Brisbane Festival has announced its 2018 program. The semi-staged performance of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, starring Australian heldentenor Stuart Skelton, which has already been announced, is one of the highlights. Other works include a new piece by Circa called En Masse, performed to Schubert’s Winterreise and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Brink Productions’ Memorial  starring Helen Morse, and the return of Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Symphony For Me.

Memorial, Brisbane FestivalHelen Morse in Memorial. Photograph © Shane Reid

The full program contains almost 600 performances (of which 100 are free) of almost 70 shows across 17 venues. This year the Festival’s Artistic Director David Berthold has divided the program into three acts.

“Festivals can be hard to navigate and this is a longish festival –  three weeks including four weekends – so we have divided it into three acts just to give it a little bit of shape. Each of the acts has a thematic focus, so it provides people with a way to think about it and talk about it,” says Berthold.

Act One revolves around ideas of home, memory and gender. One of the key events is Brink Productions’ Memorial, a moving elegy to those killed...