Reviews

Tennessee Williams’ famous memory play The Glass Menagerie, his first great hit, premiered in Chicago in 1944 before transferring to Broadway. The story is told directly to the audience by Tom Wingfield, the son of the battling family living on the edge in St. Louis. It is his memory of his battling life while supporting his mother Amanda, a southern belle in her youth, and his super shy, physically handicapped sister Laura who builds her glass menagerie. The problem is to find a beau for Laura.

With Vessel, Belgian choreographer, Damien Jalet, and renowned Japanese visual artist, Kohei Nawa, have produced a disturbing yet compelling, profound, fantastical and visually arresting work that tends more toward the performance art installation realm than dance genre; and yet, only dancers could perform this work given the extreme range of physical demands placed on the performers’ bodies by the concept, choreography and design.

The only things that matters in a production of Cats is can Grisabella sing “Memory” and does the choreography stack up. Queensland Musical Theatre ticked both boxes in a production that was ablaze with energy, dance gymnastics, and vocal expertise.

First kudos must to go to Jo Badenhorst and her well-drilled choreography, not easy moving a forty-bodied ensemble. Next up let’s salute Renee Milton and Cat Schwarten for costumes and wigs. Take a bow ladies they were fantastic.

When Gluck composed his version of the ‘Orpheus’ legend in 1762, there were fourteen other operas on the same subject, but Gluck’s version cut a swathe of originality across the then existing opera landscape for its revolutionary style and form and became enormously influential on the genre.

Opera Queensland’s production mirrored the originality of the original concept in an austere and thoroughly engrossing production which married the resources of the company with those of Brisbane’s internationally famed Circa ensemble.