What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 4

Today we go to indie, funded and opera stages with three SM regulars.

To share your love, all you have to do is fill in this form. The trend this year is long; be free to buck the trend if you want. If you've sent me one and it hasn't been published,  please let me know because there are gremlins in the internet.


Fleur Kilpatrick
Playwright, librettist, director, pot plant parent and person who chats about theatre on the radio

Fleur Kilpatrick. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
Robot Song’s (Theatre Works) warm tenderness and compassion was theatre at its best. It met its audience where they were, be they children or adults. I think back in particular to the parent characters, who spent most of the play as back up musicians to their child, watching her struggle with the cruelties of the world and unable to make it all right. The gentle ways in which they tried to make magic for and around her as she stood in the centre of the stage will stay with me. I learnt a lot about love watching it.

The beautiful, dreamlike way in which Love/Chamberlain’s (also Theatre Works) script and set spoke to each other still gives me a little shudder. The audience were so still, tipping forward in their seats, leaning into this gentle grief world where two blamed and shamed women – Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain – met and shared a moment in a dream desert.

Emma Hall’s World Problems use of past tense, dragging us through time and the gorgeous image of her labouring away to create a trampoline. The sight of her bouncing gently up and down brought back so many memories of childhood hours spent in airborne storytelling. To go straight from this play into a practical response – the night I saw it, a workshop on energy saving in your home – was such a beautiful way to make her imagined world part of our real one.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I don't know. But I hope everyone is nice to each other and we all get some rest.

SM: I recently asked someone "What was the name of Fleur's play about whales that had a whale in it?". "You mean Whale." Yes I did. I loved it. I might not remember names and titles but I remember how I felt during Whale and how I felt after and that Fleur and her team of amazing creators trusted that an audience of strangers would step up every night to make this piece of theatre.


Katie Purvis
Theatregoer, comedy and cabaret lover, sometime critic, radio presenter

Katie Purvis. Photo by Betty Sujecki

Favourite moments in 2019.
In theatres: Barbara and the Camp Dogs at Malthouse broke my heart into tiny pieces; I was thrilled by MTC's A View From A Bridge; Come From Away at the Comedy Theatre made me leap to my feet to applaud and cheer; and I laughed till my face hurt at Nakkiah Lui's Black is the New White at MTC.

At the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Larry Dean's Bampot was face-achingly funny and unexpectedly poignant; Jude Perl's I Have a Face was seriously great; and I literally laughed till I cried at Lano and Woodley's brilliantly silly Fly.

Musical highlights: It was a privilege to be at Hamer Hall for Deborah Cheetham's Eumeralla : A Requiem for Peace, sung entirely in dialects of the Gunditjmara people and featuring a huge cast of performers (including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the Dhungala Children’s Choir); the prolonged standing ovation was hugely deserved. And it was a joy to see piano man Trevor Jones doing his thing at the 2019 Melbourne Cabaret Festival Closing Party – simply superb, and the best night I had in a performance space all year.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Haus of Hans:Disco Spektaculär at MICF; Grey Arias at Malthouse, featuring Le Gateau Chocolat and Adrienne Truscott; Conchita Wurst and Trevor Ashley in concert at Hamer Hall; and Fun Home at MTC.


SM: Katie is my go-to editor and reader. She understands why I despair because program notes almost never seem to be proofed and are usually filled with grammar mistakes that change the meaning of what the writer is trying to say. Katie also hosts Miss Chatelaine on Joy 94.9 on Sunday mornings; she knows me well enough to know that I am never awake to listen live, but I do listen to some of the on-demand recordings. Yay for on demand.


Paul Selar
Opera critic, the Opera Chaser

Paul Selar. Selfie

Favourite moments in 2019.
Melbourne has generally supported a rather good balance of opera on a variety of scales. The year produced many highlights; however, from the all-important small independent players, it didn’t feel like it was buzzing with the same kind of optimism of recent years. Apart from a sympathetic re-staging of Australian composer Barry Conyngham's 1984 Fly, Lyric Opera of Melbourne have been unaccustomedly quiet and BK Opera seem to epitomise what living hand to mouth from one show to the next is like.

It’s all to do with money. Isn’t it always? Gertrude Opera’s much appreciated hard work behind the scenes is paying off with simple, effective and increasingly impressive production quality. Every opera-loving soul should’ve clogged the roads to get to the company’s Yarra Valley Opera Festival, now in its second year. Two of the year’s best small independent works could have been seen on one day! Jonathan Dove’s, The Enchanted Pig, in its Australian premiere, was a gorgeously slick, infectiously entertaining and superbly sung work. Monteverdi’s almost 370 year-old early baroque opera, Poppea, looked, felt and sounded as fresh as any new theatre. Both were directed with an acute eye for drawing meaningful characters by Gale Edwards.

On a far larger scale, a Rossini rarity got masterpiece treatment, literally, in Opera Australia’s Il Viaggio a Reims from director Damiano Michieletto, whose ingeniously devised production and inventive angle came with a long list of radiant performances. The company also stood out on top in a concert performance of Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, a work often criticised for its thin plot but more than compensated for by splendid musicality. It helped that international star tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who deserves every glowing superlative showered upon him, was there giving layers of magnificently coloured and carved vocals.

Melbourne’s continuing love affair with Wagner resulted in two memorable outings. In Victorian Opera’s Parsifal, director Roger Hodgman brought clarity to every character and subtlety to its strong symbolic and religious overtones and Melbourne Opera, without a penny of taxpayer funding, got the year off to a brilliant start with The Flying Dutchman. Darren Jeffery’s performance as the Dutchman had thunderous heft and stature and the large chorus of sailors and weavers won’t be forgotten. It’ll be hard to forget the company’s production of Bellini’s Norma as well. I saw it three times. Anyone who knows how precious an experience it is to hear soprano Helena Dix sing her proud and glorious high notes would count themselves lucky. And she’s a devilishly good gestural magnet.

Looking forward to in 2020
More Wagner! I feel enormously lucky to live in a city that is up to the challenge of staging Wagner’s sprawling works. We’ll be getting Opera Australia’s Lohengrin, a co-production with Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, with English heldon tenor David Butt Philip making his company debut in the title role. And Melbourne Opera, who have been instrumental in presenting Wagner’s works, have a new production of Das Rheingold up their sleeves. My prediction (it’s already a year old) is that this will be the start of another Ring Cycle for Melbourne. There’s also Victorian Opera’s Salome, Gertrude Opera’s Yarra Valley Festival and news from Lyric  that they haven’t fallen by the wayside.

You can also join me for my 5th Annual OperaChaser Awards on Twitter party to celebrate and honour the exceptional work of opera companies and individuals. It starts at 5 pm on 28 December.

SM: Paul has a job that lets him fly all over the world and see the kind of opera that leaves many of us seething with jealousy. There are so few opera critics in Australia. Without people who know an art form inside out, it's so hard to share why we love it to new audiences and to people who think of opera as stuffy and boring. Some of it IS stuffy and boring, but so much of is isn't. You can read Paul's reviews at operachaser.blogspot.com.

Review: The Last Man Standing

The Last Man Standing
MTC
11 November 2015
The Sumner, Southbank Theatre
to December 12
mtc.com.au

The Last Man Standing. Peter Carroll & William McInnes.  Photo by Jeff Busby

My review is in The Age.

Review: The Flying Dutchman

The Flying Dutchman
Victorian Opera
14 February 2015
Palais Theatre
to 19 February
victorianopera.com.au

Victorian Opera. The Flying Dutchman. Photo by Jeff Busby

Opera at the magnificent sea-side Palais Theatre with the audience wearing 3D glasses! Victorian Opera are sure giving us a new look at Wagner's The Flying Dutchman.

Close to his home in Norway, captain Daland (Warick Fyfe) takes shelter in a fjord where a huge and red ship pulls alongside. With the promise of riches, he doesn't notice its ghosty appearance and offers his daughter (Senta, Lori Phillips) to the Dutchman Captain (Oskar Hillebrandt, who has sung the role over 400 times in 45 productions around the world). This actually turns out better than expected because on shore Senta dreams of the legend of The Flying Dutchman ghost ship and its dreamy captain, but she already has a suitor, Eric (Bradley Daley).


Dutchman is one of Wagner's early works and is difficult to stage because the first act is set on a moving ship mid-ocean and the final act brings ghosts. The problems have been conquered with a team of animators and designers from 3D Image Design & Creation Deakin Motion. With three screens on the stage, we're brought onto and into the ships and it feels almost like being in a live computer game.

This is combined with a simple and somewhat traditional design of heavy wood (Matt Scott and Christina Smith) that makes it feel like we're at the Palais not long after it opened in 1927. The combination of the two styles works wonderfully to create a solid and unmovable world that's lost to a world of dreams. Unfortunately the costumes feel out of place. Unnecessarily attached to the late nineteenth century, the women look especially frumpy and not part of the stage world that feels so at home in the huge and crumbling Art Deco theatre.

Although the design is what's bringing attention to this show, there's no holding back from Victorian Opera in the creation of Wagner's opera.

The absolute highlight of the work is the Australian Youth Orchestra, who almost overfill the pit that's not much lower than the stage. Conductor Richard Mills leads them in creating a sound that fills the huge space. The sounds's not as rich as a professional orchestra who know Wagner inside out, but they bring a freshness to the music that's rarely heard. (I should also say that I was close enough to hear Mills singing along, so I don't know if the sound travelled to the back of the C Reserve balcony.)


On stage, Fyfe (who was a favourite in Wagner's Das Rheingold in 2013) continues to master Wagner as a singer and an actor, and Phillips holds onto Senta's indecision and dilemma until the last scene. Director Roger Hodgman lets the story come first on the stage by ensuring that the projections only take over when they need to and by letting everyone in the chorus be as important in the telling as those up front.

Wagner's music is demanding to listen to and his stories about how humans and the supernatural/divine interact are equally as demanding. This combination of traditional opera story-telling, young orchestra and whizz-band new technology grasps it all. This is the kind of production that makes old-school opera exciting and fresh.

There are only three performances and the only one left is this Thursday, 19 February.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Don Pasquale

Don Pasquale
Opera Australia
19 November 2014
State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 12 December
opera.org.au

Don Pasquale. Photo by Jeff Busby

Opera Australia's Don Pasquale is alive and joyous. Without dismissing a note of Gaetamo Donizetti's opera, everyone on the stage and in the pit finds that little bit of extra love that lets everyone find the pure fun of being in and going to the opera.

Dobizetti's opera was first performed in 1843 and is based on recognisable and still-used Commedia dell'arte character tropes.

Unmarried and childless Don Pasquale (Conal Coad) doesn't want his nephew Ernesto (John Longmuir) to inherit everything, so he conspires with his friend Dr Malatesta (Samuel Dundas) to marry the doctor's young sister and send Ernesto packing. But Malatesta isn't as good a friend as he appears and conspires with Ernesto's girlfriend Norina (Rachelle Durkin) to pretend that she's his straight-from-the-convent sister and they set up a fake ceremony to make Don P think they are wed.

Director Roger Hodgman and designer Richard Roberts have set it in 1950s Rome to keep the original setting and show how little really changes. Inspired by the film Roman Holiday, the costumes are enough to inspire a retro 50 revival of super-high-waist pants, cat-eye sunnies and pastel baggy suits (and there's a get-the-look-guide on The Opera Blog), and the tone remembers that social attitudes in the 1950s weren't as stuffy as we remember.

Hodgman's direction lets the cast – all singers who make us want to hear more of them – work with the music to find the truth that connects them to their characters. Coad's frumpy and optimistic old man ensures that the audience are on his side and want him to win, despite his pompous behaviour and unrealistic expectations, and Longmuir and Dundas are equal foes to Don P.

However, Durkin's Norina is the unforgettable performance. Her singing is as clear and perfect as the first sip of cold Moscato as the sun sets on a summer day, and she lets Norina be a woman who rejects any societal shame in loving men, embraces her sexuality and is always in charge of her own destiny.

Even the chorus are alive as everyone brings character to the stage, and Orchestra Victoria, conducted by Guillaume Tourniaire, create and support the on-stage tone without forgetting that opera only comes to life with music that respects the composer.

Opera Australia have three operas Melbourne until early December (plus Tosca and Falstaff). Opera is often perceived as being an elite art where old men snore next to their subscription-buying spouses. Some of this is true (I think some come just for the nice sleep that have in a comfy chair), but let's break down these barriers. Opera Australia have lots of info on their webpage that can help first-timers and if more people support this art form, even more will be broken and we might begin to see how opera really is for everyone.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Nixon in China

Nixon in China
Opera Victoria
16 May 2013
Her Majesty's Theatre
21 and 23 May
victorianopera.com.au

I've loved Nixon in China from the time I curiously listened to a highlights recording and John Adams became one of my favourite contemporary composers at its opening chorus. Opera Victoria's exquisite production has confirmed its place as a masterpiece of 20th century art and loudly hinted that the best opera in Australia is not being made by our national company.

The opera is based on President Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Nixon dubbed his visit "the week that changed the world" and brought his wife, Pat, National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger (who organised the visit secretly and is the only character still alive), and the American press corps with him. While this would be a nothing story today (unless maybe Obama went to North Korea), it was the first time in 25 years that the west had seen China – one fifth's of the world's population had been hidden – and this first-term president knew that he was making history.

Nixon continued to make history and is remembered more for the Watergate tapes than what was achieved by the visit to China, as Mao Tse-tung and his wife Chiang Ch'ing are now mostly remembered mostly for the atrocities they supported.

The last time Australia saw a Nixon in China was 1992 when the Adelaide Festival presented Peter Sellars's original 1987 production, which he created hand-in-hand with Adams and librettist Alice Goodman, even if they often disagreed.  Sellars re-created this production in 2011 for the New York Met (seen here in cinemas), so most familiarity with the work comes from his productions. Opera Victoria have a budget about the size of the Met's shoe budget, so director Roger Hodgman and his creators had to make very different artistic choices.

Designer Richard Roberts simplifies the world with a set that's symbolic rather than a reflection of the photos of the time. A huge red curtain is the backdrop for most of the action, with Esther Marie Hayes's costumes adding the historical placement.

This relative simplicity allows for a more contemporary reading of the work and without being tied so tightly to living memory (all I remember of 1972 was getting a baby brother), there are moments that are so much stronger when seen from now. There's Nixon's singing about the mystery of "news" and his amazement at the satellite technology that lets the whole world watch and listen. Mao's talking about liking right wing politicians and the "facism" of the extreme left could be an opinion piece today, and Pat's dismay at a jade elephant not being one of a kind came before "Made in China" was printed on so much of our stuff.

However, without knowledge of the history, Act 1 is especially confusing and would benefit from something as simple as a projection of date and place. (I spent the interval explaining it to friends.) The work isn't about the historical truth, but just knowing when and where we are helps an audience to stop looking for those clues and relax into the real truth of the work.

Much of it's truth – historical and emotional – is in the remarkable libretto by Alice Goodman, which is readable by itself. A lot of her libretto is based on transcripts, so it's easy to think that it's what really happened, but she also researched widely, from Nixon's personal letters to the insomnia that plagued Chou En-Lai, and this knowledge adds such a strong reality to piece that even the imagined scenes feel like they must be real. The genius of the work is that it takes us from what the world saw into the heads and hearts of the characters. This lets Nixon and co sing what they actually said, while we also hear what they may have been thinking.

Act I's three scenes open on an empty airfield outside Peking where a chorus of Red Army Guards recite from Mao's Red Book and build into a glorious crescendo of anticipation as the plane lands and Nixon appears at the door to wave and create one of the most iconic images of 1972 and his presidency. This act is based on the first day in China, taking the president from his airport meeting with Premier Chou En-lai to a meeting with Mao and ending with a banquet toasting peace and everything else as the drinks keep flowing.

Act II's two scenes begins with Pat's visits to hospitals, factories and schools and ends with a performance of a revolutionary ballet devised by Chiang Ch'ing. As the story moves from the international and political to the social, Pat becomes more and more enamoured by China until she's shattered by the images and attitudes of the ballet and Madame Mao.

Act III's one scene is the last day of the visit and is a complete imagining by the composer and librettist that moves into the private rooms and imagined thoughts of the characters.

But the history and story of the piece are not what make it so amazing. After all, this is an opera and Adams's composition is unforgettable. I don't know enough about music to explain why his music works, but I know that it's full of conflict and discord and confusion that lets you feel the emotions of the characters, and when it comes together in harmony, you can't help but soar with it.

And great composition needs great musicians and singers. Conductor Fabian Russell creates a sound that celebrates and understands the role of every note and it's ridiculous to even consider faulting the cast who have created their characters from the music rather than the recorded historical personas.

Andrew Collis's Kissinger knows he'll never be the centre of attention, even if he's the most worthy. Mao's trio of secretaries (Sally-Anne Russell, Dimity Shepherd and Emily Bauer-Jones) support their emperor in public, but know he's a just a man, as Bradley Daley lets Mao be a weakening man trying to hold onto his greater-than-life image.  And his wife, Eva Jinhee Konh, is angry and determined and her coloratura aria, "I am the wife of Mao Tse-tung", almost steals the show. (A friend of mine saying that she must have sung an H.)

Then there's the lyric soprano of Tiffany Speight as Pat Nixon, who brings a sympathy and reality to Pat that's heartwarming and painful. And Christopher Tonkin has a similar approach to Chou En-lai, as a man who knows he'll be forgotten by history and can see the myth making going on around him (and has a tone to his voice that makes me want to hear a lot more of him).

Finally, there's Barry Ryan as Nixon. If you've heard James Maddalena sing Nixon (he created the role and has sung it all over the world), it's hard to imagine anyone else as Nixon – until Barry Ryan opens his mouth. His Nixon is bold and nervous and hides his fears as he's privately overwhelmed. It's a stunning performance.

There are only four performances of Nixon in China. Two have gone, but there's still Tuesday and Thursday this week. It's sad to think that there are so few performances, but I like to think that it's made enough impact to ensure that it's seen again.

And while you book for Nixon, get your tickets for Opera Victoria's next show. On 20 June Sunday in the Park with George opens. Sondheim fans are squealing with joy and so should everyone else because this is one of Sondheim's best works and if we can trust this company with John Adams, we can trust them with Sondheim. And let's hope that there's more of both composers in future programs. I don't think we've had a Dr Atomic (Adams) in Australia and I wasn't living in Melbourne when Roger Hodgman directed A Little Night Music (Sondheim) for the MTC, so it must be time to let him do it again.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Tim Lawson
2 February 2012
Her Majesty's Theatre
to 17 March
chittychitty.com.au

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the car, is terrific, and deserves her curtain call.  She's awesome and cost over a million dollars to make, but all that spit, polish and Turtle Wax can't make her script sparkle.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the show, is a shiny lemon that really shouldn't be compared to the other Sherman brothers musical Mary Poppins and neither should this production be compared to the recent Australian Poppins.

Most of its shine is from Antony Ward's delicious design that gloriously evokes memories of the film but is original and contemporary and filled with hidden detail and surprises.

The story is about an inventor Caractacus Potts, his two children and their potential new mum, called Truly Scrumptious, who all take a trip in their amazing flying car to a place called Vulgaria, which has a glittery Nazi-esque monarchy and a creepy dude called the Child Catcher. It's based on the 1968 film, written by Roald Dahl (!) and Ken Hughes, that's based on a children's story by Ian (007) Fleming. I haven't read the book, but watched the film as a child (and a bit now on You Tube) and I don't think it's fair to compare them either.

For all the delightfully mad characters, the clunky stage story is forced, lacks basic this-happened-because logic and structure, has an unearned and tensionless ending, and doesn't let its wonderful characters be particularly interesting or creative because the car solves their problems. It feels like scenes have been squished together in the hope that it'll create delicate layers, but it's more a trifley mess where the yummy bits get lost in too much globby custard made from powder, no-fat milk and forgettable songs (apart from the ear-worm title song) that don't move the story or reveal anything new.

If anyone dares huff and say that kids don't care about these things, I suggest that you spend more time with children, read some children's books and watch kids when they watch theatre or films, or pick the scrummy bits out of a globby trifle. Kids near me were snoozing by the end, but my favourite moment was a little boy's declaration of "that's not funny". I'm with you, kid. It wasn't funny and I think people were only laughing to be polite.

It's certainly not the performers fault that it's a dud script.

All the children are especially terrific. I used to love watching children perform when I was a child and my best recommendation to see this is to let kids you know be inspired by other kids. It's just a shame that they have to play such goody-goodies who get out of trouble because they have a magic car rather than by planning ingenious mischief.

The comic characters bring genuine comic relief and, even in scenes that slow the story (what's with the Samba?), are a hoot. George Kapiniaris and Todd Goddard as Vulgarian spies are popular with the kids, and grown ups will always groan at King Alan Brough and Queen Jennifer Vuletic's sexy royal shenanigans.

Rachel Beck is truly lovely as Truly, Peter Carroll is a delight as Grandpa Potts and David Hobson can sure sing, but lacks the love and appeal that should make every kid want Caractacus Potts as their dad, inspire all dads and uncles to be like him, and make the audience understand why Truly fancies him.

When you have a script that isn't brilliant, it's up to the director (Roger Hodgman) and the cast to bring extra to the stage so that the faults are forgivable. It feels like it was directed scene by scene rather than as a whole and most of the cast could bring a bit more heart to make their characters and the world real. I have to compare it to the recent production of Annie. Now, Annie's script is far from a gem, but every person on the stage, from stars to swings, knew their place in that world and found the love in the most cringe-worthy scenes; in Chitty the cast know their cues and the ensemble know their chorey (except a pair in the Samba who were counting, or maybe chatting).

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's not a perfect show to begin with, but there's enough creative talent involved to overcome its problems and make it something really scrumptious. And unless they do, there's nothing wrong with buying the DVD and reading your kids some Roald Dahl stories about wonderfully wicked children.

This was on AussieTheatre.com