There’s a vibrant spirit of renewal at Canada’s Alberta Ballet, the Calgary-based company that next year celebrates its 60th anniversary. Artistic director Francesco Ventriglia has been in place for only 18 months but is moving rapidly on multiple fronts. He has already increased the size of the company, is putting the classical tradition front and centre…
Author: Deborah
Patricio Revé news the bright spot at Queensland Ballet’s time of woe
It’s been known for some time that Queensland Ballet is in financial difficulty. This week we discovered it is in the process of cutting staff from behind the scenes and within its company of about 60 dancers. It’s a heartbreaking reversal of fortune for the company remade and substantially expanded under the artistic directorship of…
Romeo & Juliet. Queensland Ballet. Lyric Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane, March 22 and 26, 2025
It’s all change at Queensland Ballet. Again. The company is far from being the only arts organisation experiencing some turmoil – here’s looking at you, Opera Australia – but every company’s woes are its own. These are interesting times as QB continues to regroup after the retirement of transformational artistic director Li Cunxin. Li left…
The Wild Between Stars, West Australian Ballet, February 7
The stars were out and so was the moon. The audience gathered, as always, on the terraces at City Beach’s Quarry Amphitheatre with the traditional picnic baskets and wine to hand. The dancers of West Australian Ballet warmed up on the open-air stage and all was as it usually is. Except, that is, for the…
Breaking Plates: a new film from Karen Pearlman smashes past and present together
If you want to sum up the thrust of Karen Pearlman’s witty new short film in one piece of advice it’s this: women, whatever you do, do not gaze wistfully through a window. This passive act of watching and waiting is anathema to Pearlman, as it should be. She simply will not allow it in anything she…
Ivan Gil-Ortega named new artistic director of Queensland Ballet
Queensland Ballet has chosen Ivan Gil-Ortega to be its next artistic director. The Spanish-born international artist will be the company’s seventh AD. He will start in February after a period of considerable turmoil for QB. Gil-Ortega’s high-profile predecessor, Leanne Benjamin, stayed in the role for only six months. In a statement at the time Benjamin…
Siegfried & Roy: The Unauthorised Opera. Sydney Festival. Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company. January 10.
Obviously we’re not precisely at the opera. If so, the doors would have been shut against all-comers at the scheduled start time and there wouldn’t be all these people standing around in the auditorium drinking and chatting. And no one telling them to shut up and sit down. So far, so fabulous, as are the…
The year in review: 2024
It’s been a few years since I’ve done a year’s-best list. Everyone loves a list, including me, and it’s fun to see what others found memorable. But while I’m always happy to share my opinions about live performance it’s a bit of a mug’s game to say this thing was “better” than that thing when…
Oscar. Choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. The Australian Ballet, Melbourne, September 13, 2024. Sydney, November 8, 2024.
Can something be simultaneously too much and not enough? That was the case for Oscar Wilde in his tumultuous, ill-fated, on-off relationship with the mercurial Lord Alfred Douglas and it’s the case with Oscar, Christopher Wheeldon’s new full-length work for The Australian Ballet. The extraordinarily rich score by Joby Talbot and Wheeldon’s abundant storytelling gifts join…
Dear Evan Hansen, Sydney Theatre Company and Michael Cassel Group. Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, October 18.
Is there anyone, anywhere, ever, who hasn’t kept stumm about something not precisely true when put under pressure? Mostly it doesn’t matter but in the earnest chamber musical Dear Evan Hansen the ramifications are far-reaching. Poor Evan Hansen. A misunderstanding that could have been dispelled in seconds takes on a life of its own, multiplying like a…
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