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The Drover’s Wife, directed by Leah Purcell with a libretto by Purcell and composer George Palmer, is based on Purcell’s acclaimed reinterpretation of Henry Lawson’s iconic 1892 story. Purcell broadens Lawson’s tale of a pioneering woman battling isolation and a snake to confront Australia’s violent colonial history through the introduction of Yadaka, a First Nations man fleeing persecution.
Wednesday night is an interesting choice for the opening night of an opera in Sydney, particularly when it collides with State of Origin. My husband mentioned this several times.
Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour is always an event. But this feels like something else. A story that has slipped its usual confines and found a new way to breathe. Go for the spectacle. Stay for the feeling. Leave with the distinct and slightly inconvenient sense that some stories do not end when the curtain falls. And possibly give you a sudden, inexplicable desire for a cape.
And yet the Sydney Opera House was packed. The forecourt swarmed with tourists, opera regulars, elegant women in excellent coats and the occasional bewildered husband with the expression of a man who had been promised “a nice night out” and was now confronting Russian tragedy. Even under an overcast sky, Eugene Onegin had drawn a crowd, which says something for Tchaikovsky, Pushkin and the enduring public appetite for emotional catastrophe in formalwear.
While Brad Pitt, Liam Hemsworth and Jacob Elordi are all undeniably thriving in the cheekbone arena, it takes more than symmetrical bone structure to make my heart do so much as a polite flutter. A jawline is lovely. A bicep is commendable. But talent? Talent is the thing that sends my pulse into a light jog.
Opera Australia’s revival of Hänsel & Gretel, originally staged by the late Elijah Moshinsky and now revived by Claudia Osborne, is a glorious sugar rush of spectacle and dessert-based anxiety.
Opening nights at the Opera in Sydney have changed, and I’m not sure whether to clutch my pearls or cheer. Gone are the black ties, the diamonds, the gowns that require industrial-strength shapewear and a spare inhaler.
Right. So. I went to see Cats the musical in Sydney, and within minutes I was ready to buy a tail, sign up for night school at the Jellicle Academy, and start singing my feelings in full leotard.
Music has always had a way of transcending barriers, but what happens when it dives headfirst into the ocean? Welcome to the world of underwater music festivals, where the sea becomes a stage, and the audience dons snorkels instead of tuxedos. These events are part environmental awareness, part performance art, and wholly bonkers in the best possible way.
Now, I don’t want to sound dramatic, but the Anantara Palais Hansen Vienna might just be the hotel equivalent of a couture gown. It’s rich in history, ravishing in design, and completely incapable of going unnoticed. Fresh from a seriously glam makeover, this grande dame of the Ringstrasse has sashayed back onto Vienna’s social scene as the city’s first urban luxury resort, and frankly, she’s looking gorgeous.
Everything about this production of the beloved musical Les Miserables is immense – immense performances set on an immense stage in an immense arena.
There are places in this world where music doesn’t just linger in the air—it saturates it, seeps into the walls, and transforms the very architecture into an ongoing symphony. These places aren’t just hotels; they’re living, breathing compositions, each note playing out in polished brass fixtures and sweeping staircases, in rooms steeped in melody and legacy. These are the classical music hotels of the world, where luxury and lyrical beauty converge.
