Culture
Opera
★★★★½
Review
Il Trovatore provides vividness, mystery, colour and pressing relevance
The cast and creative team have revitalised this major work of Verdi’s.
- by Peter McCallum
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Opera House architect Peter Hall’s family upset at Concert Hall changes
The family of architect Peter Hall who completed the Sydney Opera House interiors after original architect Jorn Utzon departed, is upset by the renovation of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.
- by Helen Pitt
Sydney Opera House lifts curtain on newly renovated Concert Hall
The Sydney Opera House has revealed the $150 million final renovations of its largest performance space, the Concert Hall, which reopens next week.
- by Helen Pitt
At a Yarra Valley cellar door, this Figaro is in hipster moustache heaven
Opera Australia has transplanted the 19th century opera Barber of Seville from Spain to a town of the same name a lot closer to Melbourne.
- by Barney Zwartz
★★★★½
Review
Heading to the opera? This classic production is the one you can’t miss
Stacey Alleaume as Violetta in Opera Australia’s Traviata is a ‘gorgeous orchid in a gaudy bouquet’.
- by Peter McCallum and Joyce Morgan
‘I became desperate’: the singer trying to recover her legacy from the ABC
Marilyn Richardson has been trying for three decades to get copies of her operatic performances from the ABC archives, recordings often buried and forgotten in back rooms.
- by Barney Zwartz
★★★★½
Review
Sex, brutality and beauty collide in a triumphant Butterfly
Opera Australia’s new production explores the dark underside of Puccini’s masterpiece.
- by Peter McCallum
An ‘invisible opera’: Witness the absurd, dramatic choreography of bustling city square
The Invisible Opera at Federation Square will leave its audience wondering about the line between the bizarrely real, and the really bizarre.
- by Nick Miller
Horror result: Opera Australia books $22m loss after COVID-ravaged year
The company is conducting an in-depth review to reinvent itself and focus on recovery.
- by Nick Galvin
Expect a rom-com and sex comedy hybrid when new opera lands in Sydney
If it worked in the 17th century, chances are it will engage modern audiences too.
- by Nick Galvin
He’s the greatest bass singer of his generation – and here’s his secret
Singing almost nothing but Mozart for 25 years was “pure medicine” for his voice, says Italian star Ferrucio Furlanetto.
- by Barney Zwartz