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Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd, the chorus sings. And that’s no small feat. Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece is an Everest musical for any company. It calls for a big orchestra. Big voices. Big emotions, from playful vaudeville to macabre tragedy. Complex staging. Subtle shifts in mood and musicality. There are variations, of course. Bryn Terfel
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Like the No. 1 subway through the Upper West Side, a thin line bisects this alfresco West Side Story on Sydney Harbour. The difference between a great night out and a miserable one? Just add water, as us fancy-frocked freeloaders found on opening night when the heavens opened just as the orchestra struck up the
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What are we to make of Salome—Richard Strauss’ one-act opera after Oscar Wilde’s one-act play—in an age of religious emergency, female empowerment and sexual awakening? What are we to make of a woman as both gruesome sexual fantasy and ghoulish sexual aggressor? A woman of the male gaze rendered so powerful? A heroine so shockingly
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As opera love triangles go, this one is pretty staid: boy and girl are engaged, girl falls for another boy before the wedding, who gets a little clingy. If scandal is what you want you’d be better off staying at home with Married At First Sight. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s book, from which this opera
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Michael Keegan-Dolan/Teac Damsa, Swan Lake/Loch na hEala; Komische Oper Berlin/Barrie Kosky/1927, The Magic Flute When my kids were little, I used to read to them from a storybook called Tales from the Ballet. It contained illustrated retellings of the plots from famous ballets, many of which were originally folk tales. I can’t speak for its
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By Shane Murphy
Tonight is a bit of a first for me, an opera and ballet in one piece performed as part of the Midsumma Festival. Composer Evan Lawson’s aim is to review the Orpheus myth by emphasising the relationship between Orpheus and his lover Calais, in contrast to the usual story that revolves around the tragic love tale
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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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