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…
Category: Opera
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…
Opera Australia and its ‘commitment to musical theatre’
We have Opera Australia’s 2025 program in front of us now, launched this week without the presence of its key architect, former artistic director Jo Davies. As all opera-lovers know, Davies and OA parted company by mutual agreement at the end of August, just nine months after she put her feet under the desk. You…
Opera Australia and AD Jo Davies part company
Opera Australia chose an unusual day on which to announce it had parted ways with its artistic director, Jo Davies. Tomorrow – Saturday, August 31 – is the Sydney opening night for Sunset Boulevard. So you have a vitally important production for OA’s coffers and you decide that yes, today would be just the day for…
Wagner’s Ring, Melbourne Opera, March 24-April 2, 2023
It should come as a surprise to no one that Melburnians saw the first complete Der Ring des Nibelungen in Australia. The city has always had something of a yen for Wagner. The year was 1913, just 12 months after the Quinlan Opera Company had made its Melbourne debut with a season that included Tannhäuser and Tristan and Isolde (all the…
Pinchgut’s Apollo and Dafne now available for streaming
Australian Theatre Live, a streaming service that offers films of local performing arts productions for subscribers to view at home, has just added Pinchgut Opera’s delectable comedy The Loves of Apollo and Dafne to its growing list. ATL is as yet a relatively small service – Apollo and Dafne is the 20th film in its catalogue – but there’s no…
Trois Grandes Fugues, Lyon Opera Ballet
Festival Theatre, Adelaide, March 7. The idea is transfixing. Three of the greatest 20th century contemporary choreographers come to grips with Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue, a monumentally knotty piece of music first performed in 1876, the year before the composer died, and far from an obvious choice for a dancemaker. This Lyon Opera Ballet program came…
Adelaide Festival opening weekend
Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy, who have signed on as joint artistic directors for three Adelaide festivals (this year, 2018 and 2019), set the bar high on their first opening weekend and floated over it with ease. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say it looked easy. It can’t be underestimated how much work went…
My 2016 Artists of the Year …
Last year I decided to institute my personal Artist of the Year award. There’s no money attached, of course, and I think we’d have to say it confers only a modest amount of fame. I was rather thrilled , however, to see that my inaugural winner, the multi-faceted mezzo Jacqui Dark, was subsequently featured in…
About last week … April 23-29
I could be wrong but I think the only Jonathan Dove opera to have made it to a professional stage so far in Australia is Flight, which I saw in 2006 when the Adelaide Festival presented the Glyndebourne production. The prolific Dove is something of a rarity, being a living opera composer whose more than…
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