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From opera to musical theatre and drama classic and contemporary, I’m genre agnostic when it comes to picking the best theatrical experiences of 2018. The standout Sydney stage shows spoke to the moment in distinctive ways, from #metoo to race relations, mental health, environmentalism … and the pitfalls of bricking yourself into a pyramid. In
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Art isn’t easy, a composer wrote once. Especially art about art. At least Stephen Sondheim wrote about a real artist and a real masterpiece. If the audience is supposed to believe the art in your story is great, you have to produce art that is, well, genuinely great. Take A Star Is Born. No, not
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Site-specific theatre and performance has become all the rage in recent years. At their best, such productions allow for a mutually illuminating dialogue between venue and work; often they also use the space to refresh our experience of performance itself by immersing the audience visually and spatially in the work with the performers. Last week I
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By Daily Review
The launch season has begun this month for the country’s performing arts companies as they reveal their 2019 programs. The first theatre company out of the gate is Queensland Theatre in Brisbane, helmed by artistic director Sam Strong, formerly an associate AD at Melbourne Theatre Company. His 2019 season (marking the company’s 49th year) raises the bar for
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And now, a change of pace. After three brooding operas this cold Sydney winter – a staid Lucia Di Lammermoor, a sombre Rigoletto and a dazzlingly dark Aida – levity arrives in the form of one of Gioachino Rossini’s least remembered operas. The Turk In Italy is little performed for some good reasons. But this
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Blood-red clouds swirl apocalyptically overhead. A black panther with piercing green eyes stands warily close by. A gold-plated serpent is charmed to coil around the crowd and bare its fangs. Or is it all a dazzling mirage? No surprise in an opera set in the deserts of ancient Egypt, especially one as tricked out as
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By Daily Review
The musical import Beautiful edged out the home grown musical Muriel’s Wedding The Musical at the annual Helpmann Awards held in Sydney on Monday and (in a new award system) Sunday nights. Beautiful won six awards in the musicals category over both nights to Muriel’s’ five. At last night’s awards at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney for the ‘big’ awards, Beautiful won best
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There is, as we’ve come to expect in the globalised market of principal opera talent, some world-class voices quaking the tiles of the Sydney Opera House this winter. Starry seasons of two mid-19th century Italian works, Lucia di Lammermoor and Rigoletto don’t excavate anything opera lovers didn’t know about these works, or indeed these well-worn adaptations of contrasting
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By Daily Review
The one-man show Resident Alien by Tim Fountain and directed by Gary Abrahams is back for a return season with Paul Capsis as the iconoclastic Englishman Quentin Crisp who, ironically, became famous in the 1970s for being a gay icon. In the 70 minute show, the wit, raconteur and queer elder statesman opens the door to his famously filthy New
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Theatre director Fiona Blair sees a production of the operatic version of Don Quixote by Jules Massenet and finds herself rewarded for all the other renderings of Miguel de Cervantes’ novel she’s forced herself (and others) to endure over the years. *** I’ve got some form on Don Quixote. I’ve had a tilt. I’ve tried to compress the
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