Sweet, angelic voices fill the Burnside Ballroom, as young ladies sing in pastel fairy dress and flower crowns. The ensemble lures the audience into a dreamy, romantic atmosphere filled with smoke, dim light, and candles.
Wild Girl consists of a rather traditional choir of experienced singers. Aurora is an Adelaide-based acappella women’s ensemble, with members aged between 20 to 35 years old. The show begins with a storytelling by Catherine Campbell, the Wild Woman, in a dark green dress. She delivers a poetry-like story of a wild girl and her coming-of-age inner transformation. Seventeen ladies sing the repertoire as the story goes by.
Accompanied by harp and piano, the beautiful mix of soprano and alto singers draws the ballroom into a dream state. The singers are not bound to the stage. They appear from the balcony and wander through the tables, where the audience sits back and relaxes. Each song has different soloists, showcasing various textures in voices.
The girls seem as though they’re in a trance, looking well beyond the audience. They succeed in creating a fairytale-like atmosphere, but it makes the audience feel a bit left out. The girls are performing so close that sometimes you could even touch them, but there is little interaction between the singers and the audience: a sheer line exists separating the fairy in the magical world and the people watching them.
The show is filled with gentle and soothing music, like a lullaby. It includes original songs composed by Callie Wood and arrangements of popular songs, including by Sia and Trent Reznor. However, the show can be a little tedious, as the similar type of choir music goes on for over an hour. You may expect something different if you are a fan of the TV show Glee but Wild Girl is not a showcase of famous upbeat pop tunes with dynamic dance moves.
That said, they succeed in creating a “midsummer night dream” state, with their angelic harmony and flattering pastel dresses. It surely is “a fairytale for grown-ups,” leaving the audiences purified by their voices.
