Opera for the Dead | 祭歌 review | Arts House

Eight hours before stepping into Opera for the Dead | 祭歌, I had been at a funeral. It was a death that arrives without warning, even after a life well-lived. By the time I entered the space at Art House, the weight of the day had settled in. Rather than wondering how I might react, I found myself acutely aware of the strange symmetry, moving from a real farewell into an immersive exploration on life and death.

Created by Mindy Meng Wang and Monica Lim, the work fuses music, visuals and technology into a contemporary Chinese cyber-opera that is both ancient and strikingly modern. Before the show begins, the audience is gathered into a “waiting room”. Chanting hums through the space, cyclical and meditative, while an electronic sign suspended above us flashes the word REMEMBER, its glow washing over us like a quiet instruction. The atmosphere is deliberate, balanced between worlds.

Piera Dennerstein is Bringing Plenty of Pleasure, Power, and Provocation to Melbourne Fringe

Pursuing Pleasure is a daring cabaret that mixes opera, pop, and cabaret sensibilities to explore what it means to accept joy, sensuality, and self-discovery. Piera Dennerstein, known for her dynamic performances, takes audiences on a journey that balances humour, vulnerability, and bold theatricality. Ahead of her Melbourne Fringe season, we sat down with the soprano to talk about how she transforms personal experiences into performance, the power of pleasure, and pushing boundaries on stage.

And no better way to begin than ask how a show that centres pleasure as a political and personal act has been a work in progress for years, even though Dennerstein didn't quite know it. "For the longest time, I thought I had nothing to say! I enjoyed writing and was a prolific poet, but whenever I was encouraged to write my own show, I felt I had no stories of value. In 2022, by chance, I saw Betty Grumble’s "Enemies of Grooviness Eat Sh!t" at Brisbane Festival," she recalls. "It was unlike anything I had seen before: a composting of her experiences with domestic abuse, culminating in a communal rebirth fuelled by sisterhood and the power of female pleasure. I related so strongly that I spent the entire ovation typing into my Notes app. I had finally found something I needed to say!"

Stories that Must be Heard: Truth in the Cage and Limbo review | Melbourne Recital Centre

Presented by Nightingale Performing Arts Australia, Stories That Must Be Heard brings refugee stories to the forefront and gives a voice to those that are too often ignored. The musical double bill of works composed by Chloé Charody shifted seamlessly between emotional intensity and breathtaking physicality, producing performances that are compelling and sobering.

Truth in the Cage is a movingly intimate song cycle tracing Mohammad Ali Maleki’s seven years in detention on Manus Island. Charody uses his poems to create music that is raw, unflinching, and resilient. Through themes of loss, identity, and optimism, the songs provide a searing insight into life under confinement, conveying the anguish and the enduring human spirit of someone who survived years of unjust incarceration.

Fat Pig: The Opera review | fortyfivedownstairs

Fat Pig: The Opera is a chamber opera by composer Matt Boehler and librettist Miriam Gordon-Stewart, which is based on Neil LaBute's 2004 play. When sparks fly between Tom and the smart and confident - but fat - Helen, he grapples with defending their relationship against a harsh, image-obsessed workplace culture. As pressure mounts, he’s forced to choose between love and the shallow approval of his toxic colleagues.

Directed with clarity and care by Kate Millett and presented by Forest Collective and BK Opera, this Australian premiere of Fat Pig presents a reflective and affecting opera that explores body image, love, and social expectations through expressive music and storytelling.

Il Mago di Oz review

It's been over 120 years since the release of L. Frank Braum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which a young girl called Dorothy Gale is swept away by a tornado and carried to the Land of Oz. While many would have read the 1900 story and many more would have seen the 1939 film, it is the first time that Italian composer Pierangelo Valtinoni’s opera, Il Mago di Oz, is being performed in Australia. Presented by the Victorian Opera, the opera mostly sticks to the source material but manages to throw in a few contemporary references to  surprise audiences.

Soprano Georgia Wilkinson as Dorothy possesses great presence and charisma as the determined and brave Dorothy and an even more captivating voice that takes us on a vocal journey that matches the magic of the physical one that Dorothy takes us on. James Emerson, Stephen Marsh and Michael Dimovksi deliver distinct characterisations to The Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man and The Scarecrow, with their voices supporting each other but able to take the lead when required.

Iphis review

It's been a number of years since I've seen an opera by Lyric Opera and there is great anticipation as to not only what story they choose to tell with each production but also the innovation and the uniqueness in which they will present it, and Iphis is no exception.

Running at just 70 minutes, this is a short opera but there is much that is covered in Iphis, beginning with Telethusa going through labour (and what a memorable labour it is) as her husband, Lidgus, eagerly awaits the arrival of a son. However, Telethusa gives birth to a girl and in order to protect her child (and herself) from her husband's wrath, secretly raises Iphis as a boy. Fast forward a decade or two and Lidgus is preparing to marry Iphis off to Ianthe, which introduces various issues around gender, identity and relationships.

Eclipse review

After roughly three years since their last live performance, the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) has brought together 12 of its students for its new show, Eclipse. Conceived by Sally Richardson, it is an exploration on how the pandemic has changed the world and how the world will continue to change because of it.

Richardson was inspired by Indian author Arundhati Roy's piece The Pandemic is a Portal, where she discusses the various ways COVID-19 has impacted India and what we need to remember and learn from as we attempt to move forward. It's quite fitting then, that the opening moments have hints of a Mad Max-esque dystopian future with a bedraggled tent cover and people living in imagined squalor milling around and endlessly passing time.
It is always exciting to see up-and-coming circus artists on stage and witnessing the beginnings of their careers.

Orpheus - Midsumma Festival review

After a stellar year of concerts in 2018, Forest Collective kicks off 2019 with possibly one of its most ambitious projects to date. Presented as part of the Midsumma Festival, Orpheus is a new ballet-opera based on the myth of Orpheus, Eurydice and Calaïs. Accompanied by a ten-person orchestra led by Composer and Musical Director Evan Lawson, an opera singer and a dancer pair up to share the three roles, conveying their thoughts and feelings through their individual art form.

Once again, Lawson has put together an exemplary group of musicians with a variety of instruments to create a powerful composition that guides the audience through Orpheus' relationships with Eurydice and Calaïs. Lawson also highlights the queerness of this story with his inclusion of lesser-known parts of the myth as he explores Orpheus' love for Calaïs. Told in four parts, the composition clearly distinguishes the episodic sections and with whose perspective we are witnessing the story unfold.

The Book of Revelations review | fortyfivedownstairs

Our memories are our most prized possession. They are a reminder of who we are, where we've come from and what we've achieved. But what happens when our memories are no longer reliable and begin to fail us? Initially performed at La Mama Theatre's 2013 Explorations season, Black Hole Theatre's The Book of Revelations is an immersive, performance installation on the disorienting experiences had by people with dementia and other mental illnesses. 

Alison Richards, who also serves as writer of The Book of Revelations, delivers a strong and captivating performance as Ada as she cleverly shares snippets of her memories and thoughts through operatic moments, utilising the beauty of the sung voice to contrast the internal horrors that are unfolding. The use of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from The Nutcracker heightens the tension as the nightmare continues while exposing the vulnerability of Ada as she succumbs to her illness.

The Trung Sisters | Big West Festival preview

The Trung Sisters were two Vietnamese warrior princesses who trained an army of 80,000 people and led their country to freedom in the 5th Century. During the Big West Festival, 25 students from Footscray North Primary School will re-tell their story. Staged in Footscray's newly refurbished rotunda at McNab Reserve the evening performance will include martial arts, traditional dancing, opera and large-scale puppetry. 

"The students have built giant puppets, will enact powerful battle scenes and perform a script guided by their writing based on this epic story," explains devisor and director, Jo Trevathan. "The grade 5/6’s have interpreted a real and important cultural story that deals with big themes of love war, sacrifice, bravery and humanity, things we presume children will not understand but I have found they have strong opinions about. In the West where we have over 80 cultures and 140 languages sharing cultural stories such as The Trung Sisters, increases understanding by discovering what we have in common and where we are unique. In the current climate of cultural diversity and political division it is important to understand and appreciate this true story."

32 Rue Vandenbranden review - Melbourne Festival

Performed as part of the Melbourne Festival, Peeping Tom return to Australia with 32 Rue Vandenbranden, which  explores the isolation and loneliness that a group of people feel through the company's trademark fusion of dance, physical theatre and music.

The stage design, which is how the Belgian company begins developing a new creation, perfectly encapsulates the emotional state of its inhabitants. High on a mountain-top, underneath an endless sky, sit three rickety caravans. The ground is covered in snow and there is an immediate sense of remoteness and desolation. The emotive sound composition by Juan Carlos Tolosa and Glenn Vervliet strongly adds to the feelings that the characters are experiencing, while mezzo-soprano Eurudike De Beul's musical moments in the show are an aural delight for the audience.