Aus dem Orchestergraben des Opernhauses entlassen gab die Staatskapelle Berlin eine aufregende Vorstellung von Strauss' Heldenleben unter der Leitung von Daniel Barenboim und mit Anna Netrebko in den Vier Letzten Liedern
Brundibar was performed many times in the Jewish ghetto of Terezin during the Second World War. This production by Opera Prometheus, directed by Joseph Toltz, pays tribute to this history.
A new opera by Alison Croggon and Michael Smetanin on the Soviet poet Mayakovsky is an intense experience in the production by Sydney Chamber Opera under Jack Symonds.
How would the Choir of King's College, Cambridge cope in the difficult acoustic of Sydney Opera House? Under the direction of Stephen Cleobury, they delivered a polished programme.
On Harry Kupfer's dramatic set, strong performances by Simon O'Neill (Otello), Lianna Haroutounian (Desdemona) and especially Claudio Sgura (Iago) make Opera Australia's Otello a memorable revival.
It has been Salieri’s tragedy to have largely been overlooked by history, but The Chimney Sweep shows his mastery of musical stagecraft. It was given a spirited and musically satisfying performance by Pinchgut Opera.
Rigoletto contains some of Verdi’s greatest melodies, and Opera Australia’s new production brings out the mixture of passion and darkness the heart of this story.
Beyond what size does a chamber orchestra just become an orchestra? With 60 musicians involved in their Mahler 4 and Sibelius 6 program, the ACO was certainly stretching anyone’s definition of ‘chamber’.
First performed in 1653 with music by Christopher Gibbons, and then revived in 1659 with additional music by Matthew Locke, the masque Cupid and Death makes for curious viewing today. In the first production by the new Pearl and Dagger Company of Sydney, the positives outweighed some amateurish aspects.
Marketed under the tagline: “42,000 years of music – 213 works – 1 performance”, Timeline is a hyper-ambitious production. At times history lesson, at times creative mash-up, it was both a highly stimulating and a frustrating experience, with outstanding performances from the instrumentalists and singers.
One of the pleasures of live music-making is seeing as well as hearing: one gets a sense of a performance as a multi-layered communicative act rather than solely as a sequence of beautiful sounds. In Saturday evening’s ACO concert with the extraordinary cellist Giovanni Sollima as soloist, the visual dimension contributed more than usual to the effect of the whole.
Àlex Ollé's harbour production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for Opera Australia is attractive and thought-provoking, with strong performances from Hiromi Omura and Georgy Vasiliev.
When is a quartet not a quartet? Answer: when the cellist breaks her wrist while surfing. Barnabas Kelemen and Katarina Kokas give a duo recital in place of Kelemen String Quartet at the City Recital Hall, Sydney.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra struggle with John Adams before finding their form in the music of Grieg, Maria Schneider (with Dawn Upshaw as soloist) and Elgar.
Opera Australia's laugh-out-loud production of Il Turco in Italia (“The Turk in Italy”) by Rossini at the Sydney Opera House combines vocal excellence and strong characterisation.
