Category: Richard Strauss

SALOME, an old Old Testament, bible story. SALOME, a sensational poem/play, in French, originally, by Oscar Wilde from 1891 – banned, originally, across most of Europe. SALOME, an outrageously daring composition and adaptation by Richard Strauss written in 1905. Banned, but appreciated and highly lauded, gradually, through the operatic world. SALOME, a contemporary production by the brilliant Gale Edwards, for the what I imagine should be an eternally grateful Opera Australia, that is as outrageous in its intellectual and physical conception and execution, placing this female-‘revenge’ work undeniably in our contemporary era of the ‘revolutionary’ contemplation of the ‘gender bubble’…

Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) presents LEONSKAJA & MOZART, at the City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney. Elisabeth Leonskaja played Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, k.271 ‘Jeunehomme’ (1777), accompanied by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, led by Guest Leader, Roman Simovic. It was the astonishing eloquence of Elisabeth Leonskaja’s playing, which I was able to view quite closely as well, that seized my senses into an attentive zenith. The mastery of technique with a ‘magic’ of feeling married to a great ‘love’ of Mozart’s musicianship practised with the modesty of an assured artist of a ‘gifted’ life-lived-honed skill was a great pleasure…

  Sydney Festival and Sydney Opera House present a live presentation of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY with the Sydney Symphony and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs in the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. When I was 20 I saw 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY at the Plaza Theatre in George Street in CINERAMA! I saw it 5 or 6 times. I had not any idea what it was about. It was quite simply mesmerising. The images. The soundtrack. The scale of it in Cinerama was, in the correct sense, awesome. The critical response at the time was mixed, but we didn’t…