I always had my doubts about the Brisbane Ring Cycle; being prejudiced as I am against Opera Australia (they're so anti Victorian). My doubts exacerbated by how they were advertising this production - all high tech and whizz bang, thousands of screens, computers and so forth. If any opera company was going to overdo presentation hijinks it would … [Read more...] about Three Rings: Brisbane
Music
Three Rings: Bendigo
After the disappointment of Berlin, see my views here, we travelled to Bendigo to see Melbourne Opera's version in March 2023. I was in the middle of chemotherapy, so have not felt up to writing about it until now - the day before the year ends! It started with Das Rheingold on the 24th March 2023. I have only this very poor photo of me about to … [Read more...] about Three Rings: Bendigo
Three Rings: Berlin
Between October 2022 and December 2023 we have seen three Der Ring des Nibelungen cycles. All in cities starting with the letter B. This is the first of my blogs regarding each one. We started in Berlin in October 2022. I've blogged about every other bit of our visit there, including describing a tour of the opera house here (search Berlin on this … [Read more...] about Three Rings: Berlin
ELVIS
To celebrate the Bendigo Art Gallery exhibition ELVIS: Direct from Graceland which opened in March and is on until 17 July 2022 and which I visited on the 19th of May 2022 I've been watching Elvis documentaries. I always liked his songs, mostly from his second incarnation, but wasn't a huge fan. Belatedly I've become one. His story is so sad! The … [Read more...] about ELVIS
Lohengrin
We saw Opera Australia's latest production of Lohengrin in Melbourne on Tuesday 17 May 2022. Starring the tenor of the age, Jonas Kaufmann. He was magnificent. Looked pretty good to as seen here on the programme. He was a beautiful Lohengrin. His pianissimo singing was the highlight for me - you could have heard a pin drop in the fully booked … [Read more...] about Lohengrin
Melbourne Opera Die Walküre
We are lucky here in Melbourne to have Melbourne Opera and even luckier to have this wonderful company take on Wagner's Ring Cycle. We had Part 1: Das Rheingold last year. I've written about it (belatedly) here. Now we have Part 2: Die Walküre. We saw the second staging of this production on 11 February 2020. The program features a Jeffrey Smart … [Read more...] about Melbourne Opera Die Walküre