADESTOWN
From May 2025
Her Majesty's Theatre
The acclaimed musical phenomenon HADESTOWN by singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell and director Rachel Chavkin will arrive at Her Majesty's Theatre in May 2025.
'Big, beautiful and emotionally blasting' (The Guardian UK), HADESTOWN is the winner of 8 Tony Awards including BEST MUSICAL and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album.
Seen by three million, streamed by over 350 million and adored by fans all around the world, this is 'your next musical theatre obsession'
(Vogue).
HADESTOWN is a defiantly hopeful theatrical experience that will take you on a journey to the underworld and back, intertwining two mythic love stories - that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone. HADESTOWN invites you to imagine how the world could be.
SHOW INFORMATION
2 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES (INCLUDING A 20 MINUTE INTERVAL)
PERFORMANCE DATE
From MAY 2025
HADESTOWN REVIEW
Hadestown, an offbeat, awardwinning Broadway and West End musical largely unheard of in Australia, will be heading to Melbourne next year, following a season in Sydney.
Suzanne Jones, who is coproducing the show along with Opera Australia, calls Hadestown ''one of the most successful musicals of all time - and one of the best-kept secrets'' .
Opening at Sydney's Theatre Royal in February 2025 before moving to Melbourne's Her Majesty's Theatre in May, Hadestown is a modern reimagining of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice with music that combines New Orleans jazz with contemporary American folk.
'' I saw it on Broadway just before COVID hit,'' says Jones. '' It was just beautiful. I had no idea what I was getting into. It's a very simple set until about two-thirds of the way through. And then it's not a very simple set, and it opens out into this quite miraculous thing.
'' It's about all the things we hold dear. It's about love and passion, good and evil, dark and light and the grey in between and how we navigate that.''
When the Sydney season was announced in June of this year, Opera Australia artistic director Jo Davies said the themes and music of Hadestown were a perfect fit for the company. Davies has since left the company, in a shock departure announced last Friday. Though the reasons for her abrupt departure remain unclear, speaking to The Age Davies said: '' I'm leaving because there is a real difference of opinion on how OA should balance its artistic ambitions with its commercial imperative.''
In June, Davies said of the upcoming seasons of Hadestown: '' After seeing this piece on Broadway, I thought how extraordinary it would be for audiences to see this classic myth reinterpreted once again for our times.
'' I think it's incredible that a new Broadway hit musical with a huge international following is based around the retelling of a Greek legend that also fascinated [operatic composer Christoph] Gluck in the mid-1700 s. He, too, was desperate to make this tragic tale of love and loss speak to the universal, to really make it sing.''
Earlier this year, Opera Australia chief executive Fiona Allan confirmed the company's commitment to staging two musicals each year. In 2023, OA produced Miss Saigon and Phantom of the Opera, drawing a combined audience of more than 240,000, nearly half its audience for the year.
Since then, however, the Melbourne season of Sunset Boulevard starring soprano Sarah Brightman has caused a number of headaches for the company, with mixed reviews, Brightman absent for significant periods of time, and a number of performances needing to be cancelled. The production has just begun its Sydney season.
Hadestown promises to be a bright spot on the upcoming schedule. '' Melbourne audiences embrace musicals like no other city and in return musicals delight in performing here due to the rousing receptions and support that they receive. Hadestown will be no exception,'' Jones said as part of the latest season announcement.
The show began life in 2006 in Vermont as a no-budget piece of independent theatre written by American singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell.
Thirteen years later, it opened on Broadway and then, earlier this year, in London's West End. In 2019 it was nominated for 14 Tony Awards, winning eight, and in 2020 it won a Grammy for the best musical theatre album. Since then it has been seen by 3 million people and streamed more than 350 million times.
'' It's not just this little show that could, it's this big show that did. It actually did,'' says Jones, who hopes that Hadestown will strike a chord with Australian audiences in the same way as other hit musicals tackling quirky themes, including Come From Away and Hamilton.
'' If someone had come to you and said, 'Hey I've got a musical about this guy Alexander Hamilton that invented the American monetary system and we're going to do it in slam poetry' , you'd have been, 'Yeah, not really for me' . But it's a gripping yarn and a fantastic show, and audiences here loved it.''
Hadestown will be on at Her Majesty's Theatre from May 2025.
Review by Nick Galvin | September 5 issue of The Age Digital Edition. To subscribe, visit "https://www.theage.com.au".
Official Tickets: Ticketmaster
❊ When ❊
Date: Thursday 1st May 2025
❊ Where ❊
Her Majesty's Theatre View Venue
219 Exhibition Street Melbourne Victoria 3000 Map
✆ Venue: 61 3 8643 3300 | Event:
❊ Web Links ❊
→ HADESTOWNDisclaimer: Check with the venue (web links) before making plans, travelling or buying tickets.
Accessibility: Contact the venue for accessibility information.
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