Opera Australia’s production of Otello
Lockdown must be making me irritable; an article during the week really got me going. It concerns two forthcoming productions…
Jaime Martín
They’re changing guard at our two major orchestras; the Melbourne Symphony and the Sydney Symphony. A couple of months ago…
The Dictionary of Lost Words
These days I don’t read many novels although occasionally I have to read one for my book group. Recently our…
Spring Waters
Recent decades have seen the opening or upgrading of numerous performing arts centres throughout regional Australia enabling the development of…
Festival music in Townsville
For those music lovers who can travel, the prospect of a festival in Townsville in mid-winter is an alluring one.…
European Masterpieces from The MMA, New York at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art
This is a very active period for the visual arts. The Archibald Prize finalists have been announced, Vivid is returning,…
Brett Whiteley : Drawing is Everything (31 July – 31 Oct)
Demonstrating excellent timing, the Bendigo Art Gallery has announced a major exhibition Brett Whiteley : Drawing is Everything (31 July…
Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert series
Last weekend’s sports pages told us that ‘the crowds have not yet been flocking back to the footy with pre-pandemic…
The Truth About China by Bill Birtles
As news came through of China’s suspension of high-level trade dialogue with Australia, I read The Truth About China by…
Francesco Cavalli’s The Loves of Apollo & Dafne
Venice in the 17th century was the birthplace of opera. Its dominant and most successful exponent was Francesco Cavalli. Once…
Science Gallery Melbourne
Sydney is still thrashing around with the historic Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, known as the Powerhouse Museum, while…
The 23rd Biennale of Sydney
Advance notice has been given about the Biennale of Sydney for 2022. No one else should get overexcited about this…
She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism
Art movements and fashions may come and go but Australians love of their impressionists seems only to grow stronger. The…
Opera on the Harbour: La Traviata
These days, you’d need to be as game as Ned Kelly to run an opera company. It’s a chancy enough…
Boy Swallows Universe
It is difficult not to be irritated by the preoccupations of the funded state theatre companies. They seem to be…
A Nation Imagined: The Artists of the Picturesque Atlas at the National Library of Australia
If you go to Canberra to see the NGA’s exhibition Botticelli to Van Gogh and are mildly disappointed, your journey…
French Impressionism from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Victoria
While admiring the collections of French impressionist paintings in American galleries, it is easy to think of them as evidence…
Johannes Fritzsch
It is hard to imagine a city with a richer cultural history than Dresden or a better place for a…
Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London
Saint Zenobius was a Florentine nobleman who was converted to Christianity and baptised as an adult, ultimately becoming the first…
Australian Love Stories: Celebrating love in all its guises at the NPG
The National Portrait Gallery seems to be floundering. That may be unfair but the announcement of the next exhibition left…
Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo
Second thoughts are sometimes better thoughts. The NSW government had second thoughts about closing down the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo…
Robyn Nevin
The Adelaide Festival program describes her, accurately, as ‘our finest stage performer’. Robyn Nevin is appearing there (2 Feb-14 Mar)…
Ensemble Theatre, Kirribilli
For 60 years, in an idyllic location at Kirribilli, the Ensemble Theatre has been providing entertainment in an intimate format.…
Elijah Moshinsky
Earlier this month, the opera world sadly absorbed the news of the death of Elijah Moshinsky. Born in Shanghai in…
Masked opera
We were all excited to be there. You would have thought that we hadn’t been to an opera performance. Well,…
