Think of the notoriously sinful cities Sodom and Gomorrah referenced in the bible that were destroyed by sulphur and fire because of their wickedness. That is the starting point for the satirical opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Premiering in Germany in March 1930, with text by Bertolt Brecht, Elizabeth Hauptmann and…
The opening night of Opera Australia’s spectacular staging of Verdi’s dramatic opera Aida was blighted by a major technical failure. The surtitles, which were to appear above the stage and translate the lyrics into English, were nowhere to be seen for the first 20 minutes or so. So, if you didn’t happen to know the story you…
Somehow, even when Rufus Wainwright was getting a lot of buzz for the sophisticated sound on his self-titled debut (’98) and his sophomore outing, Poses, he felt like an old soul, someone who’s idea of pop music came from Cole Porter’s prestigious catalog in the 1930’s, and prone to quoting lines from the plays of…
I wept tears of joy watching Ron Howard’s stellar documentary charting the life of one of the greatest operatic tenors to have blessed the planet. Including never before publicly seen photos and footage, Pavarotti is insightful and compelling. The music icon sold more than 100 million records in his lifetime. Dubbed “The People’s Tenor”, Pavarotti…
– Pavarotti – Only in cinemas from 24 October 2019 We have 5 double in-season passes thanks to Madman Entertainment. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE From two-time Academy Award® winning director Ron Howard and the team behind the worldwide success The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, comes a documentary celebrating the…
West Side Story debuted in 1957 on Broadway. Four genius artists somehow subdued their egos to collaborate as an ensemble to produce one of the great works in the musical theatre canon: Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins. A motion picture version arrived in 1961 winning 10 Academy Awards – it created…
The fourth of the great Stephen Sondheim musicals that Victorian Opera has tackled since 2013, A Light Night Music remains as charming and funny as when it was first conceived nearly 50 years ago. With music and lyrics by Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler, the musical was inspired by the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film…
What a story! What power! What magnificent singing and acting and one of the most dramatic scores in opera. Then we had murder, torture, rape and suicide for good measure. There’s no doubt Opera Queensland’s Tosca had everything and it was brilliantly revealed on opening night. What has been described as the greatest opera of…
Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti is a good-natured and lively affair with mistaken identities at its core. Emotionworks – the brainchild of former Opera Australia principal and before that a jazz musician and singer Julie Edwardson – presents opera shortened and performed in English mashed with contemporary music, all of which follows a theme. Edwardson’s aim…
Lindy Hume’s darkly delicious production of the Mozart masterpiece Don Giovanni has “hit” written all over it. From the stirring opening overture to the amazing finale, with fifty-odd mostly naked women pushing Don Giovanni to hell, it gripped, titillated, amused, and at times brought gasps of disbelief from a shell-shocked audience. There was no watch…
