The new artistic director of Opera Queensland reflects on respect for tradition and the allure of innovation.

Music education does not just make children more musical; it unleashes their creative powers. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

V for Verdi, V for Vendetta: in this dark take on dictatorship, terrorism and betrayal, everyone wears a mask.

From secretary to superstar: the new issue charts Joan’s early years and her inspiring rise to fame. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

A bad Christmas may spell the end for the UK’s last high-street music chain. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

It’s been a long time coming but at last Ligeti’s 1978 “anti-anti-opera” Le Grand Macabre arrives on DVD in a revolutionary staging by Barcelona’s innovative urban theatre troupe, La Fura Dels Baus. Nekrotzar, the Grand Macabre of the title, arrives in Breugheland (inspired by the Dutch painter Pieter Breughel’s nightmarish visions), and announces the end of the world.  In the face of a population entirely absorbed with sex, alcohol and petty politics, however, his apocalypse fails to materialise and life goes on as before.  Very much an opera for today, I would argue. This visually compelling production was a highlight of the 2010 Adelaide Festival and has been a hit wherever it has played. We begin with a giant video image of a woman watching TV, surrounded by cigarette ends and gorging on a burger.  A sudden seizure and she falls to the floor, her atrophied body metamorphosing into a giant three-dimensional set. This massive corpse is peopled by Ligeti’s grotesque cast of characters who crawl over her flanks, make love in her eye-sockets and enter her various orifices (even at one point from out of her giant vagina). Most remarkably though, the body is used as a… Continue reading…

Handel dons a mohawk: worlds collide in a high-fashion feast of Baroque-punk splendour. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The dutchman has given Sydney Festival an injection of classical music. But can he still break even at the box office? Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

British actress Pauline Collins pays lip service to Verdi in Dustin Hoffman’s new film Quartet. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

A major national prize for the Wagner bicentenary has been won by 17-year-old John Rotar. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Australia’s iconic venue has signed an official partnership with the Internet broadcasting giant. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

ABC Chairman James Spigelman AC QC addressed the 30th anniversary of Conversazione in Melbourne. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in