The actor has worn the stockings as Frank N. Furter and is about to don the topper as the Wizard of Oz, but classical music is where his heart is.

It’s correct to say that my awareness and appreciation of classical music was initially encouraged at the many ballet performances I attended as a youngster and throughout my teens. Consequently my pleasure has mostly been linked to stage presentations that were visual and dramatic – the music as the inspiration and underscoring for expressly and expressively choreographed movement. It does strike me that this combination is surely a great way for the uninitiated to discover and enjoy music – to experience it as action.

My introduction to the ballet occurred at Sydney’s old Theatre Royal, probably during 1947, at a performance by the Borovansky Ballet. On the program that day was a new Australian work Terra Australis, with specially commissioned music by local composer Esther Rofe. Considering the age I was then it must have sounded awfully modern and probably unappealing. Certainly the scenario and staging was loaded down with a kind of poetic symbolism that was without the sort of liveliness that my young ears and eyes might...