Victoria Opera’s ‘Tis Pity brings a litany of harlots to the stage, but doesn’t give its female lead many characters to play with. Indeed it risks capitulating to the very 'male hypocrisy’ it seeks to address.
A mosaic of King Roger II: we should celebrate his 12th-century example of inter-cultural collaboration.
Matthias Süßen/Wikimedia commons
A new production of the opera King Roger will open this week. At a time when Europe was charged with fear of the ‘Muslim threat’, this 12th century king collaborated with an Islamic scholar on an extraordinary project.
Barriers between artforms are tumbling down in three recent productions that mix circus and opera. The shows range from sombre to silly, but all hit magnificent high notes.
The Sydney Opera House is getting an A $200 million upgrade. It’s a chance to rectify some glaring faults, but in our risk-averse times, the outcome will be decided by committees.
Meryl Streep as amateur soprano singer Florence Foster Jenkins…should we celebrate ambition over talent?
Paramount Pictures
Films about incompetent, inspirational flops are popular at present. These strange heroes embody the mantra of our self-help culture: never give up and embrace willpower over talent.
Verbatim theatre is being adopted more and more to give a voice to marginalised communities in the hope of instigating social change.
Attempts to explain opera’s affective power have a long history.
Photo: Keith Saunders. (L-R) Voyage to the Moon's Phoebe Briggs, Jeremy Kleeman, Emma Matthews, Sally-Anne Russell.
It seems obvious to say that opera “moves” people. But the question of “how” it moves people is far less straightforward. Cue a new research project pegged to Voyage to the Moon.
The voices that can be used in a show like this are not those one would hear in Madama Butterfly.
Patrick (Peter Cousens), Ellen (Melissa Madden Grey), The Divorce. ABC TV.
The kinds of voices that can be used in a show like ABC’s The Divorce are certainly not typical of those one would hear in Madama Butterfly. But – and let’s be honest for a second – does it matter?
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s last collaboration The Seven Deadly Sins, first performed in 1933, in circumstances not dissimilar than those we face today. Pictured: Meow Meow.
Victorian Opera
Victorian Opera this week stages The Seven Deadly Sins, the final collaboration between Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. First staged in 1933, it is a masterpiece by two of the most revolutionary artists of Weimar Germany.
Rabbits transgresses the increasingly porous boundary traditional opera and contemporary musical theatre to great effect.
Jon Green
Amid dwindling audiences and rising production costs, Australian opera is facing its first national review. So what are the solutions put forward so far?
At its best, opera can, indeed, be a powerful form of allegorical theatre.
EPA/Gian Ehrenzeller (Image from Verdi's I due Foscari)
A gang-rape scene in a new London staging of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell was greeted with audience booing, and has sparked ongoing controversy. Are opera directors at risk of miscomprehending the medium?