Review: Madama Butterfly (Opera Australia’s Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour)
This compelling, heartfelt and provocative Madama Butterfly remains as relevant and powerful as when first staged in 2014.
This compelling, heartfelt and provocative Madama Butterfly remains as relevant and powerful as when first staged in 2014.
“We have lost one of our finest musical lights". The popular conductor and pianist (Robert) Andrew Greene died on Sunday, aged 66.
Musical theatre legend Geraldine Turner has written a candid autobiography that is shocking at times, but such a good read it’s hard to put down. She explains why she wrote the book and why she decided to be so forthright.
Director Constantine Costi details the challenges and excitements of adapting two works by Weill and Brecht for the tiny stage at Sydney's Old Fitz.
In the first of three articles, Shaun Rennie offers some fascinating insights into his work on OA's La Bohème and Phantom of the Opera on Sydney Harbour, as well as Bell Shakespeare's new musical The Lovers.
The Australian tenor, whose career spanned almost six decades, has died at 93.
Julie Lea Goodwin is gorgeous as the merry widow Hanna Glavari, and perfectly supported by Alexander Lewis as Danilo Danilovich.
Opera Australia has announced that the HOSH season cancelled in 2020 will be staged in 2021, and that its ongoing partnerships for the outdoor event will extend to 2023.
OA is announcing its 2021 program in stages. This first season includes Ernani, Bluebeard's Castle, The Merry Widow and Tosca. Lyndon Terracini also addresses the company restructure and redundancies.
An utterly captivating and delightful experience that deserved a longer season.
Larry Sitsky, Brian Castles-Onion, Anthony Warlow and Michelle Leonard are recognised in the Australia Day Honours. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
There are two Opera Australia DVDs of Madama Butterfly and, apart from the music and some of the performers, you could be watching two different operas. For Moffatt Oxenbould’s production – still going strong after 18 years – designers Peter England and Russell Cohen used Kabuki theatre as their inspiration with ninja-clad servants handing out props; sliding screens and a surrounding moat to represent the divide between Japanese and American culture. Cio-Cio-San, also sung by Japanese soprano Hiromi Omura, was dressed in a kimono, looking the true geisha. For the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour production, newly released on DVD, director Àlex Ollé from the groundbreaking Spanish theatre group La Fura Dels Baus takes an edgier and more political approach to this tragic love story set amid a clash of cultures. Here we are in the present day and the passionate, unscrupulous Pinkerton is a shiny-suited salesman intent on building a housing development in Nagasaki. Butterfly sports a full body tattoo, denim shorts and a Stars and Stripes T-shirt. For the first act the clever set is a grove of bamboo atop a grassy knoll. For the second act everything is different. No more nature – it’s all building sites,…
La Fura dels Baus have worked on the world's largest stages. Director Àlex Ollé reveals some of the plans for Sydney Harbour.