A stunning Midsummer Night's Dream for the Adelaide Festival

By Sandra Bowdler, 28 February 2021

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“Warwick Fyfe, totally unrecognisable and displaying an unsuspected talent for knockabout comedy”

Reviewed at Adelaide Festival Centre, Festival Theatre, Adelaide on 26 February 2021

Britten, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Paul Kildea, Conductor

Neil Armfield, Director

Dale Ferguson, Set Designer, Costume Designer

Damien Cooper, Lighting Designer

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Oberon

Rachelle Durkin, Tytania

Mark Coles Smith, Puck

Leanne Kenneally, Helena

Taryn Fiebig, Hermia

Andrew Goodwin, Lysander

James Clayton, Demetrius

Warwick Fyfe, Bottom

Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Theseus

Fiona Campbell, Hippolyta

Douglas McNicol, Quince

Kanen Breen, Flute

Norbert Hohl, Snout

Pelham Andrews, Starveling

Jud Arthur, Snug

Young Adelaide Voices

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

Julius Caesar – or some of it – from Pinchgut Opera

Sandra Bowdler, 21st November

Handel's Giulio Cesare is heavily abridged in Sydney, but generally well-performed musically, albeit with a rather awkward staging by Neil Armfield.

***11

The quintessence of Hamlet: Brett Dean’s opera arrives in Sydney

Jeremy Eccles, 20th July

80% less of Shakespeare's text adds up to more intensity in Brett Dean's Hamlet as Neil Armfield's staging is mounted by Opera Australia.

****1

Allan Clayton dazzles in Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Met

David Wolfson, 18th May

Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Met is a worthy addition to the operatic canon, and the production is a treat.

*****

The after party you can't miss: Pinchgut's Platée

Chantal Nguyen, 1st December

In arguably its best production to date, theatre luminary Neil Armfield combines with Pinchgut and Erin Helyard for the first time to deliver this electrifying production of Rameau's comic masterpiece, Platée.

*****

To sing or not to sing: Hamlet in Adelaide

Sandra Bowdler, 2nd March

Brett Dean's Hamlet is an extremely powerful theatrical experience, excelling in all aspects of production, singing and musical values, but is it an opera?

****1

“Or not to be”: Hamlet revived for Glyndebourne’s tour

Mark Pullinger, 21st October

A restless score, a stylish modern setting and gripping central performances from David Butt Philip (trading Laertes at the festival for the title role here) and Jennifer France (Ophelia) do much to commend this new work

***11

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Sandra Bowdler

Sandra Bowdler was born and educated in Sydney, and has pursued a career as an archaeologist since graduating from the University of Sydney in 1970. She is now Emeritus Professor of Archaeology and a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia in the School of Social Sciences and the School of Music. Since attending a production of Handel’s opera Alcina at the Sydney Opera House in 1982, she has become a devotee of the works of GF Handel, and Baroque music generally. In 1996 she began writing opera reviews for online outlets, graduating to more professional sources by 2000. In 2007, she inaugurated Festival Baroque Australia in Perth, Western Australia, Australia’s first Baroque music festival. Under that banner, she curated two festivals and several concerts in Perth.