February 21, 2019
Review: Parsifal (Victorian Opera)
A musically excellent, perceptively designed and directed production of Wagner’s final opera.
February 19, 2019
Nominees for the 36th Green Room Awards announced
Melbourne’s yearly awards ceremony for the performing arts celebrates 2018's outstanding achievements.
February 15, 2019
Illuminating Wagner’s shadowiest characters
The stars of Victorian Opera’s upcoming production of Parsifal talk the holy fool and the wandering Jew.
February 12, 2019
Composer of the Month: Richard Wagner
He is regularly reviled as something of a monster, but as Michael Scott Rohan finds out, a closer look at Richard Wagner – and in particular his music – reveals a more genial side to the German composer.
February 8, 2019
Gerald English has died
The British tenor, who spent much of his career in Australia, has died aged 93.
February 7, 2019
Bleach* Festival announces its 2019 program
Louise Bezzina will mark her final festival as Artistic Director with a monumental performance of Verdi’s Requiem, a drive-in dance work, a ship that doubles as a musical instrument – and 180 fitness balls on the beach.
February 6, 2019
The Making of a Magic Flute
Barrie Kosky’s animated production of Mozart’s Singspiel has been stunning audiences globally. Suzanne Andrade and Paul Barritt from innovative British theatre company 1927 tell us how a “hyperactive little Australian” convinced them to stage their first opera.
February 5, 2019
Review: Broadway (Renée Fleming)
Fleming’s savvy picks run musical theatre’s gamut from A to Z.
February 5, 2019
Review: An Italian Night (Jonas Kaufmann, Anita Rachvelishvili)
A night with Herr Kaufmann is undoubtedly one well spent.
February 5, 2019
Review: Handel: Agrippina (Theater an den Wien/Hengelbrock)
Robert Carsen’s update has bed-hopping and bare bods to spare.
February 5, 2019
Review: Mozart: Bastien und Bastienne (Classical Opera/Ian Page)
Page offers a stylish glimpse into one of Mozart’s earliest works.
February 5, 2019
Bernstein: A Quiet Place (Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Nagano)
Written during the most exasperating period of his compositional career, Leonard Bernstein’s opera A Quiet Place reflected all of his then current excesses – be they conducting commitments, prescription medications, Ballantine Scotch and his inability to say ‘no’. This more recent rewrite for chamber-sized forces (less than 20 musicians are employed here compared to the 70-piece ensemble that Lenny originally sought) achieves much. Gone is the earlier ‘flashback’ using his early-50s one acter Trouble in Tahiti, though many musical references remain, and this works for the better along with other judicious prunings by composer Garth Sunderland. The opera in this new incarnation is now cut down to just over 90-minutes in duration. With A Quiet Place, we have graduated from the everyday marital issues seen in Trouble in Tahiti to a time following the death of wife Dinah in a car accident when the entire family (now including two adult children and a son-in-law, François) are all in crisis dealing not only with death, but issues of sexual orientation – for not only is the son, Junior, gay, he has had an affair with his sister’s husband somewhere in the past. Perhaps the plot lies closer to soap opera? Yet…
February 4, 2019
Review: The Flying Dutchman (Melbourne Opera)
A ghost ship worth catching before it sails away later this week.
