Australia Ensemble UNSW is so lucky to be working with worldclass artists, Imara Savage, Director; and Michael Hankin, Set and Costume Designer, for the upcoming staging of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale.

Ahead of the concert, Saturday 14 March 2026, we have taken the opportunity to ask Imara and Michael questions about their process and experience staging this work.  

How did this collaboration with Australia Ensemble UNSW come about?

Imara Savage: The introduction came through a directing colleague Mark Gaal at NIDA, and the composer Paul Stanhope who I worked with at Sydney Chamber Opera. I've worked fairly extensively in opera, chamber music, installation type works, often in cross disciplinary ways, with interesting collaborators, so Stravinsky's, 'The Soldier's Tale,' to be read, played and danced, is very much my cup of tea. 

Michael Hankin: The collaboration came about through my ongoing work with Imara. We’ve developed a number of opera and theatre projects together, and I’ve always been drawn to her rigour and contemporary sensibility. We share an interest in locating a speculative, psychological or poetic space in which a work can exist, somewhere slightly beyond literal interpretation.

Much of my practice sits at the intersection of source material — in this case, the music — and visual storytelling. The Soldier’s Tale immediately felt like a natural fit. It’s chamber-scale in its forces, yet conceptually expansive, and that’s often where design can invite a strong conceptual approach 

How does this piece differ to works you have staged in the past?

Imara Savage: The work differs in a couple of regards. Mostly I've worked in theatre or I've worked in opera, but this fits into neither category, and in fact is in a category all of its own.

The genre is hard to pin down, whilst the themes are Faustian, the tone is very light, sometimes verging on pantomime, with a classic fairytale structure. Is it a theatrical chamber work, or a melodrama with music? And it rhymes! Is it for children or adults?

To my mind, it's a total hybrid pastiche, which I think is also represented in the pastiche of the music- for example the tango, waltz and ragtime of the second act against military marches. Is it neo classical? Is it modernist? Is it cabaret? I have no idea! 

Michael Hankin: What distinguishes this work for me is its resistance to a single, unified visual logic. In opera, there’s often a clear tonal spine; in theatre, the text usually anchors the aesthetic world. But The Soldier’s Tale exists in a state of stylistic flux.

The score moves fluidly through tango, ragtime, waltz and military march — it’s deliberately fractured and eclectic. That gave Imara and me permission to avoid a singular aesthetic and instead explore a layered, slightly unstable visual world. The design embraces that sense of pastiche and volatility rather than smoothing it into coherence.

What excites you about working within a multi-disciplinary production?

Imara Savage: I think with every work, you are looking to unlock something in the original staging — that made this work timeless or classic. It's not about imposing multi-disciplinary work on every production, it's often about asking what the production needs to make it sing in an alive way that speaks to the composer's intentions.

What strikes me about 'The Soldier's Tale', is the pastiche I mentioned above, it asks the audience to move between artforms, and the focus is always shifting, as to what artform is dominant on the stage — what is 'telling the story' at any given moment. But also, there is something quite chaotic about the work which we wanted to lean into — the madness of the story itself and the soldier's journey from something quite pastoral and simple to hallucinatory to the pits of hell.

And also, how this connects to the time in which Stravinsky was writing — this post war landscape. Multi-disciplinary work differs from straight narrative story telling because it understands that sometimes the light, sound, choreography can be authoring the work as much as the text. They are all available tools to 'tell the story' and text doesn't take precedent over these other elements.  

Michael Hankin: In a work like this, the visual environment isn’t simply framing the action… it’s helping to shape rhythm, tone and meaning alongside the music.

There’s something inherently chaotic and volatile in the storytelling. The soldier’s journey shifts from pastoral simplicity into psychological fragmentation, and ultimately into something infernal. That trajectory felt less like a linear narrative problem and more like a visual transformation.

Without revealing too much, we’ve developed a visual language in which the environment begins in a sort-of bucolic setting and gradually deteriorates over the course of the evening.

It’s less about illustrating the narrative and more about constructing a world that becomes increasingly fractured, hallucinatory and unsettled, mirroring the texture of the score itself.

How long have you been rehearsing/creating this piece, and what is something that has surprised you in this process?

Imara Savage: The process has been very different to a usual opera/theatre process. Usually you are given a work a year out and the designer and director squirrel away for 6 months to create a design that is then presented on day 1 of the rehearsal to the cast.

In this case the performer, Mitch Riley, and I went into a room and explored the material for 2 weeks, including interrogating the original French text and making cuts because this version is a one man show (without other actors and a dancer).

Then the designer Michael Hankin came on board, and we talked through our discoveries with him, showed him material and wrestled with ideas. The next day Michael presented us with a design and we spent 2 further weeks refining the staging. It's been a quicker process than usual, which has surprised me, because usually the conception phase can go over months, even years!

It helps that Mitch and I have worked together a lot at Sydney Chamber Opera (he is an opera singer) and Mikey and I also met at NIDA 20 years ago! So, I've been surprised in a good way by the speed at which we have conceived of the work. 

Michael Hankin: (This is sort-of mirroring what Imara has said in that) what’s been unusual about this project is the speed and immediacy of the design development. Often there’s a long conceptual incubation period before ideas are shared in the rehearsal room. Here, the design evolved in close dialogue with what was being discovered live in the space. I love working in this way and wish more processes could be conceived like this! 

Because this is a one-performer version — with Mitch Riley embodying multiple characters — you might assume that costume transformation would be the central challenge. But we’ve worked towards a language that frees us from literal “hat-changing.” Mitch is an extraordinary physical and vocal artist and the transformations are more atmospheric and spatial than costume-driven. 

How has Stravinsky’s music inspired your staging?

Imara Savage: Act 1 is in some ways more like a traditional story with scenes and music, but Act 2 is radically different, formally, in that, music really becomes much more of a focal point and scenes/text moves into the background. The different textures inside the music in Act 2 are so varied in form and colour and tone and texture, and we really tried to bring that into focus in the staging in the second act, through the visual artwork.  

Michael Hankin: L’Histoire du soldat is incredibly textural. The first act feels episodic and grounded, while the second act becomes rhythmically sharper, more brittle and tonally exposed.

That contrast has deeply informed the visual language. The first act begins in a comparatively restrained, almost bucolic palette. As the music grows more angular and fragmented, the design follows and the spatial composition becomes increasingly abstract.

Is there something our audiences can look out for?

Imara Savage: We were really inspired by the paintings and sculpture of the German artist, Anselm Keifer — like Stravinsky, his work is a response to war and destruction. We also talked about Shakespeare's 'Lear' and Schubert's 'Winterreise', in regards to the protagonist's journey, so that is somewhat reflected in some of the staging and costume choices. 

Michael Hankin: The design quietly tracks the soldier’s journey — from a simple pastoral setting into something, hallucinatory, abstract, expressionistic and increasingly Faustian. This transformation doesn’t happen through spectacle, but through erosion.

We’re interested in the world operating almost as an extension of the soldier’s point of view — a landscape altered by war, memory, corruption, ruin and myth. Something once simple and charming becomes irreversibly changed. Audiences might notice how symbols of life are gradually recontextualised, obscured or covered over — as though the world itself can no longer return to what it once was.

Thank you to Imara and Michael for your time and generosity, it is clear from this interview, that this is a performance not to be missed!

Tickets for the performance on Saturday 14 March 2026 can be purchased here.