No Charm Equal: Music from Jane Austen's Drawing Room at Mosman Art Gallery

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”
—Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Step into the shades of Pemberley and celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth with performances of popular songs and arias from Georgian England.

Before the pianoforte keys were struck and the first note sung, music was already at the heart of Jane Austen’s world. In drawing rooms lit by candlelight, music was a shared language of love, longing, and polite rebellion.

No Charm Equal brings this world vividly to life, with a concert of songs and operatic excerpts beloved in Austen’s era. From the sentimental ballads copied by hand into family songbooks, to arias from the comic operas that swept through 18th-century England, this program recreates the musical soundscape of a Georgian parlour, where heroines once sang for guests and lovers.