Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
March 16, 2018

Leonard Bernstein was born on August 25, 1918. In this centenary year, there are celebrations of his life and music throughout the world. The first celebrations in Australia have been in Adelaide this weekend.

During a tour with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in August 1974, Bernstein – universally known as ‘Lenny’ – celebrated his 56th birthday in Adelaide with a birthday party thrown for him by Premier Don Dunstan. The ghosts of both thespians, Bernstein and Dunstan, must have hovered low over the Adelaide Festival Centre these past few days. Don wanted the AFC to host the best the world had to offer. Lenny and the Philharmonic were fairly early arrivals, performing here barely a year after the Centre had opened.

Bernstein on Stage! Photograph © Robyn Holmes

Forty-four years later, the Adelaide Festival has thrown another birthday party for that titan of music. Bernstein on Stage! was a three-hour birthday valentine to the man who changed the American musical for all time. Repeated over two nights in the Festival Centre, it was the last major musical event in an Adelaide Festival that has restored concert...