It’s been a while. As Australians continue to deal with the onslaught of 2020, parts of the arts industry are slowly, carefully, tentatively starting to put performances on once again. I haven’t seen a live performance in almost six months, so it was with both excitement and some serious trepidation that I came to this concert, Wonderland – An Evening of Classics, the first in QPAC’s new QPAC Unlocked series.

QPAC Unlocked is a series of performances across the various areas of QPAC with a very limited number of socially-distanced audience members. As QPAC’s Chief Executive John Kotzas pointed out in his opening remarks for this concert, Queensland is in the happy position of having low enough numbers of COVID cases to be able to put on these kinds of performances.

Alex Raineri, Katie Stenzel and Samuel Piper. Photograph © Paul Dellit

QPAC also certainly knows how to entice audience members. I was keen enough for a performance full stop, but this opening concert upped the ante by putting the action not in the QPAC Concert Hall as you might expect, but in the neighbouring Lyrebird Restaurant, paired with a two-course menu and wine....