Reviews

There was much to like about this old war-horse. Updated to the 1930s, the set was half an octagon and the sides spun around for different scenes, allowing for smooth transitions.

The opera was very colourful with a great variety of disparate characters inhabiting the chorus. There was a lot of activity in the second act, with an upper level in the café.

On their first ever visit to Australia, Teatro Alla Scala Ballet Companycouldn’t have had a better showpiece than Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote, long a favourite with Australian audiences ever since he danced it with the Australian Ballet in 1970 and later immortalized on film in 1972. With its swirling caped matadors, castanet clicking gypsies, and a succession of spectacular diverissements it’s a feast of classical dance which this company execute with a grand bravura style.

We Will Rock You takes place in a future where all communication is by social media, all music is digital, and all dance is pre-programmed by an evil video game boss come to life. Enter Galileo Figaro, a school senior who has visions of an analogue world; Scaramouche, his sceptical, feminist love interest; and the Bohemians—rebels with a dream of a time when people could make their own music.

The Rug is the new show by the stalwart performer and composer Ben Grant. This is a satirical - operatic performance that delves into his ongoing middle- class-white-man crisis.

The sur-titles run across a middle-eastern hallway rug high above the stage. He stands to the side in a rather dapper yet disheveled beige suit. He blubbers in an operatic atonal voice as he recalls his childhood days at the corner milk bar, gazing at the lollies through the thick curved glass counter.