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​2024 G&S Opera Sydney Season

September 21, 2pm
Soldier’s Memorial Hall Railway Ave Bundanoon


September 29, 2pm
The Art House 19/21 Margaret St Wyong


October 5, 2pm & 8pm
October 6, 2pm
October 12, 2pm & 8pm
October 13, 2pm
Smith Auditorium Shore High School William St North Sydney

The GSOS Production Team

Christine Logan, Stage Director

Christine spent over 25 years working behind the scenes and on stage for New Theatre, Nimrod Theatre, Belvoir Street Theatre and Opera Australia.

During this time she developed an extensive knowledge of all aspects of theatre production from public relations to performing while working with and observing some of Australia’s best directors including Neil Armfield, Barrie Kosky and Baz Luhrmann.

Family commitments were a catalyst for further studies and a career change. Christine taught children with autism and physical disabilities often integrating music and performance into their education programs which resulted in some very lively musical productions.

When Christine was asked to direct The Yeomen of the Guard for a FAMS Theatre Company in 2014 she was tempted back into the realms of more mainstream theatre. That challenge proved daunting but fulfilling.

She gathered a talented team who then went on to produce a very successful adaptation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera adapted by herself and music director Peter Alexander.

Her Trial by Jury set in the 1950s played to packed courthouses in country NSW and at the Canberra National Folk Festival.

In 2020 Christine directed an acclaimed production of a new Norwegian Play Virus-a Fugue which delighted audiences with its absurdist dialogue and innovative direction - including puppets. Her adaptation of Mozart’s Bastien and Bastienna and Bach’s Coffee Cantata at Customs House in 2021 entertained COVID capacity audiences and critics.

Christine and Peter collaborated in 2022 to present the highly successful production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt with Grieg’s original orchestral music. A challenging but resounding success in the quirky Paddington RSL.

In 2023 Christine and Peter collaborated again on the performance of four 20th Century short operas entitled It's So Last Century. 

Lesley Braithwaite, Associate Director and Choreographer

The melodies and maladies of Messieurs Sullivan & Gilbert, weave their merry way through Lesley’s earliest musical memories. Her first official taste of topsy-turvy came in ‘Trial by Jury’, playing Angelina for a Loosely Woven production that was a surprise hit at the National Folk Festival in Canberra. Her debut with G&S Opera Sydney followed swiftly thereafter, when she landed the role of Pitti-Sing in ‘The Mikado’ (2019), and she has since been honoured with a number of invitations to perform and tour under the banner of this fine group. Most recently she made a mischief of Willis’ “Private” life in the company’s re-envisioned ‘Iolanthe’.

Joyfully engaged with Endangered Productions since 2020, Lesley has chalked up an eclectic repertoire of chamber opera gems. This has included lead roles in JS Bach’s charmingly comedic ‘Coffee Cantata’ and Mozart’s ‘Bastien & Bastienne’ - penned by the composer at age twelve. It’s So Last Century, presented at The Nielson in November 2023, showcased the work of four 20th Century composers, and featured Lesley as Lucy in Gian Carlo Menotti’s ‘The Telephone’

Lesley holds a degree from The Victorian College of the Arts (Univ. of Melbourne) and a Master’s degree in Fine Art (Dance Performance & Choreography) from Mills College in Oakland, California. Having dedicated many years to finessing her skills as a dancer and dance maker in Australia and the United States, she brings an innate kinetic know-how to her stage performances and a uniquely creative eye to each production.

Rod Mounjed, Musical Director

Rod has been Musical Directing since 1985, when he first designed the music for the play Cloud Nine at the Seymour Centre. Recent Musical Design in 2002-4 has included The Importance of Being Earnest, A Midsummer Nights Dream (Shakespeare by the Sea). Since 2000 Rod has worked as a conductor with Symphony Australia’s conducting program and has worked interstate with different ensembles and orchestras from each of the major symphony orchestras around Australia, specializing in the works of Stravinsky, Mendelssohn, Grieg and Beethoven.

Rod has worked with GSOS since 1991 (Iolanthe, Princess Ida (twice) Pirates of Penzance, Yeomen of the Guard and HMS Pinafore). With Regals Musical Society has conducted Broadway Pirates of Penzance, Pippin, Oklahoma, Chess, Annie, Me & My Girl. His two shows with the Rockdale Musical Society have been Anything Goes and Mame. He has conducted Ruddigore for Rockdale Opera in 2011.

For the past three decades he has been the resident Musical Director at Lugar Brae Players and has participated in HMS Pinafore, The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance, South Pacific, Oklahoma, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, Me & My Girl, The Pajama Game, Guys and Dolls, Oliver, Annie Get Your Gun, Sound of Music. He volunteered to help conduct Yeomen of the Guard and Iolanthe for the G & S Singfest (Glen Street Theatre and Zenith Theatre).

As a pianist he has recorded for SMP classics, works by Mendelssohn (Songs without Words), Beethoven (Late Piano Sonatas Op.109, 110 & 111), and “An Evening with G & S” for violin and piano.

Sandra Tutt, Costumier
Sandra has been designing, sewing and co-ordinating show costumes since 1995 for several musical societies in Sydney. She specialises in Gilbert and Sullivan but has recently branched out to opera. She first worked with Savoy Arts Company (G&S Opera Sydney’s original name) doing The Gondoliers in 2007 and has done several shows for G&S Opera Sydney since then.
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Sandra grew up sewing with her sister, mother and grandmother (who was a milliner) and has won several awards and accolades for her work over the many years she has been sewing. As a full-time nurse this is a loved hobby and she loves to see it all come together in a show.

​Bianca De Nicola, Assistant Costumier

Bianca’s passion in dressmaking and the visual arts began from a young age with influence from a family of creatives.

She explored these interests across varying fields such as: sculpting, theatre makeup and sewing. Moreover, through studies abroad such as Fashion Design in the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina as well as Makeup and Special Effects for Film and Theatre she was able to work on a number of local Buenos Aires productions.

Assisting backstage in the “It’s So Last Century!” Production with Endangered Productions in 2023, Bianca was able to explore some of the theatre movement in Sydney where she is currently undertaking her studies in Costume Design to which all these skills are being harnessed in the creation of characters though dress.
When she is not studying or working on her small business Madam Margo, she enjoys just what costuming entails, sewing, sketching, thrifting clothing and hoarding fabrics.

Stephen Walter, Repetiteur

​Stephen Walter is a retired musician.

His working life did include being an associate artist on piano and harpsichord for instrumentalists,
but he spent by far the longest time working with singers and as an opera repetiteur.  

He lived in Adelaide and Perth playing for the state opera companies of South and Western Australia,
then moved to Sydney to join the music staff of Opera Australia, where he remained for thirty years.

Stephen has played operas across the whole repertoire, from the earliest Monteverdi and Cavalli, 
through to new works on which the ink was still drying, like those of Richard Meale and Richard Mills.

Retiring to give more time and energy to interests such as Bushcare and long-distance walking, 
Stephen still enjoys doing whatever musical work comes his way.