Steve Vizard tells the story behind his new musical collaboration with Paul Grabowsky.

Work Banquet of Secrets
Writers Paul Grabowsky and Steve Vizard
Scored for Chamber Opera
Commissioned by Victorian Opera
Premiere March 1, 2016
Performers Antoinette Halloran, Dimity Shepherd, Kanen Breen, David Rogers-Smith


About a year and a half ago I was having a drink with one of my oldest friends, Paul Grabowsky, as we are increasingly wont to do, and I happened to tell him the story of a remarkable meal I had shared some ten years earlier.  A friend and his wife had taken us to lunch in Port Douglas to thank us in advance for letting them use our beach house. They had booked the most beautiful table at a stunning local restaurant and had arranged with the chef to deliver a spectacular degustation menu over the next several hours, which he had coupled with a selection of extraordinary French wines. My friend had not been well and could eat only a mouthful or two of every course. But each taste seemed to trigger some distant childhood memory and he would vividly recount his memories of cicadas and honey and summers in the Dordogne....