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The Big Idea, a new operatic monodrama with a libretto by Vid Simoniti, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Liverpool, is receiving its world premiere in Australia on 25 September 2025.
Commissioned by Melbourne’s boundary-pushing classical music ensemble, Rubiks Collective, The Big Idea is a new piece by composer Matthew Shlomowitz, created in collaboration with Simoniti. The ensemble are joined by the mezzo soprano Lotte Betts Dean, performing the piece in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.
In The Big Idea, a lonely figure enters the stage, singing of a beautiful, earth-shattering idea that is forming within her. When the moment finally arrives, she and the ensemble must face the possibility that their lives will be changed forever.
The Big Idea stretches out a single eureka moment into a musical extravaganza, traversing haunting Lieder-like melodies, spoken word and music-hall giddiness. The piece both celebrates the possibility that we could all reinvent ourselves and stages the crushing realisation when our ambitions collapse.
Combining spoken word, music, and theatrical elements, The Big Idea is an iconoclastic departure from music monodramas like Schoenberg’s Expectation and Poulenc’s The Human Voice.
Find out more here: https://rubikscollective.com/news/2025/8/6/the-big-idea-10-years-of-rubiks-collective