Recent ABR Arts reviews:

• Wake in Fright (Malthouse Theatre)
• Anna Bolena (Opera Australia)

Giveaways

• Thanks to Australian World Orchestra, ABR is delighted to offer one ABR subscriber an A-Reserve double pass (valued at $338) to the Australian World Orchestra conducted by AWO Artistic Director Alexander Briger, redeemable for either the Melbourne (July 26), Canberra (July 27), or Sydney (July 30) performances.

We are also able to offer three ABR subscribers one general double pass for either the Melbourne (July 26), Canberra (July 27), or Sydney (July 30) performances.

• Thanks to Sydney Theatre Company, ABR is delighted to offer an ABR subscriber one double pass to Lord of the Flies (Sydney Theatre Company), redeemable for any night throughout the general season except for opening night.

See below for details about how to win the free tickets.

Coming up in ABR Arts?

There’s plenty of quality reviews ahead in ABR Arts: 
• Susan Lever reviews The Torrents (STC)
• Tim Byrne reviews Much Ado About Nothing (Bell Shakespeare)
• Lisa Gorton reviews A Room of One’s Own (fortyfivedownstairs)

Australian World Orchestra

Alexander Briger

The Australia World Orchestra – an annual formation of outstanding Australian musicians from some of the world’s leading orchestras – is presenting three concerts this month, including its first performance in Canberra since the orchestra’s formation in 2011. Artistic Director Alexander Briger will conduct performances in Melbourne on July 26 and in Canberra the following evening. This program includes Nigel Westlake’s Flying Dream and Sibelius’s Second Symphony. On July 30 the AWO SIX, a sextet comprising stalwarts of the AWO project, will perform at the City Recital Hall in Sydney – Mendelssohn’s Second Strong Quintet and Brahms’s Second String Sextet. Michael Shmith will review the Melbourne concert for ABR.

A Room of One’s Own

Promotional image for A Room of One's Own (photograph via fortyfivedownstairs)

Virginia’s Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own (first published in 1929) is one of the great literary politics – coruscating as it is excoriating. Despite the luminosity of Woolf’s fiction, the magisterial finesse of her essays, the higher gossip of her diaries, few works of hers have proved as influential. From July 17 to 28 fortyfivedownstairs will present a return season of La Mama’s 2016 stage adaptation by Peta Hanrahan. It stars Anthea Davis, Marissa O’Reilly, Anna Kennedy and Jackson Trickett. Lisa Gorton will review it for ABR.

Peter Grimes in concert

Stuart Skelton in Peter Grimes in 2018 at the Brisbane Festival

It’s some years since Opera Australia has presented Benjamin Britten’s masterpiece Peter Grimes (1945), so it’s pleasing that the Sydney Symphony Orchestra will present it in concert later this month – doubly pleasing with a cast like the one that David Robertson, who will conduct these performances, has assembled. Stuart Skelton will repeat the title-role (one of his great ones), and Nicole Car will sing Ellen Orford for the first time.

When Skelton sang the role during the 2018 Brisbane Festival our reviewer, Gillian Wills, found him ‘thrilling’. She wrote: ‘Throughout the performance, he reeled in the crowd by creating surprising shifts in volume, sudden changes in colour, and his capacity to rapidly alternate a lighter with a darker phrase or vice versa. Every note, even his gait, was grounded in pathos. Despite Grimes’s abuse and harsh treatment of child workers, Skelton’s soulful searching performance evoked sympathy and disgust.’

There are two performances, on July 25 and 27. Peter Rose will review the first for ABR.

Nicholas Carter leaves the ASO

Nicholas Carter (photograph by Annette Koroll)

In April 2015, when he was named Principal Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Carter was only twenty-nine. Such is his international prowess and appointments, he is leaving the ASO after only four years in the post. Carter, who lives in Germany, is the Chief Conductor of Stadttheater Klagenfurt and the Kärtnersinfonieorchester. He will soon make his début at the Vienna State Opera. A highlight of his time at ASO was Brett Dean’s opera Hamlet (first seen at Glyndebourne). This was a highlight of the 2018 Adelaide Festival. Carter will conduct the same production (directed by Neil Armfield) when it transfers to the Metropolitan Opera in 2022.

Tell us your Favourite Australian Novel and win!

Ten years ago, we invited readers to nominate their Favourite Australian Novel of all time, and what an informative list it was. Placed first, to no one’s surprise, was Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, followed by The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson and Voss by Patrick White.

Now we’re keen to find out your Favourite Australian Novel published since 2000. Is it True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, Breath by Tim Winton (placed fourth in the 2009 FAN poll), Questions of Travel by Michelle de Krester, Carpentaria by Alexis Wright, Truth by Peter Temple, Benang by Kim Scott, The True Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas – or one of the myriad novels published here in the past two decades?

To vote, all you have to do is complete the FAN poll survey. You’ll then be in the running to win one of three great prizes:

• A $500 voucher from Readings
• Herbert von Karajan’s Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon and Decca (valued at $1,281)
• A five-year digital subscription to ABR.

Good luck!

Giveaways!

Australian World Orchestra

Thanks to Australian World Orchestra, ABR is delighted to offer one ABR subscriber an A-Reserve double pass (valued at $338) to the Australian World Orchestra conducted by AWO Artistic Director Alexander Briger, redeemable for either the Melbourne (July 26), Canberra (July 27), or Sydney (July 30) performances.

We are also able to offer three ABR subscribers one general double pass for either the Melbourne (July 26), Canberra (July 27), or Sydney (July 30) performances.

Lord of the Flies

Thanks to Sydney Theatre Company, ABR is delighted to offer an ABR subscriber one double pass to Lord of the Flies (Sydney Theatre Company), redeemable for any night throughout the general season except for opening night.

How to enter: To be in the running, please email Grace Chang at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your full name and contact details. Preference is given to subscribers who have not received a giveaway in recent months. To be eligible for these giveaways, you must be a current or new paid subscriber to the print edition of ABR or to ABR Online.