Reviews

There is much to love in this new production for Opera Queensland; fine playing by the QSO at the top of its game and stunningly conducted by Zoe Zenniodi; Mozart’s exquisite and often delicate music; excellent singing; a charming and evocative first act set by Elizabeth Gadsby; and some truly hilarious physical comedy, a forte of director Patrick Nelson.

The historical ambience of the Richmond School of Arts aids in transporting the audience back to the tumultuous time of bushrangers, stirring imaginations and combining them with the anticipation of witnessing a new production. Steeped in history itself, it is a location perfectly suited to the spirit of Captain Moonlite, a new musical shedding light on one of Australia's most intriguing historical figures. 

Parade, a multi-award-winning music theatre piece from 1998, begins in Marietta, Georgia at the time of the American Civil War.  A young Confederate soldier goes off to fight and die so that a tiny proportion of the southern states’ population can keep their plantations and their slaves.  Scene two, it’s 1913 and the Confederacy may have lost the war twenty-eight years ago, but in the face of overwhelming evidence, the folks in Atlanta refuse to believe it.  Sound familiar?  They’re about to celebrate with a Confederate Memorial Day Parade&hell

When Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1982, the unsuspecting audience was unaware that Margaret Thatcher was only a fraction of her way through her long leadership term as Prime Minister of the UK. In her play, Churchill deals with the shifting social sands as well as the feminist implications of Thatcher’s tenure.